In 1974, the Board chose Theatre Memphis as its new name and on May 1, 1975, the theatre opened a production of My Fair Lady in its new and present location, a 435-seat venue at 630 Perkins Extended.Įugart Yerian, a graduate of Pasadena Playhouse in California, arrived in 1932 as theatre director and served in that position until 1961. In September 1970, the Commercial Appeal announced that the Little Theatre was embarking on a "mammoth drive to raise $1,291,000 for a new playhouse in Audubon Park." By the summer of 1973 enough money had been pledged to convince the board to give architect Wells Awsumb and contractor Tom Thayer the go-ahead, and a groundbreaking was held on Sunday June 3, 1973. The theatre operated in the shallow end of the swimming pool of the mansion, a suggestion from Mrs. Through the generosity of many Memphians who gave "One Hundred Dollar" subscriptions, and through the courtesy of the Memphis Park Commission, in October 1929 the Memphis Little Theatre moved into its second permanent home (the Pink Palace Playhouse) a 250-seat venue in the east wing of the Memphis Museum of Natural History and Industrial Arts (now known as the Pink Palace), the unfinished mansion of Piggly Wiggly founder, Clarence Saunders. Also in 1925, the Theatre opened its doors to its first permanent home, named the Stable Playhouse, a 90-seat venue housed in a former stable on the grounds of the James Lee Art Academy at Adams and Orleans. In 1925, a merger was made with the Drama League (the local chapter of a national organization that supported the theatrical arts), and a new Memphis Little Theatre was born. The company was chartered on Janufor the purpose of "producing plays, encouraging the art and the writing of plays, and the uplift of the drama and its allied arts." Later stagings occurred in the auditorium of the Nineteenth Century Club on Third Street and at St. Fairfax Proudfit Walkup called a group of interested friends to form a " little theatre." The Memphis Little Theatre Players was thus founded in 1920 and presented three one-act plays (" The Dream," " Aren't They Wonders," and " Helena's Husband") as its first performance on in Germania Hall at Third Street and Jefferson Avenue. ![]() 2 Dramatis Personae: The Lon Anthony Sculptures.
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