Theatrical premiere brings slice of Roaring '20s' musical history to life

Well known for its quality and quantity of community theater organizations, Fort Wayne continues to develop a wide variety of production opportunities for seemingly all ages and tastes.

Most recently, theater creatives and educators, Susan Nelson, Diane Whitacre, and Dotty Miller, no strangers to this platform, have joined forces and are getting ready to premiere Diane's new period musical that depicts a slice of local entertainment history from the Roaring 20s, gleaned from the pages of a 100- year-old family scrapbook.

The play, called opens Friday, Nov. 15, at Baker Street Centre Performance Hall, formerly known as C2G Music Hall.

WBOI's Julia Meek discusses the motivation for as well as the intricacies of such a project with the three, and the far-reaching benefits of involvement in community theater to all.

Event Information:

The Schubert Ladies Quartet Premiere Baker Street Centre Performance Hall, Fort Wayne Nov. 15-16 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 2:30 p.m.

Find more information and tickets at the Baker Street Centre website.

Connect with Diane Whitacre at her website.

Here's a transcription of our conversation:

Julia Meek: Sue Nelson, Diane Whitacre, Dotty Miller, welcome.

Dotty Miller: Hello, there, Julia.

Sue Nelson: Hello, hello.

Diane Whitacre: Hi.

Julia Meek: So, three legendary creatives devoted to every angle of musical theater gathered to present a brand new one. How cool is that? What an adventure! Now, before we learn about the Schubert Ladies Quartet, let's start with how you three originally all came together. Susan, why don't you tell us?

Sue Nelson: Well, I came together with this group, actually through Diane, the composer. And one fact that I didn't tell you, she's a former student of mine, back in the Paul Harding days, so there was a connection there.

But she contacted me, and the rest is history. And I said absolutely yes, we'd love to be a part of this exciting new adventure.

Julia Meek: It is exciting and a new adventure. And then, of course, there's Dotty Miller. And if you're doing anything theatrical, how would you not be connected with these other two ladies? Dotty, how did you join in?

Dotty Miller: Well, I saw that Sue had posted on Facebook an audition notice, and there was a bit of a synopsis of the show on there. I thought it sounded so interesting. And if you will look at my history of shows, I try to do interesting things, something that I feel will help me grow.

There are so many other shows going on right now in Fort Wayne, but this particular, The Schubert Ladies Quartet, being a real-life story of someone local, it just really grabbed me. And I just had to audition, and I was lucky enough to join the group.

Julia Meek: Well, I'd say everybody is lucky all the way around. And of course, to you, Diane, having written it, and then having this cast of characters just right there ready to perform it. How did it make you feel to have that sort of a mark of confidence in your behalf?

Diane Whitacre: It's just so neat to be a rehearsal and see the four women, especially when it's the little ensemble actually singing the songs with accompaniment in the room. And for the longest time it was just me singing it in my office. It's just so neat, just like it brings it to life.

Julia Meek: And okay, sharing a huge passion for community performance. How did this current play evolve in your world, Diane. How did it come to you to write a piece like this?

Diane Whitacre: Well, I mean, writing a musical is never on my life list. I've written a lot of things, a lot of instrumental or choral but my parents, one afternoon in 2002 came over to see me in Huntington, and had these scrapbooks.

And they said, Well, we thought you would enjoy seeing these. And I opened them up, and they were my grandmother, and I had never seen pictures of her when she was in her early 20s. And it was very obvious it was a musical tour, and it kind of led me on this long journey, I was already interested in genealogy, but I started doing genealogy on all the women.

There were letters. I started transcribing the letters, looking at where the programs, and had other people look at it with me, and they would see little threads that I hadn't seen. And I finally came to the conclusion that the only way to really honor this thing that had dropped in my lap and honor my grandmother was to write a musical about her.

Julia Meek: Oh, what a wonderful conclusion to jump to, for starters (all chuckle) and have the capabilities of doing it. But honestly, it started out more as a genealogical adventure.

Diane Whitacre: And musical too, because I would find that I would like, look through the pictures, and pretty soon I would be running to my music manuscript paper, because there would be a theme, like a ragtime type theme that would be in my head.

So, I started collecting those. Those didn't become the songs of the show. Those were inspired by the lyrics. But my mind.

Julia Meek: It's how your mind works.

Diane Whitacre: It got my mind going. Let's say that.

