|
|
|
|
Articles from the Santa Barbara News-Press
Eight Articles by Verne Linderman Seven-part series on the history of the Community Arts Association:
Article on the Santa Barbara Players Club: Sunday, March 16, 1947
Santa Barbara
News-Press
January – February, 1947
Sunday articles tracing the development and growth of the Community
Arts Association, which was largely responsible for Santa Barbara’s “Golden
Age” from about 1920 to 1930.
By VERNE LINDERMAN
I.
Sunday,
January 5, 1947
Community Arts Association Served
City Culturally
Scores of newcomers living here doubtless never heard of the Community Arts Association. Yet if they had come to Santa Barbara in the 20’s they would have found it the initiator of everything cultural, the promoter and protector of a city beautiful which came to have a reputation for planning and planting, and for community efforts in the fields of music, drama and painting such as few communities of its size have attained.
The association began in 1920 with a loan of $50 and in 10 years accumulated net assets of more than $200,000. By then it had four branches with a staff of 35 and had done a gross business of $200,000 affecting more than 25,000 persons through some 150,000 individual contacts – so the records of the decade show.
Carnegie Grant
Recognizing its value, the Carnegie Corporation made an exception and awarded it the only grant to any organization for the encouragement of art, a sum of $25,000 annually. After eight years, on October 1, 1930, the grant expired.
Today, the Plans and Planting Branch is the only one of the four surviving in its original form. At the dissolution of the association, the Music Branch reincorporated as the Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc. The Drama Branch became the Lobero Theater Foundation. Some of the activities of the School of the Arts survive in the Community Institute, but the school as such was completely abandoned.
Postwar Start
It was at a time such as the present – the end of World War I, in 1919, when a renaissance of interest in art and the existence of a nucleus of persons who had had experience in serving and entertaining soldiers led to a series of discussions principally concerned with drama and festivals of a community scope.
A group met with Albert Herter, and the late Mrs. Herter, who were in residence here at the time, at Hotel, El Mirasol, their former home, by then converted into a hotel. Among those in the group were the late Clarence Black, the late Frederic Forrest Peabody, the late Samuel M. Ilsley and John M. Gamble. Ruth St. Denis occasionally attended. Miss Pearl Chase usually was there.
In the Spring a community extravaganza, the famous “La Primavera”, for which an outdoor theater was erected in the block between Canon Perdido and De la Guerra Streets beyond Garden Street, became the forerunner of the present Fiesta and the first concrete step toward a community organization working in the arts. Irving Pichel and Samuel Hume were hired as directors; some $3000 was expended for original music; the lighting ran into thousands of dollars.
Artistic Success
While it was a success artistically, the fact that it left a large indebtedness in its wake prevented the repetition of “La Primavera” as had been planned. In the late Summer, however, at about the time of the present Fiesta, another outdoor theater was erected for a second event, which Black this time underwrote for $6000.
This second festival, “The Guest,” [sic (“The Quest”)] was given near the site of the present Pershing Park. It was a dramatic production of high order, into which went concerted community effort in the making of costumes and training of dancers and actors. It helped to bring the community to the right pitch to receive the association about to be born.
By Winter the prime movers settled down to serious discussion of building a theater. Both Peabody and Black had given years to intensive business careers; now they were free to indulge an interest in art. The late Mrs. Theodore Carrington, who after her husband’s death became Mrs. Robert Edmond Jones, was often in the group.
By-Laws Set Up
Finally at an informal meeting at the home of Mrs. Michel A. Levy, Miss Chase pressed the point that without an acting group it would be useless to build a theater. Accordingly, by-laws were written for an organization with money-raising interests at heart, to be called the Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara.
At the same time the late Fernand Lungren, artist, decided to go ahead with a School of the Festival Arts, which also was incorporated as a separate group.
These were the parent trunks from which grew the four branches that flourished for a decade in a community venture unique in so many respects as to attract attention and attain a reputation even abroad.
II.
Sunday,
January 12, 1947
Community Participation Led to
Santa Barbara’s Golden Age of Development in Arts
Plays, Concerts, Painting Classes
Flourished
The group dreaming, and talking of and gradually formulating some kind of community organization primarily (at first) interested in the drama, thought for a time of buying the old Lobero Theater, which was partly adobe and partly of frame and brick construction. For some time, however, nothing transpired in this direction.
