Lyceum 'survivors' reunion in 2008 underscores theater's history, growth

For 48 years, the Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre has brought audiences from throughout the region into a village to enjoy musicals, comedies, dramas -- live and in color!

On July 5, 1961, the curtain rose on this improbable theater's stage fashioned out of a former church in an historic village 15 miles from the new Interstate highway.

On Aug. 16, 2008 -- 47 years later -- at the matinee performance of Arsenic and Old Lace, 37 of the theatre's company members from the 1960s and 1097s stood as the sold-out audience applauded the people without whom there would not be a current-day Lyceum.

At the beginning of the performance, the alumni presented a bronze plaque honoring Henry and Alice Swanson for their efforts in founding the Lyceum.. Henry, who died in 2006, was the original artistic director of the start-up theater, serving from the opening production through 1978.

Alice, who attended the reunion with her children, recently retired as Director of the Arts Program for the state of Tennessee and resides in Nashville. She both acted and directed at the Lyceum for the theater's first decade. Both Swansons brought the Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre into being, organizing college students, townspeople, fund-raisers, audience, food suppliers, costume makers, advertising, printers, play's rights, acting, directing.

In the Lyceum with her were her daughters, Ellen Swanson Perkins, Maryville, Tenn., a child actor from the opening of the theater through 1976, and Amy Swanson Presley, Richmond, Va., born five years after the theater opened and on stage soon thereafter; David Swanson, his wife, Donna Swanson and children, Hank and Haley, Dallas, Tex.

The reunion began the night before the matinee as cast members gathered from across the country at Tempe and Bruce McGlaughlin's home in Arrow Rock. Tempe, Arrow Rock's postmaster, appeared on stage at the Lyceum in 1975-19976, with roles in Lady Audley's Secret and Spoon River Anthology. Bruce, a finish carpenter, was in the company from 1971-1976 as a set designer and actor in plays as diverse as "POW," "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln," "Hotel Paradise," "The Amourous Flea."

"What I loved the most," said Tempe, "was seeing our friends from those early days of the theater walking down our driveway, and they were just the same -- the same laugh, the same spirits, the same joy."

The rather large reunion began rather simply.

Page Williams, Ft. Thomas, Ky., who had homes in Arrow Rock from 1962-2007, is former mayor of the village, co-owned The Black Sheep Inn, and taught at Missouri Valley College, looked at the 2008 Lyceum season program.

She saw Arsenic and Old Lace on the playlist. In both 1965 and 1980 Page and Alice played the two aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace who kept "nicely" killing lonely male boarders at their home, then burying them in their cellar.

Page contacted Alice, suggesting they attend the 2008 performance together.

Alice arranged to come to Missouri with Josie Helming, Memphis, Tenn., an actor at the Lyceum from 1963-1972 who recently retired as acting and theater professor at the University of Memphis.

At the same time, Philip Giberson, Miami Springs, Fla., called Alice. Giberson had worked at the Lyceum from 1964 -1970 as actor, marketing manager, tour director and director. "I had been nudging for a reunion for quite some time," Giberson said.

"Alice said they were having trouble just settling on a date, so how in the world could they have a reunion?"

Giberson, who founded a theater program at Florida International University, taught and directed at New York University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and independently directed productions in New York City for 12 years, began an e-mail announcement to about two dozen alumni.

"It was worth all our organizing," said Giberson. "We are extremely proud of the quality of work at today's Lyceum and feel fortunate that we were able to play a part in the theater's beginnings."

For the returning thespians, the reunion was a story of astonishment at

--how the theater has grown from a 78-seat theater with church pews to a beautiful 408-seat auditorium with great acoustics,

--how a new lodge houses the actors in this summer's 115 roles and the technicians who work around the clock with stagecraft,

--how the season's offerings have grown from a few productions in repertory to a season that spans June through October

--how Arrow Rock has preserved its Missouri River port history while providing myriad travelers access to that history.

The reunion was also a story of accomplishment -- the Lyceum Alumni (or "survivors" as Giberson called this group in his emails) credit their experiences in the 1960's and 1970's at the Lyceum a touchstone to careers in locales ranging from Mississippi to Connecticut, New York to California, Arkansas to Tennessee.

Al and Rose Gordon, Lexington, Va., were at the Lyceum in the early 1962, 1965, 1968 -- Al was an actor, and Rose was stage manager. Al received his Ph.D. at Tulane and taught theatre in Chapel Hill, N.C. By the time Al retired as Dean of Fine Arts at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, "the university had built him a beautiful new theater," Page said. "I was in that theater when Al produced a play Rose had written." Rose served as special events coordinator at the University.