Julia Meek: How exciting. How exciting. So, besides doing a wonderful service, a bit of musical history, a bit of family history, you are actually touching on an endangered social tradition, the Chautauqua movement. Now that was popular over a century ago. All three of you Would you remind us what the Chautauqua thing is all about?

Dotty Miller: Well, back in the day before internet, before TV, and really even before radio, how did people get their entertainment? There were these companies that went out and they were tent meetings often, or they would meet in the largest hall that might be in a small community.

There would be musicians. There would be intellectual thinkers who gave presentations on the brilliance of the day. So, it just imparted education with a little bit of entertainment to add to the culture of all of these small communities throughout the Midwest, and even further.

So, this is the story of four particular ladies. I'm sure that there were many, many more who did that.

Julia Meek: Thank you, Dotty, that is a great scenario. Now, at what point did you, Susan, know that you should all put your heads together, go forward, do this? You had the information from Diane and we have the star power sitting next to you here-Dotty. (chuckles) But how did you know how to go?

Sue Nelson: Well, I'm kind of an old school type of person, and I love history. So when I was acquainted with this project, I thought these four women were actually a social event happening at that time. I think ahead of their time, because of women's involvement, whether they knew it or not.

So that was what drew me, as well as the pictures that Diane used to write the story with. The scenes are set up, kind of like photographs. So when we go from one scene to the next, we're actually flipping the pages on the photograph album. And that's too what attracted me to it. I thought it was very, very unique and very different.

Julia Meek: So really, your director's eye latched onto that.

Sue Nelson: I could see that, and staging it is another challenge, but we're working through it because of the facility that we're using. We're not using any scenery or any sets, more or less, so it's all suggested. We're using a series of photographs up on screens behind us.

Julia Meek: And once you dove into writing it, as a matter of fact, Diane, what was the most challenging aspect to wrap your head around and make it stage friendly?

Diane Whitacre: It was actually kind of hard to come up with what I would call the plot because, like, I would tell my grown children, you know, it's obvious, it's just a chronological scrapbook, and that would interest a musician and people that tour, but it wouldn't interest just somebody coming into a theater that knew nothing about it.

So, once I went and did genealogy, I had the Huntington librarians help me out, and what really set it for me was when we found out how Grace, which is one of the main characters, we found out a lot of genealogy on her, and how she had gone to France, and how she had taught piano and cello at Waynesburg University. It was Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania at the time.

And then I actually made a chart and laid my grandmother's life on the other side in braces, and they were a perfect contrast. And so, I told my son, that's our story. It's going to be one life going down, one life going up. So, once I had that, it flowed. totally

Julia Meek: Totally clever. And did you need any help convincing these two about how much fun this was going to be?

Diane Whitacre: (all laugh) I didn't seem to!

Julia Meek: I'll let them answer, I'll let them answer. (chuckles)

Sue Nelson: Not at all. (chuckles)

Dotty Miller: Not at all! It felt so interesting that it was somebody's real life work, and now that we're getting into the lives of these four women, and Sue alluded to it earlier about how you had the women in this Chautauqua working outside of the home.

They had just gotten the right to vote, and here we are becoming modern women in this new-fangled world of the 1920s, and your flappers! And yet, particularly my character, I was in the Chautauqua for quite a while, but then decided that nobody wanted to marry a spinster.

Nobody wants to hire a matronly woman, and so I decide to get married, and I've got quite a catch. He's a school teacher! (all laugh) So here you go from this independent woman to more going into the social "normal."

Julia Meek: Then as now, so many recurring topics and how to tell it and how wonderful that is. Now, was it difficult to get the necessary players, Susan?

Sue Nelson: Yes! In fact, we were still putting a cast together just a couple of weeks ago. The children, and Diane wrote, you know, included the families of these characters, and we were having difficulty finding enough to fill those roles.

We finally arrived, and we're excited about that. The adults? Yes, we had to use people that were in the cast to help us attract some people, or at least let them know that we needed some additional characters.

Julia Meek: You're not quite mainstream, right? None of this is. it's really what makes it so special.

Sue Nelson: Exactly. And it's brand new, and no one knew. And you know, there's so many other shows going on that people choose from. And so, we're there now, and they're having a great time.

Julia Meek: Exciting! And the live music, of course, an essential ingredient to the storyline. How did that all come together?

Dotty Miller: That's more of a Diane! (all chuckle) Yes, because we will have a live orchestra. Diane Whitacre: Yes, yes. And part of this is that since the women in the Quartet, there were two violinists, a woman who played piano and also was a reader and then a cellist.

