A New Arrangement
During the year the professional theatre stood dark, Leigh Gerdine, who became the new president of Webster College, asked Homer E. Sayad to form a theatre corporation that would be independent of the college. The new board of directors, led by Homer Sayad, who remained as its president until 1974 when the theatre's finances stabilized, was determined to preserve, as nearly as possible, the cooperative arrangement between the theatre and the college.
Company actors, directors and designers would continue as part-time faculty in the college's Conservatory of Theater Arts, and the theatre would be used several times a year for student productions. Students would work on stage crews, and would still be given opportunities to act in professional productions when suitable roles were available.
The college accorded rent-free use of the Loretto-Hilton Center, as well as office and rehearsal space, to the newly organized Loretto-Hilton Repertory Theatre, which reopened in the fall of 1971 with a clean financial slate and with what appeared to be sufficient funding for a season.
Money came in from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Missouri Arts Council, the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, Walter Perner Jr. was, according to Sue Ann Wood of the Globe-Democrat, "a real pro in drama circles."
Theatre is the most collaborative of arts. It is made of many pieces by many people — the script by the playwright; the action by the director and the actors; the set, costumes and lighting by the designers and the artisans in the shops; coordination by the stage manager; the place by the architects; plus the patrons and audiences. All the pieces were in place except the audience, so one of the first tasks of the new Loretto-Hilton Repertory Theatre was to get more people into seats.
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| Horatio 1971-72 Season J. Robert Dietz |
Doing so was a tricky business, because among the changes Walter Perner had recommended was closing the center bay, thereby reducing the size of the house from over 800 to under 500. "There's nothing more encouraging to everyone than a standing-room-only crowd," he said. In addition, Equity rules allowed a smaller theater to pay actors at a lower wage scale.
Another economy was the reduction of the season from six plays to five. So the challenge was to fill a smaller house's shorter season with plays of broad appeal. Walter Perner believed that the theatre "must have a local impact...be a place people want to go, where they will be part of a full house of excited people."
He also believed wholeheartedly in the invaluable contribution of the theatre's 130 volunteers, whom he named The Claque, and who soon became the Backers. They had their work cut out for them. In those tenuous days of rebirth, volunteers were involved in practically everything but the shows.
They ran ticket sales campaigns, gave lodging and transportation for actors, helped sew costumes, hosted coffees, luncheons and dinners, threw fabulous fundraising parties, typed and filed, and even fed the cast between Saturday performances. Those cast meals, by the way, planted the seed which germinated in the nationally recognized cookbook Cooking for Applause, which the Backers produced and published in 1981.
According to Joanne Kohn, The Claque's president, "Our toughest job was convincing people we all knew that it was possible to come to Webster Groves for quality theatre. In those days, everybody thought you had to go into the city for culture."
And Margie May explained, "We want people to have the fun of going to the theatre in a smaller atmosphere than the Muny or the American...and have the fun of seeing people they know there...Until we have an audience, we can't do anything else to help support this theatre!"
The 1971-72 season, which included Sherlock Holmes, Marat/Sade, After the Rain, Room Service and the world premiere of Horatio directed by Charles Haid, who later played Andy Renko in Hill Street Blues, ran up an enormous stack of unpaid bills. The board of directors, dismayed to learn that the theatre was $135,000 in arrears for just one season, asked Walter Perner to hand in his keys. From Center Stage in Baltimore, a young theatre manager was brought in to turn things around.
