A hint of nostalgia hung in the air Friday as former summer theater alumni gathered for a reunion to mark the opening of ESU’s 55th Summer Theatre season.
Former students came from all over the country to revisit and share fond memories of theater seasons going all the way back to the program’s earliest years. Alumni gathered for lunch, toured the ESU campus and saw a presentation of the program’s history. Friday evening they attended a performance of “Beau Jest” and afterward gathered for an open mic event at the Granada Theatre.
Harry Tharp, in town from Kansas City, reminisced about the early years of the program. Tharp attended ESU from 1950 to 1952, then served in the Korean War before returning to school in 1956. He participated in the 1957 and 1958 summer theater seasons.
“It was a great deal of fun,” Tharp said. “We worked our butts off, doing three shows at once. At any given time we were performing this week’s show, learning next week’s show and trying to forget last week’s show.”
Tharp said the shows ran from Tuesday night through Saturday night, and the following show was set up on Sunday and Monday.
“Monday you had tech and dress rehearsals, with the final dress rehearsal on Tuesday afternoon, then you opened that night.”
Tharp said his favorite shows were “Inherit the Wind” and “The Silver Whistle.” As he browsed photographs of past seasons he remarked on the reunion.
“It’s a lot of fun coming back and seeing all the people you haven’t seen in so long, and some that you have seen more recently,” he said. “There are some here I haven’t seen in a long, long time.”
Margaret Denniston, a classmate of Tharp’s, was visiting from her home in Wichita. She attended ESU from 1954 to 1958 and was Karl Bruder’s stage manager during the summer of 1959.
“I attended all the rehearsals and wrote down everything Doc said about where this actor’s supposed to be and when and so on,” Denniston said.
She said she doesn’t have any favorite shows in particular; she enjoyed them all.
“Your favorite show was the one you were doing that week,” she said.
Robert Hayes attended school here from 1956 to 1960. He was part of the scene crew, helping build sets for four years worth of summer productions. Hayes was in town from his home in Lake Havasu, Ariz.
“We always come back to Emporia, at least once a year,” Hayes said, adding that he was excited about the reunion’s events.
“I loved summer theater,” he said. “It was a great time.”
Jim and Rita Scribner, who both live in Emporia, participated in summer theater in the 1970s. Both expressed wonder at the amount of work it took to put together the productions.
“I didn’t realize that you could put a show together as fast as they did,” Jim Scribner said. “It’s amazing how quickly they can do it, putting on a show a week.”
Rita Scribner was part of the costume crew for the 1977 and 1978 seasons, and played Maggie in “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.” She talked about staying up until 3 in the morning putting costumes together between rehearsals.
“You didn’t sleep; you dozed in shifts,” she said.
Jim added that even with a rare day off, the students kept busy.
“If you got time off, which occasionally you did get a day off out of having worked 24, instead of going to sleep you would go to KU or K-State to see what their summer theater was doing,” he said. “If you went to sleep, you would sleep for days.”
Saturday was the final performance of “Beau Jest;” this year’s crew is hard at work on the next production, “Suds: The Rocking 60’s Musical Soap Opera,” to be staged June 24 through 27.