Photo Gallery
ESU Summer Theatre
When the curtain goes up Wednesday night, the 55th season of ESU Summer Theatre will begin. Here is a look back at scenes from the first season as well as some more recent seasons.
Members of the Emporia State University Summer Theatre program are eating, breathing and living theater as they prepare for the opening of the company’s 55th season Wednesday.
“It’s our 55th anniversary season, which in this day and age is no small feat,” said theater professor and director Jim Bartruff. “It speaks to the commitment of the community, it speaks to the commitment of the college and it speaks to the tenacity of our students that we’re still around after all that time.”
The ESU Summer Theatre program, the oldest continuously running summer theater in the region, was created in 1955 by Karl C. Bruder and has evolved into an anticipated event each summer.
“It’s one of the really important cultural events of the Flint Hills region,” Bartruff said. “We are one of the few summer theaters in the region that brings live theater every season for communities in the region.”
To celebrate the 55th anniversary season, an alumni reunion will be held the first weekend of the summer season, Friday and next Saturday, culminating in an open mic event at the Granada Theatre hosted by former faculty member Charlie Hill, who led all three of ESU Theatre’s USO tours in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
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