Season 17: Let the music begin

By Dave Cotton: This was another season of "firsts." Our first paid employee, our first musical, our first full page spread of photos in a newspaper, and Jeddie Driscoll of Lorain, and our friends from the Big Easy, Kenneth and Olwyn Riddell made their debuts in this season. Jeddie worked at Workshop from 1965 to 1996. Olwyn and Kenneth worked with us from 1965 - 1982. The children in both families worked with us as well! Melissa Driscoll is now a professional actress.

At the end of the 1963-64 season Sue Koontz resigned as head of the box office. The job had just become too demanding for a volunteer. The theater hired Christine and Charles Kremzar to take over this service. To my knowledge this was the first time that anyone had been paid to do anything for the theater.

The lead show of this season was "Come Blow Your Horn" by Neil Simon. Ev Witham directed. Valerie Gerstenberger's book contains two reviews of this show and, clearly, the critics loved it.

The BIG show of the season was "Bells Are Ringing" by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green. It was big because it had a cast of 34 and a crew of 22 more!!! (average size of a show's cast and crew is 25.) It was big because it was our first full-blown, book musical, complete with a violinist and percussion. It was the talk of the town. Norma Conaway, critic for The Chronicle, raved,

"They took a once Broadway hit musical, altered it to fit their tiny stage-in-the-round, combined simple props and excellent lighting to circumnavigate their space problems, and ended up with a believable and professional result."

As stated above, this show rated a full page of production photos in The Journal and the Journal critic, Lou Kepler, praised The Players "Workshop Players thrive on challenges. Several years ago they accepted the challenge of producing 'Teahouse of the August Moon.' The audiences raved about the production. Now they have accepted another challenge. Their success is equally phenomenal."

Needless to say, the show played to full houses every night.

Not to be out done the Spring show, "The Vigil" was our 50th production and also garnered press for The Players. It received a half page spread of photos in The Lorain Journal. Scheduled to coincide with the Easter season, Valerie Jenkins Gerstenberger directed this moving, modernization of the trial of Jesus of Nazareth. This show was also well-received by our audiences. A cutting from "The Vigil" and the costumes were entered in the Ohio Community Theatre Association's Regional Festival held at Karamu that year. The show received the first place award for costumes and a special award for "prettiest costume."

On a personal note, "The Vigil" was the second show I attended at Workshop Players and cemented my desire to work there. I was on the tech crew of the first show of the next season... I asked the Riddells for a couple of paragraphs about how they got involved at Workshop.

"We immigrated to Lorain from Montreal, Canada in November of 1963, Kenneth having been "head-hunted" by the American Ship Building Company. We had both been active in theatre in England since childhood, grew up never knowing which piece of furniture might disappear for a couple of weeks or so if it was needed on the set - and continued that way in Canada. The first show we saw at Workshop was "Speaking of Murder." Sue Koontz gave us a tour of the theatre afterwards, Kenneth was introduced to Dick Beal, and the rest is history! You will notice Ken was on tech crew for the very next show. We moved to Tampa in 1984, and a few years later Olwyn came offstage after playing Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest", when an audience member said, "Didn't you used to be in Workshop Players? I remember seeing you in several shows there." Amazing.

It is amazing how far the reputation of Workshop Players has spread. This incident Olwyn shares has happened to numerous other actors from our theater. And, of course, a number of Workshop alumni are working professionally. Cliff Bemis is on Broadway right now in "White Christmas" and Alex Arroyo is on stage at the Fireside Dinner Theatre in Wisconsin.