Theatre Symposium Keynote Roundtable: Saturday, April 12, 2008

Theatre Symposium Keynote Roundtable Saturday, April 12, 2008 Rob Franklin Fox, Scott J. Parker, and Mark R. Sumner; Jay Malarcher, moderator Jay Malarcher [JM]: Okay, good afternoon, again, everyone. This is the centerpiece of the conference in my mind, the roundtable discussion by those we have in our midst, the resident experts of the historical drama and the outdoor drama represented here. Mr. Mark Sumner, Mr. Scott Parker, and Mr. Rob Fox are the brain trust that we’re going to listen to today. I asked them not to—it wasn’t necessary for them to prepare a formal paper, so don’t be expecting that. I asked them each to come up with something to say based on their interests, their background, what they have derived from the study or the historical inquest of drama outdoors. I’m just going to leave it to them. They can do a free-for-all, and when they’ve decided they’ve had enough, we can open it up to questions and force more out of them . . . so this is really a treat for us. And so, here’s our roundtable. Scott J. Parker [SJP]: We’ve had enough. JM: That’s cheating! SJP: Rob has allowed me to go first. Mark, I guess, have y’all met Mark? Mark was the second director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama [IOD]. The Institute opened up in 1963. Bill Trotman was the first director, and he lasted one year before he ran screaming into the night, and Mark was gracious enough to leave academia, well, and to come into academia. But he was teaching up at Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Did I get that right? Keynote Roundtable 11 Mark R. Sumner [MRS]: That’s right. SJP: And came in 1964 and ran the Institute for twenty-five years, and really made it what it is today. I think of Mark as the Grand Poobah of outdoor historical drama in this country. He—to mix a metaphor—he was also a bit of Johnny Appleseed. He went around the country planting outdoor dramas all over the place. So he’s our resident historian. And then, Mark went fishing in 1989, and I was lucky enough to follow in his footsteps. I was down at The Lost Colony, and I came in 1990. Then, I went fishing seven months ago. Rob, after a national search, they found Rob right here at our own backdoor! Rob was the general manager here at PlayMakers Repertory Company. They went through a whole search, and they ended up right here with Rob, so we’re very lucky to have him. Rob’s been on board now for seven or eight months. We really haven’t collaborated very much about what we’re going to say today, and I’ve got a wonderful story to illustrate. Some of you may know this story—it’s a theatre legend. It has to do with the Barrymore family, our royal family of theatre. John and Ethel and Lionel and now Drew . . . Who were the other Barrymores? There must have been some others. Anyhow, this is a story about John and Ethel. The story goes that every now and again they would do a show together. They’d mostly do classics. They were doing a show in New York, a Shakespeare play the name of which I don’t remember anymore. They had a reputation—the whole family has a reputation of getting into alcohol a bit. But they had a policy between the two of them that one of them would drink one night, and the other one would drink the next night. They never both drank on the same night when they were doing a show. But they got confused one night, and both of them came in a little tipsy, and they were well into the show and they both went up. I mean, both went up at the same time, and some little girl offstage left is the prompter and she’s going like this [frantically goes through papers], “Jesus! Where is it?!” And she finds it, and she feeds them the line. Ethel is reported to have...