YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Youngstown Playhouse will tell its own story at its centennial gala show June 21.
Sixty performers who have graced its stage over the years will return to appear in the production as readers or actors.
The focal point will be a large screen on the stage that will display photos from past shows and events, according to music director Rick Blackson.
Two readers, one male and one female, will tell the theater’s story, broken down by its 10 decades. A different pair of readers will be used for each decade, with Blackson underscoring the dialogue on the piano.
Every 10 minutes or so, actors will come on stage to act out a scene from the theater’s history.
The venerable community theater is capping its 100th season with a gala evening June 21 that will include the show. An optional preshow cocktail hour and post-show party are also available. For tickets and information, go to YoungstownPlayhouse.org.
The basis of the show is the book “A Place Where the Stars Still Shine” by J.E. Ballantyne Jr., Playhouse archivist. Ballantyne and Blackson created the gala show.
In some instances, Blackson rewrote the lyrics to Broadway show tunes to fit the scenes that the actors are portraying.
He gave a few examples at a press conference at the Playhouse on Monday morning.
One scene involves Broadway director Ella Gerber, who was brought in to helm shows many decades ago. “She was big time, and a tough cookie,” Blackson said. “She wanted everyone to be professional, so in one song, ‘I Enjoy Being a Girl,’ I changed the lyrics to ‘I enjoy making them pros.’”
Playhouse veteran Brandy Johanntges will play Gerber and sing the song.
Another scene relates the personality of equally tough Broadway director Arthur Sircom, who directed many shows during the Playhouse’s heyday.
“He was known to literally stop a show to warn the actors if they were doing something wrong,” Blackson said. “We will have Terry Shears play him and sing ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ from ‘Oklahoma!,’ except I changed the lyrics to ‘Oh, what a dutiful warning.’”
Tying the show together as the narrator will be Maureen Collins. The longtime Valley actor got her start at the Playhouse more than 60 years ago and credits it for launching her career.
“I fell in love with performing here,” said Collins, who will turn 70 this week. She became emotional when talking about her memories of the Playhouse people who taught her as a child and appeared with her in productions as an adult.
As an actor, Collins is as vibrant and commanding as ever and has no intention of slowing down. “As long as I can still memorize lines … I will be up here doing this,” she said.
She summed up her feelings about the Playhouse by saying, “When I die, I want a plaque put up in here that says, ‘No one loved this place more.’”
The gala show will be more than just a history lesson with music and laughs. It will salute the people of the Playhouse and what the theater has meant to so many.
“The ending of the show is so touching that there won’t be a dry eye in the house,” Collins said.
One of the actors returning to the Playhouse for the gala show is Ken Umeck of Niles, who last appeared there in a 1989 production of “Oklahoma!”
He paused his acting when he started to raise his family but stayed active as a performer. Umeck is the music director of Champion Christian Church and has been a member of polka bands.
But being inside the Playhouse instantly reawakened the feeling he would get before going on stage before an audience.
“You work and train to prepare for that moment,” he said. “And on opening night as you’re standing in the wings, you say, ‘Yeah, this is a highlight of my life.’ That is an excitement that I wish everyone could feel.”
Umeck will also sing during the gala show.
Ballantyne, the author-director-playwright who helped create the show, sheds light on the theater’s early days in his book. The Playhouse was a place for the wealthy to see and be seen in then-booming Youngstown.
“It was where the rich and famous went,” he said. “It was a status thing.”
Since its founding in a former horse barn on what is now the campus of Youngstown State University to the present, an incredible number of people have gone through the Playhouse’s doors.
“Between 15,000 and 17,000 people have been involved in shows” here over the first century, Ballantyne said, “and that’s not counting the audiences. This theater has been a hub of entertainment in the Valley.”
Pictured at top: Attending a press conference for the Playhouse’s centennial gala celebration are Molly Galano, board member; J.E. Ballantyne Jr., archivist and co-director of the gala show; Maureen Collins, narrator of the show; Ken Umeck, a returning actor; and Rick Blackson, music director of the show.