When I was writing it, that was one of my problems to solve, is we either have to get musicians that can act and sing, or probably more logical would be that they would pantomime.

And so I didn't see any way to do it unless we had a pit orchestra that could be those instruments for the women's. That's why we're going with live music instead of recorded, one of the main reasons.

Julia Meek: And okay, the venue, Baker Street Centre, formerly known as C 2G Music Hall. Why is this a good fit?

Sue Nelson: Well, first of all, the staff there is wonderful, and they made us feel very, very welcome. They have never, ever done a musical there before. So, we're kind of breaking ground in that territory.

And the space? We're going to make it work. The size of the stage is fine. We have the three screens that we needed to project the imagery, very nice, built in. We're going to utilize the audience area, including the audience, throughout the course of the show.

And it's more like theater, not in the round, but kind of.

Julia Meek: Yes, it's quite open, and it's acoustically superior, too.

Sue Nelson: Yes, we're going to find that out. We're using 15 microphones. (all laugh)

Julia Meek: It sounds wonderful. And who all do you expect to see there?

Sue Nelson: Well, we hope the general public will, those that really love the whole Chautauqua movement, or the 20s, 30s style of music, which Diane has written very well.

And we hope those people will come out and those that are curious to see what we're putting on down there. And hopefully word of mouth will get the job done, and we'll fill the house. That is great.

Julia Meek: And what's it like? The task of thinking, okay, roaring 20s, here we go. Here's the music, here's the fun.

Diane Whitacre: Well, it was obvious from some of the photos that they were having fun. And course, a lot of the photos are from when they're I have downtime, and they're just kind of, you know, goofing off. They were super women, and they were some young men.

Dotty Miller: Well, speaking of the music, we also have some choreography. Our choreographer, Lynette Farrington, has listened to the music and done some research to try to find movement that is indicative of those 1920s so they're fun and very, I wouldn't say athletic. There's high energy.

Julia Meek: Energy. That's fantastic. So, we have music, mayhem, social circumstances in a mad-capped Roaring 20s setting. With that promise and obvious entertainment value, what is your message?

Diane Whitacre: I think the message of the show is lasting friendships and also how our choices make such a difference. Back then, women had very stark choices. There were starting to be like the modern women.

In fact, I was reading in letters. You know, in the scrapbook, they were talking about modern women, post-World War One and Chautauqua gave them a perfect vehicle to be on their own and have a career. But then the stark choice was, once they got married, all that kind of fell by the wayside.

They didn't work and were married, they were just home doing music as a career was not an option if you were married, you know, there were just some realities to deal with.

Julia Meek: And I do wonder you've partially answered it in the world of musical theater, especially with a period piece like this one, and especially in this very fast paced 21st century, how do you make it relevant?

Diane Whitacre: I really think it's really good that, especially with young people, with all of us, really that we are just reminded of what we have now, but of how far we've come, and just to appreciate what we have more, not to take music for granted.

I think music is everywhere right now. You know, you can get music everywhere, streaming and download and TV and wherever, and they had to seek it out back then, it had to almost always be live.

I think a lot of people don't think about that time period, how music was different then, and so I think that it kind of brings a perspective to our lives now and makes us appreciate things.

Julia Meek: And from your teacher, mentor, performer, producer's perspective, all of you, how would you say things have most changed over the decades you've been in the theater business,

Sue Nelson: I think the maturity level of the acting, I think, has grown and gotten stronger. It's taken a little while to get there now, at all age levels you could include in that, I think that would be my take on it. It's interesting,

Dotty Miller: Susan and I agree, from a performer's standpoint, there are so many opportunities. Just think, in the last 10 years, how many new theater companies have started, and they are growing because people do love culture, and they love entertainment.

They want to go out and have a good time. And I think this show will be a good time.

Julia Meek: People are going to love this little slice of history as well. And there's nothing like a live musical. Now, with this piece soon to be under your belts, what's next for the three of you?

Dotty Miller As for me, theater, I will think about that when there are auditions coming up. You'll be on the stage. I will be on the stage.

Julia Meek: Yeah, okay. And you educators. Susan, are you keeping busy?

Sue Nelson: I am. I have a connection in Florida where I do a little traveling back and forth and do some school projects there at one of the local middle schools, we take a book and then we build a set, and then we act it out.

Julia Meek: Oh, very cool. Yeah. What age span?

Sue Nelson: Sixth, seventh and eighth grade, they hope we focus on and each year, it's a different book and a different story. And it's really exciting.

