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 Start of the Playhouse:
1917 Gilmor Brown and The Gilmor Brown Players step off the train to make Pasadena their home.
They move into the shabby
Savoy Theatre on North Fair Oaks Ave
and soon rename
themselves The Savoy Stock
Company. Gilmor begins his
association with the wealthy
of Pasadena and in return for their
patronage, he give parts to
anyone who wishes to try their hand at
acting.
1919 Board of Directors minutes
outline 30 lessons for $5, starting in
January 1920. Additional
sessions are planned for the summer to
be called Summer Art
Colony.
1920 Summer Art Colony is a 6week session. Classes include dramatic
writing, play construction,
dramatic interpretation, costume
design, dramatic dancing and pantomime, community music, and music drama. 34 students
enroll initially with 56 students following the second year. They meet in the Savoy Theatre on
No Fair Oaks and in the old Throop building owned by Cal Tech. The third year, college
credit is given through what is to become the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
because Dr Margaret S Carhart is an instructor in both places. With college basics, one can
receive a BA, otherwise a Certificate is granted. It is during this period that Gilmor
experiments with theatre-in-the-round at his Black Box on No Fair Oaks. The Summer Art
Colony is discontinued in 1924 to allow time to raise funds to buy and build on El Molino.
1924/ After the current Playhouse is up and running, a full-fledged school is proposed. The Board is
1925
not fully vested in the idea. Some feel it stretches
resources
(namely Gilmor Brown) too thin. Nonetheless, advertising
for the school is placed across the country and they wait to
see the response. In the mean time, classes are offered in
English diction, dancing, makeup, and fencing. The 8-lesson
courses are held twice a week and range in price from $6
and $8 for most classes, to $24 for the diction class.
The School:
1928 The School opens 8 September. Hollywood begins to send its silent film stars to the Playhouse
to “learn to speak”. The Playhouse becomes known as the “star factory” within the film
industry.
1929 A new Summer Session is added.
1931 A third year is added for post-graduate work.
1936 Local wealthy matron, Fannie E Morrison donates $6 million to build the
six-storey tower that will serve as MainStage production offices,
classrooms for the school, wardrobe, a commissary, a fencing patio, and
eventually a television studio. Mrs Morrison is an enthusiastic
Playhouse supporter and regularly attends a matinee performance. In
deference to her, all smoking, drinking, and swearing are cut from the
performance she attends.
1937 The California legislature names the Playhouse “State Theatre of
California” shortly after the Playhouse is the first American theatre to
present the full Shakespeare canon. No financial support comes with the
title, but the Playhouse is the only theatre so named and will forever carry the title.
1945 Always a small student body, returning service men use the GI Bill for tuition and swell the
student ranks to over 300. With such a large pool to draw from, the Playhouse keeps five
theatres running, making it the most prolific theatrical producing entity in the world.
1960 Founder Gilmor Brown dies leaving no individual or plan in place to continue operations. The
school always carried the theatre (MainStage) financially, and this continues. With colleges
and universities around the country establishing drama departments, the Playhouse no longer
enjoys its former position as the nation’s leading theatre school.
1961 The school becomes a college, and is accredited by the Western Association of Colleges
and Universities. The name becomes Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts.
1966 Try as they might, the Playhouse is still plagued by poor management since Gilmor’s death, and
the building is padlocked by the IRS for non-payment of withholding taxes. The money to
satisfy the lien is found and the Playhouse theatre and school re-open.
1967 A repertory company of students (both recent graduates and current enrollees) is created using a
concept Gilmor pioneered several years earlier. This would prove to be the last time one of
Gilmor’s many theatrical concepts would be employed by the Playhouse. The repertory
Company, Rep Exists in Pasadena (RIP) produces three shows; “The Hostage” (a West
Coast premiere), “Belcher’sLuck” (an American premiere), and “A Shot in the Dark”,
reworked from the previous year’s student production. “The Hostage” is toured through
northern California. The last Student Summer Session is held,
marking an end to a 48 year tradition.
1969 The entire facility is closed after graduating the last class on the
Playhouse patio on 15 June 1969. It is a dark day as this ends 52
years of this exceptional theatre and 41 years as America’s leading
theatre school. For much of the final year, the instructors work
without pay to see the students to graduation - such is their
dedication.
1970 Everything that is not nailed down is auctioned in an effort to pay the
debts and retrieve the Playhouse from certain demolition. The auction
is held in the fall and the costume stock (valued at $150,000+ in 1968)
is sold for a pittance; most sales going for Halloween costumes. The Library, which contains
many original manuscripts (including Eugene O’Neill’s “Lazarus Laughed”), one-of-a-kind
books, and other treasures from the Playhouse’s beginning, are sold in lots. Several alumni
1986
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Sunday,
band together, pooling resources, to buy what they can in the hope of returning the items to the
Playhouse when it re-opens. One such item is the Victor Jory Bell, now rung each evening to
signal the start of the show. Efforts continue for the next 17 years to save the Playhouse from
the wrecking ball. Not until the City of Pasadena steps in and buys the building is the fate of
the Playhouse sure. The City of Pasadena leases it to the Playhouse operating company for $1
a year in perpetuity.
“Arms and the Man” is the first production to open on MainStage since 1969. The Phoenix
has risen, but it is a fitful start. The college will not re-open.
The Playhouse forms a partnership with the Drama Department of Occidental College.
Through this union, Oxy students will intern at the Playhouse in various capacities and
receive college credit. The Alumni association creates the Henry & Joyce Sumid Scholarship
for Theatre Arts thanks to a bequest of over $500,000 for this purpose by alumnus Henry
Sumid and his wife, Joyce.
The Pasadena Playhouse Alumni & Associates awards the first scholarships. $5000 is given to
each of four students; two are from Occidental College. The dream lives on with students
once again at the Playhouse.
The Playhouse falls on excruciatingly hard times in the midst of the Economic Crisis that
grips the entire country. The Arts, across the board, suffer a major blow as ticket sales fall
and donations dry up. The Playhouse is valiant in its attempt to ‘hang on’. While others cut
staff and schedules, close their doors, or merge to save themselves, the Playhouse carries on
and turns to the subscribers, the Alumni & Associates, and the Friends for emergency
fundraisers.
The crisis for the Playhouse worsens and performances are cut, but not without making sure
all subscribers are given alternate dates to see the shows. Left with no alternative, staff is
cut to the bone. The Pasadena Playhouse Alumni & Associates award three Scholarships
to Interns who will work at the Playhouse for a year in an effort to ease the financial and
personnel burden.
The Playhouse must close and does so following the final performance of “Camelot” on
7 February; a fitting show
to go out on as the Playhouse has
always been a Camelot of
sorts. Artistic Director, Sheldon
Epps, characterizes the
closing as “a long intermission”.
Indeed, by late May, the
Playhouse has filed Chapter 11
bankruptcy and is granted
an accelerated re-organization
process by the courts.
Things are looking quite good and
the Playhouse mounts a
show on MainStage in October,
thereby being closed only
eight months. The Pasadena
Playhouse, at 93 years old,
has again played the Phoenix
Rising from the Ashes.
This time, plans are put in place so
the Playhouse will never again face bankruptcy.
2013 The Playhouse enters into a partnership with the University of Southern California’s (USC)
School of the Theatre MFA program. “GREENHOUSE at the Playhouse” will be the vehicle.
Three playwrights are the first students to actively study at the Playhouse in 47 years.
Moreover, other USC students will perform in GREENHOUSE productions.
Anne Cheek La Rose, First Vice President
The PASADENA PLAYHOUSE ALUMNI & ASSOCIATES
PO Box 291, Pasadena, California 91102