Page, while still a frequent visitor to Arrow Rock, recently retired as manager, Eastern Area Synergy Corp customer relations and marketing.

In 1965 at the age of 15, Ray Mills, who had been a child actor in Miami, Fla., hitchhiked to the Lyceum to be in the cast. Mills now lives in Catawba, N.C., was on the theater faculty of the University of North Carolina and owned his own theater company for 15 years.

Taylor Brooks, New York City, acted at the Lyceum for six summers, 1964-1969, and returned to the Lyceum from 1974-1977, directing, among other productions, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Actors from that play attending the reunion were: Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor role), Lillian Byrd, Simi Valley, Calif.: Big Mama, Susan Murray, New Haven, Conn.; Brick (Paul Newman role), David Rhodes Brent, Charlottesville, Va.; Big Daddy, Ken Bonafons, Central Valley, N.Y; Sister Woman, Mimi Carr, Gainseville, Fla.

"We learned so much at the Lyceum," said Lillian Byrd., who performed from 1972-1975 at the Lyceum. "Not only did we act, but we found props, sewed the costumes, cleaned the toilets ... anything and everything. We found we could anything."

That stood her in good stead as she has appeared on television in Passions, the Gilmore Girls, in off-Broadway productions, film and summer stock in New England.

Mimi Carr acted at the Lyceum 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1975. "We would finish acting, then change clothes and go build the next set on Main Street in Arrow Rock," she said. "Everyone knew how to work a jig saw. I put in some of the tongue and groove in the ceiling of the theater -- it's still there." Her acting career spans across the West Coast, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the San Francisco American Conservatory Theater.

Brent, both an actor and backstage technician in 1973-1975, now has a chiropractic practice. Murray, at the Lyceum 1972-1979, today works at Yale University in private family counseling.

Bonnaffons, whose acting credits list "Bonafons," was at the Lyceum for 14 seasons running from 1966 to 1985, as an actor, director, and for three seasons, as the theater's artistic director. Today, both Brooks and Bonnaffons are professors at the Bergen, N.J., Community College. Brooks also co-founded the Abingdon Theater, New York City now in its 16th season, with the goal of developing American plays.

Ken Zimmerman, Martin, Tenn., was at the Lyceum four seasons between 1969 and 1977. Today he is on the University of Tennessee faculty and is artistic director of the professional theater, Memphis Playhouse on the Square.

Jim Elder, Rockport, Texas, who was on the tech crew in 1973-1974, is chairman of the board for the Rialto Theater in Arkansas Pass, Texas. Now a corporate pilot, Elder managed a public access television station and ran a leadership and communications business.

The first technical director for the Lyceum, Joe Ragey, now of Sunnyvale, Calif., was hired in 1970. He came back each summer for a decade. Today is he a professor of design and art at Foothill College in Los Altos.

Bill Andrews, Memphis, Tenn., was at the Lyceum 1973-1975. "Each season I would play the largest human or critter in the touring Children's Show," which the Lyceum produced in outdoor settings at many mid-Missouri communities. Today Andrews' company designs and builds major displays for museums, corporation and theaters.

For the past 16 years, Andrews has designed and co-directed the annual Freedom

Award for the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, which has honored Oprah, Jimmy Carter, Magic Johnson, President Bill Clinton and others.

Ruth Ann Hellwig Maury, who appeared from 1965-1967, today is a very successful artist residing in Lady Lake, Fl. Mark Ramsey, Atlanta, appearing at the Lyceum 1972-1975, today travels extensively supervising Sears Co. properties.

Adrienne Day Skyborne, of Asheville, N.C., and Rebecca Conyers Henderson of Louisville, Ky., who played one season together at the Lyceum in 1973 agreed: "Seeing the Lyceum today is like watching an acorn turn into a tree. We would have never guessed."

"When we were here in the early 1970s, I worked the box office and kept the big ledger book of accounts," said Paulette Hayner, now of Southaven, Miss., who was at the Lyceum in 1971-1972. "We had no computers."

When Hayner was also acting in a play, "I would sell tickets in the beautiful antique reproduction period costumes... all made up in my stage makeup ... then run around to the stage door and wait for my entrance after the curtain went up."

"Then, our budget was about $30,000," said Hayner. "Look at what a wonderful theater now exists."