Miss Pearl Chase recalled one of the first meetings of a definite organizational character which took place in the Winter of 1920 at the home of Mrs. Michel A. Levy. Mrs. Levy said that the “first” meeting was held at the home of the late Mrs. Otto Hansen (now the Rickard home), who became one of the first chairmen.
Players Organized
At this meeting the Community Arts Players were formed. They hired a director and produced successful, self-supporting plays at the old Potter Theater at the corner of West Montecito and State Streets for two years before staging a campaign to build a theater. Mrs. Levy, from the beginning, and still, one of the pillars of the Drama Branch, remembered that some of those most interested were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hyde, the late Harry Brainard, the late Mrs. George Washington Smith, Mrs. Hilmar O. Koefod, William Ashworth, Mrs. Charles B. Raymond, Mrs. Kirk B. Johnson, the late William North Duane, David Imboden, Dwight Bridge, Mrs. James R. H. Wagner and Messrs. Ingerson and Dennison, who were the designers of the Samarkand Hotel and spent considerable time here. Many of the original group carried on in the present Lobero Theater Foundation.
School Incorporated
In the simultaneously incorporated School of the Festival Arts launched by the late Fernand Lungren, some of the leaders were the late Mrs. Marian Craig Wentworth, heading the drama department; Arthur Farwell, the music department and Albert Herter, the life class. The late Mrs. T. Mitchell Hastings and the late Miss Mary Tracy were others taking a prominent part.
Miss Nina Moise was the first important director to be employed by the Community Arts Players, who during four years presented nearly monthly plays at the Potter, where it became the general rule that the theater of 1100 seats drew four capacity audiences for each play. Volunteers made scenery and costumes; actors were people of the community.
The Music Branch came into being at the end of 1921. The late David Gray, chairman, and a committee of interested persons already were underwriting and sponsoring concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The Branch, under the chairmanship of the late Mrs. Albert Herter, instituted the idea of sponsoring local musicians, organizing the Clerbois String Orchestra and setting up scholarships. Later it entered the field of bringing noted musicians from outside for concerts also.
By now Mr. Lungren had bought the old Dominguez Adobe which before the earthquake stood at the corner of Santa Barbara and Carrillo Streets. Mrs. Hastings developed a little gallery there where local artists exhibited. Charming teas often opened these exhibits.
Plans and Planting
Last of the branches to be put forth by Santa Barbara’s artistic renaissance was that known as Plans and Planting (1922), with Bernhard Hoffmann as chairman of Plans and the late George S. Edwards of Planting. Unique in the country, its aim was to create an interest in and knowledge of good architecture and gardening. It has heaped national laurels upon Santa Barbara. It is the only one of the branches existing intact today.
The consolidation of the four branches into the Community Arts Association, Inc., was effected in 1922 as an organization to receive and administer the Carnegie grant. The late Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett, who was long closely associated with Carnegie philanthropies, was then living here. In order to obtain the grant of $25,000 annually a comprehensive report of the accomplishments to date of the branches was drawn up and submitted. So excellent was the record that the fund was forthcoming without “strings” and continued so for five years.
During this time both the new Lobero Theater (on the site of the old) and the plant of the School of the Arts (around the old Commandancia) on Santa Barbara and Canon Perdido Streets was built. The plant of the school is now the Community Institute.
‘Bondage of Commonplace’
On the Association reports and bulletins there used to be appear this legend: “It has been said that a city that develops finely should delight the eye, feed the intellect and lead the people out of bondage of the commonplace. Hundreds are working through the Community Arts Association to bring about this development in Santa Barbara.”
In 1926 on the strength of this united achievement a further grant was applied for and received from the Carnegie Corporation, which otherwise would have concluded in 1927. Another $100,000, plus $25,000 to cover losses of the earthquake catastrophe of 1925, was thus put at the disposal of the Association, to extend through 1930.
By then a combination of the depression and the ending of the grant had created a financial hazard, which the Association did not survive. Due to tremendous overhead in its operation, the School of the Arts was completely abandoned in the early ‘30’s.
As Miss Chase pointed out: “At the time of the earthquake all the Association funds were from private or semi-private sources; that is, no Government funds were available, as now.
