"Look at the Moon": Hunter Hills Theatre; Outdoor Drama in the Smokies

“Look at the Moon” Hunter Hills Theatre; Outdoor Drama in the Smokies Charlotte Headrick and Andrew Vorder Bruegge We spent our summers Singing dancing growing up Emoting romancing living hard Spilling our guts dropping our guard Shaking our butts underneath the stars Boys and girls together A little faster in stormy weather —Jon Lutz, “We Spent Our Summers: An Elegy to Hunter Hills Theatre,” unpublished poem, 1986. The poem “We Spent Our Summers: An Elegy to Hunter Hills Theatre,” by Jon Lutz, captures something of what it was like to be a part of the remarkable experience that was Hunter Hills Theatre . This summer program left a lasting legacy in the annals of outdoor drama because it was unique. Many colleges have operated summer theatre programs, but few have had a program of the scope, artistic vision, or operational format of Hunter Hills Theatre. It was a fabulous showcase for the talent of the University of Tennessee theatre program. It was also a very ambitious and complicated program to run. This essay traces the development of the theatre, its place in the history of the University of Tennessee theatre program, and its place in outdoor drama. For seven summers during the twelve years of the theatre ’s existence, Charlotte Headrick and Andrew Vorder Bruegge were members of the company. Hunter Hills Theatre was built in 1955 for Chucky Jack, an outdoor drama about the first governor of Tennessee, John Sevier, who was portrayed in 1957 by John Cullum, a Knoxville native. The Maples family of Gatlinburg had built the theatre hoping to keep tourists on the west “Look at the Moon” 85 side of the Smokies rather than having them go over the mountains to Cherokee, North Carolina, to see Unto These Hills. The outdoor drama limped along for a few years and in 1959 finally closed. Several factors caused its demise. According to Bill Morgan, who worked in the University of Tennessee Development Office during the Hunter Hills Theatre years, the play opened to mixed reviews and at nearly three hours long was simply too long, but Kermit Hunter refused to cut a word.1 Chucky Jack may not have been successful because the story of the show was not strongly linked to “hallowed ground.” At the 2008 Theatre Symposium , Mark R. Sumner, director emeritus of the Institute of Outdoor Drama (IOD), made a convincing argument about the essential link between success of an outdoor drama and its association with “hallowed ground.” Examples of this concept are the two outdoor historic dramas at Snow Camp, North Carolina, Sword of Peace and Pathway to Freedom. Snow Camp is one of the historic Quaker settlements in North Carolina , and the location of the theatre is in the heart of the settlement. That land is in a real sense “hallowed.” Moreover, the historical story of John Sevier certainly was not as well-known to tourists as tales surrounding mythical figures like Daniel Boone or the melodramatic story of the Trail of Tears, for example. Tourists came to Gatlinburg to see the Smoky Mountains in a generic way, without any specific historical motivation . Also, Chucky Jack lacked the surefire religious appeal of The Book of Job in Kentucky or one of the Passion plays. After Chucky Jack ceased operations, the space was used as a rental venue for music events—one summer the Washington Ballet used the facility, and Union College performed there another summer. It was dark a couple of seasons, and then the Maples family gave the theatre to the University of Tennessee as a tax write-off. In December of 1965 Dr. Edward Boling, vice president of Development for the University of Tennessee, announced the gift of Hunter Hills Theatre to the university by Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Maples. The gift was valued at $300,000. In 1966 the Department of Speech and Theatre mounted the first productions. From 1966 to 1977 the University of Tennessee produced a variety of plays, from musicals such as The Sound of Music, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and Annie Get Your Gun, to plays such as Everyman, Dark of the Moon, and Indians, to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a legendary...