A century of Omaha Community Playhouse back(stage) stories
I am the home of all the arts, Haven for hungry souls. I call forth the creative spirit, record the pageant of man's progress, and help man to lift a bit the Great Curtain.
Golden beauty mined from all lands, from all races. I bring to you in the name of Art. I am the full flower of cultivated life. I am the Community Playhouse.
For 100 years the Omaha Community Playhouse has played a leading role in the city's and region's cultural offerings.
To tell its back(stage) story takes three acts.
Act One, the early years. On stage, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Brando.
Omaha joined the national "little theater" movement on Sept. 24, 1924. A group of 15, some active in the Omaha Drama League and Fine Arts Society, signed s of incorporation at a meeting at the YWCA. To them, it was important that Omahans see plays reproduced from Broadway and those from local playwrights.
Mrs. J.G. Masters was the temporary president and Dorothy (Dodie) Brando, mother of 6-mother-old son Marlon, the chair of the initial membership drive. Before the playhouse's first event, a vaudeville show with the "Trifles" one-act play in the Technical High School auditorium on March 4, 1925, architect Alan McDonald was elected president, Marguerite Beckman executive secretary and Gregory Foley from the University of Iowa and its University Theater director of plays.
For the next 21⁄2 years, the Playhouse home was the new May F. Cooper studio-theater at 40th and Farnam Streets. Dodie Brando had the lead in the opening production, "The Enchanted College." In a bit part was 15-year-old Herberta Jayne Fonda.
Her brother, Henry, debuted in the October 1925 production "You and I," volunteered for the role by Dodie Brando.
World-Herald critic Keene Abbott wrote, "Henry Fonda does well in the juvenile role." The future three-time Oscar winner played the title character in the Playhouse's opening production of 1926-27, "Merton of the Movies." He, Jayne and Harriet, their sister, acted together in "He Who Gets Slapped" during the 1926-27 season.
The curtain almost stayed down on the OCP during the 1927-28 season, which had opened with promise. The playhouse was to have a permanent home, designed by Alan and John McDonald at the northwest corner of 40th and Davenport Streets on land that had been George and Sarah Joslyn's pasture. As payment, Sarah Joslyn took $15,000 of the $25,000 bonds the Playhouse was selling.
The group became cash-strapped. Memberships were stagnant at 200 and ticket sales were sharply down from the previous season. And the lease on the Cooper Studio expired in February 1928. A mortuary was interested in the space (it became the short-lived "Trip-Inn" nightclub serving chicken dinners) and the Playhouse looked elsewhere.
When the first option, the Strand Theater, fell through, the last four plays of the season were on the Benson High School auditorium stage.
Act Two, 40th and Davenport. On stage, Dorothy McGuire, Julie Wilson, Lenka Peterson, Virginia Huston, James Millhollin. Off stage, Inga Swenson.
"Two weeks and four days of actual construction! That is exactly the time required by Oscar Olson, contractor, to erect the new Community Playhouse building,'' The World-Herald wrote in October 1928.
The Community Playhouse Building Association, with Alan McDonald as president and W. Brace Fonda — Henry's father — as secretary, broke ground on Oct. 2 for the $15,000 brick and stucco structure. New Playhouse director Bernard Szold was a former Northwestern football player who came from the Birmingham (Alabama) Little Theater.
When Szold was set to present the light comedy "Aren't We All'' to a full house on the Oct. 30 opening night, the curtain came up a half-hour late. Workers were still nailing down the seats.
Oscar nominee Dorothy McGuire appeared in children's theater productions at the Playhouse before the 13-year-old played the lead, opposite Henry Fonda, now with Broadway experience, in "A Kiss for Cinderella" in 1930.
Singer Julie Wilson was "Mary Lou" Wilson when she was in the chorus for "Knickerbocker Holiday in 1941 and a supporting player in "I Killed the Count in 1943."
Tony nominee Lenka Peterson was Lenka Isacson when she acted in "The Hasty Heart" in 1946.
Film actress Virginia Huston, from Wisner, Nebraska, was a Duchesne Academy senior in 1944 when she successfully competed against 55 girls for the lead role in "Janie."
Character actor James Millhollin was a principal player in "Edward, My Son" that opened the 1949-50 season.
Tony and Emmy nominee Inga Swenson, who co-starred in "Benson," never acted at the Playhouse, but grew up just houses away from it. Her mother was on the board and the Playhouse was her playground.
Act Three, 69th Street and Underwood Avenue. On stage, Jane Fonda (with an asterisk), Peter Fonda, Terry Kiser, John Beasley.
Jane Fonda's theatrical debut was in "The Country Girl" in 1955 with her father and Dorothy McGuire. But it was not on the Davenport stage, but at the new Civic Auditorium Music Hall fundraiser for a new Playhouse.
The old one had seen its best days. Costumes were stored in the Joslyn Castle bowling alley across the street — until the Omaha Public Schools took over the mansion for its offices in 1944. Then the wardrobe went to the Castle's gatehouse, which had a leaky roof, and what was salvageable was stored in the basement of a business on 40th Street.
"Country Girl" was to start the new Playhouse fund drive. But 1955 was the launch of a combined Red Feather (early United Way)-Red Cross drive with a $3.3 million goal. The Playhouse pulled back until the following year.
Henry Fonda and Julie Wilson co-starred in the June 9, 1957, ground-breaking ceremony for the new Playhouse. It was built on land donated by developer Robert Dillon after Temple Israel next door sold him 5 acres. Had it been up to a city committee, the Playhouse would have been next to Central High and the Joslyn.
"Say, Darling" opened the new Playhouse in August 1959. The $550,000 modern theater doubled the seating of its predecessor.
"This is the finest new theater building in the country,'' Playhouse director Kendrick Wilson said. "Others may be more expensive, but they're not as functional as ours."
Peter Fonda was the lead in the 1961 "The Golden Fleecing." He won two Golden Globes for acting and was nominated for Oscars for acting and screenwriting.
Terry Kiser's Playhouse debut was in "Pools Paradise" in January 1963. His best-known theatrical role was as the title character in "Weekend at Bernie's."
John Beasley played Tom Robinson in "To Kill a Mockingbird" in January 1978 and Horatio in "Hamlet '79" the next year.
Kendrick Wilson's farewell was in 1967, with Charles Jones beginning another long director's run in 1974. The Playhouse survived the 1975 tornado that damaged its roof. The theater was subsequently renovated. A $6 million expansion in the 1980s doubled its space.
Jones gave the Playhouse "A Christmas Carol," which will be in its 49th year in December. It was streaming-only in 2020, during the pandemic that caused many adjustments for the Playhouse.
From one rented stage a century ago to two stages and ever-evolving programming, the Omaha Community Playhouse is entrenched in the city's cultural offerings.
As had been the hope of Walter A. Hixenbaugh, an early Playhouse supporter, whose poem in 1924 was included in the program for "Aren't We All":
I uphold the traditions of an honored past devotional, unmercenary. I appeal to the best in all and direct the varied animations of city life. I am the Universal Temple of a peaceful people.
I am the Community Playhouse.
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