Julia Meek: How exciting? Yes, you should have high expectations, absolutely yes, for sure. And then what's over there on your own drawing board, if you will, Diane or your writing easel, or do you teach as well? So, what are you up to? You're gonna be up to?

Diane Whitacre: Well, I love my students at the St Michael's lesson Academy. They're so sweet and hard workers. But sitting on my desk is a commission for the Fort Wayne Community Band, they have their 45th anniversary this year, and that's so exciting. I've got to get plugging on that. So that'll be pretty high priority when this is over.

Julia Meek: It's great. And it sounds like we'll have. Plenty of arts and culture news coming up. Meanwhile, the foot Wayne area is known for its abundant community theater opportunities. Always has been.

It's getting better and brighter all the time, including show choir, and you've all been quite instrumental in supporting that here in this area. Why is this so very important in your minds, for what kind of development?

Dotty Miller: Well, let's see; show choir encompasses-you can take a look at various parts of it. There's the friendships, the camaraderie, the hard work that goes into learning, the music, learning the choreography, having to travel, planning things out.

It just is a great learning experience all the way around and prepares young people singing you can continue to do forever. You may not be able to dance. You may not become a June Taylor dancer later on in life, but you can still sing. And it's such a great foundation.

Julia Meek: It is a good point. What about you, Diane?

Diane Whitacre: That's such a good point that you made. Dotty, I've been involved in lots of different aspects of show choir, mainly writing and backup bands. I love getting to know the kids in the backup band and the kids in choirs too.

But I think it gives instrumentalists another genre they're accompanying and they're not the main feature, and so it kind of trains them to listen to the singer, listen to the whole picture. I just think it's just such good vocal training.

When I think a show choir, just think of discipline. It's similar to marching. It takes want to and, you know, working together to meet a goal. And I that's always healthy.

Julia Meek: And last, but never least, Susan?

Sue Nelson: Being a show choir director for years, in addition to all of the things that Dotty and Diane mentioned, it's hard work. They have to be committed, dedicated to the art form.

And like Dotty says, we travel, you know, we travel from place to place, and sometimes you're on the bus at three o'clock in the morning, and you don't get home until three o'clock the next morning.

Julia Meek: And that is your life.

Sue Nelson: And that's, that was your life. And endurance and the standards that have been developed throughout the years have even gotten stronger and more demanding, because you're expected to do a Las Vegas show big time and do it well and without any hiccups along the way. And most of these kiddos, they step up to the plate and do it.

Julia Meek: That's great, the power and creativity and just sheer determination, right? Does that keep y'all going?

Sue Nelson: Absolutely (chuckles) Yeah, absolutely.

Julia Meek: So, last question, at the end of the day, what does the amazing local art scene that we enjoy, that we have come to know and love, say about our own community and its sense of place that keeps it going strong?

Sue Nelson: Well, I've seen this community grow. I used to have a group called the Grey Lite Theater back in the day, we were at Westland Mall.

We're kind of the beginning of what's happening now, as far as community theater is concerned, there was only, like three or four of us at that time.

And so, with what I'm seeing now, with all of these new theaters, how exciting for Fort Wayne. And thank you Fort Wayne for supporting all of that.

Julia Meek: Amen, and Dotty?

Dotty Miller: Well, from a business standpoint, in my life, outside of theater, if you are recruiting someone to move to this area, culture, entertainment is all a part of bringing people in, and businesses have stepped up to the plate.

They sponsor so many productions in Fort Wayne, they sponsor the culture from, you know, all of the different genres that we have here. But when you have people that you are trying to bring in and grow your business, that's definitely one of those things that you can check off the list.

Julia Meek: Diane?

Diane Whitacre: I think it's just really great for the directors in the area, like even starting with middle school, even grade school, maybe, it's a really great example to show those kids that you can do creativity and drama and theater and music.

You can do it all your life. And so, the community theaters give them an opportunity to do that, whether it's on stage, or whether it's helping crew, or whether it's playing in the pit, there's just so many ways, or just even being an audience, it just is like a big factory and a big circle, big circle of music and creativity.

Julia Meek: Susan Nelson, Diane Whittaker and Dottie Miller are director, author and one of the lead actors, respectively, of the Schubert Ladies Quartet. Thank you for making time to share your story of this wonderful story, ladies, go for it! Have a great performance.

Dotty Miller: Thank you, Julia.

Sue Nelson: Thank you, Julia.