YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – After a hundred years and about a thousand shows, The Youngstown Playhouse has a lot of stories to tell.
The venerable community theater will celebrate its first century with a gala evening and retrospective show June 21 that will spotlight Playhouse highlights over the past 100 years.
The evening will begin with a social gathering in the lobby from 5:30-7 p.m., featuring cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres by Jeffrey Chrystal Catering. The show, titled “Where the Stars Shine Bright,” will start at 7:30 p.m. in the main auditorium. It will be followed by a post-show dessert party and karaoke. Dress is stylish to formal.
Tickets, which will go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday, May 19, are $85 for the preshow reception and the main performance; and $37 for the performance only. Tickets can be purchased at YoungstownPlayhouse.org and the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office, downtown, or by calling 330 259 9651.
The show is being put together by Rick Blackson, pianist and music director, and J.E. Ballantyne Jr., Playhouse historian and author of “Where the Stars Still Shine,” a history of the theater.
The show is structured according to Ballantyne’s book, which covers the Playhouse’s history decade by decade.
It will feature a large screen at center-stage that will display photographs from the Playhouse archives, Blackson said. Two narrators will be on stage at all times to narrate the highlights shown in the photos.
It will be underscored with piano music by Blackson and punctuated with performances of well-known show tunes from musicals that graced the Playhouse stage over the decades.
“Sprinkled throughout the show will be brief reenactments of interesting Playhouse stories and characters,” Blackson said. “Over two dozen Playhouse actors will serve as narrators or characters in the reenactments.”
The show will also include at least two dozen singers.
“It will enlighten the audience as to the quality and professionalism of countless Playhouse directors over these 100 years, as well as the importance and relevance of the Playhouse as the cultural hub of the Mahoning Valley,” Blackson said.
Weaving the show together as emcee will be Playhouse alum and Valley theater professional Maureen Collins of Easy Street Productions.
The cast includes many returning veterans of the Playhouse stage, including Marlene Strollo, Glenn Stevens, Regina Reynolds, Debbie Switney Morgan, John Morgan, Joyce Jones, Tracy Schuler, Mark Huberman, Carla Gipson and Ed and Joanne Carney Smith.
Looking Back
Each play and musical produced at the Playhouse over the years created memories for the performers, including Collins, Blackson and Mary Jo Maluso.
An icon of the Valley theater scene, Collins has appeared in hundreds of musicals. But her first one was at Tthe Playhouse in 1967.
“I started there as a middle schooler and did lots of chorus work with the most incredible actors inspiring me all the way,” she recalled. “They used to bring in directors from New York City.”
Before long, she was auditioning for musicals.
“‘Oklahoma!’ was my first one, and the director was Eddie Lane from New York,” she said. “He told me, ‘I want you to look up into that balcony and see those cornfields! And I still do, and I still think of Eddie Lane. I got a goose bump just thinking of the moment during ‘Oklahoma!’ when I realized I have to do this forever. I didn’t care if my name was in the smallest size. Eddie said to me, ‘You’re going to do something big, kid,’ before he left.”
Collins has many other fond memories. She recalls countless times when the late Bentley Lenhoff, former executive director and Playhouse legend, sat with her after rehearsals, telling stories of theater greats until her father arrived to pick her up.
Then there was a production of “Hello, Dolly,” in which another legend, the late Joe Scarvell, was pressed into service after the leading man had to leave the show. “He wasn’t really a musical actor but figured he would do it. He called me Molly, Polly, Holly … everything but Dolly. When they brought in the cake [after the closing night], they had all those names written on it.”
Maluso is part of a cabaret duo with her husband, Blackson, but her showbiz career started on the stage.
Her first appearance was as a student at Chaney High School, where she worked with her older classmate, the late David Jendre, who would go on to become another Playhouse stalwart and mentor.
When Maluso switched her college major and moved back to Youngstown to study musical theater at Youngstown State University, Jendre contacted her. The Playhouse was doing “West Side Story,” and Jendre insisted she audition.
“Bob Vargo, who put theater on the map for Youngstown City Schools, was directing it,” Maluso recalled. “I was a shy person by nature and didn’t want to try out, but David said, ‘If I have to pick you up and take you there, you are going.’ I got the role of Maria, and that’s what started my special love for theater.”
Maluso would go on to land principal roles in the Playhouse productions of other musicals.
“My roots are in this building,” she said of the Playhouse.
Maluso would return in 1983 to take part in a production of “Camelot,” which also featured Todd Hancock, a high school student at the time who would go on to co-found Easy Street Productions with Collins.
It was during that production that she met her future husband, Blackson. The introduction was manipulated by her mother, the late Claire Maluso, who was trying to get Mary Jo back into her singing career. She figured Blackson’s talent as a musician and arranger would jumpstart her career. It worked – and then some.
“Rick looked at the sheet music and said, ‘I can rework this,’ and we went into the studio and recorded it,” Maluso said. “That’s how it started.”
Maluso has another connection to the Playhouse. Her late father, John, was a former president of the theater’s board of directors.
Pictured at top: From left, J.E. Ballantyne Jr., Rick Blackson, Maureen Collins and John Cox pose for a photo at the Youngstown Playhouse. Ballantyne and Blackson created the theater’s 100 Year Gala show, for which Collins will serve as emcee. Cox is president of the Playhouse board of directors.