“On the other hand, the depression introduced the practice of free art instruction through public agencies, so the school had less reason for being.”
Changes also took place in the Drama and Music Branches, the growth and development of which will be discussed at length in subsequent articles dealing with these separate divisions.
III.
Sunday,
January 19, 1947
Community Spirit Was Reborn in
Work of Presenting Notable Stage Productions
Rich and Poor Joined Hands in Projects
Everyone turned out to help produce a play. Actors were chosen from every walk of life. Santa Barbara artists volunteered to design sets and paint scenery. Business houses and private homes loaned properties.
Community Spirit
Looking back on this unity of purpose, the late Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation (then living here) wrote to the Rosenwald Foundation in 1932:
“The notion of the Carnegie Corporation in undertaking cooperation with the Community Arts Association of this small city (the population then was 25,000) was based on the assumption that if all the people of a community could be interested in a common effort for its improvement, the outcome would be not only an integration of the community, but also, in the long run, a satisfactory support for the various activities connected with the movement.
“That there has resulted a real development of community spirit cannot be doubted. This was admirably illustrated at the time of the earthquake in Santa Barbara nearly seven years ago. The quickness with which, within two hours after this staggering catastrophe, the citizens of Santa Barbara, rich and poor, had come together for common protection and help was very wonderful … With remarkable unanimity the community came together and much of this spirit was due to the fact that rich and poor had been working together in the service of the Community Arts.”
Old Potter Theater
As has been said before, the first plays were produced at the old Potter Theater at the corner of State and Montecito Streets, by the Community Arts Players, forerunners of the Drama Branch before the Music and Plans and Planting Branches had come into being. First, three one-act plays were given with such success that a series followed and the season was finished with several longer plays climaxed by “Pelleas and Melisande” for which Albert Herter painted the scenery. In all the history of community drama no production has exceeded the beauty of the Maeterlinck work as done by the Santa Barbara players.
After that a publicity and technical director was added to the staff. “In the second season,” it is recalled by Mrs. Michel A. Levy, one of the pioneers, “eight successful plays were given under the brilliant direction of Nina Moise and with the assistance of hundreds of workers on scenery, costumes and acting.”
It was at the very end of this season that a “whirlwind campaign” sprang up to raise money for a community theater.
Carnegie Grant
By now the Drama Branch, School of the Arts, Music Branch and Plans and Planting Branch had incorporated as the Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara, the Carnegie Foundation was contributing $25,000 annually to its support, and the first talk was of restoring the old Lobero Theater. A sum of $125,000 was raised in three weeks by more than 300 individual contributors, and with an additional mortgage the fund was boosted to $185,000. The old Lobero was purchased. But a structural engineer hired to examine the adobe, frame and brick landmark rendered the verdict that it would be impossible to render it safe against earthquakes.
When, shortly afterward, in 1925, the earthquake destroyed many old adobes while the new Lobero Theater stood unscathed, the Association members were able to congratulate themselves on the wisdom of deciding upon a new theater. The successful weathering of the catastrophe by both the Lobero and The News-Press building were excellent arguments, incidentally, for the spread of Hispanic architecture.
‘Beggar on Horseback’
Its leading exponent, the distinguished architect, George Washington Smith, now deceased, was the man engaged to build the Lobero. To herald its completion in 1924 and open the new playhouse a magnificent production of “The Beggar on Horseback” by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, directed by Nina Moise, was staged and ran for several weeks before packed houses.
To advertise the opening, a pageant was worked up. It grew into the first Old Spanish Days Fiesta.
At the time of the opening, the Board of Directors of the Community Arts Association included: Bernhard Hoffmann, president; Mrs. Michel A. Levy, vice president; Pearl Chase, secretary; Robert C. Smitheram, treasurer; the late William North Duane, Miriam B. Edwards, Harold S. Gladwin, T. Mitchell Hastings, the late Mrs. Albert Herter, Mrs. John A. Jameson, the late Fernand Lungren; Hamilton MacFadden, executive director; the late Mrs. O. L. (“Anne”) Hathaway, business secretary and Edward Sajous, publicity director.
On the drama committee were: the late Samuel M. Ilsley, chairman; the late Margaret Whittemore, vice chairman; the late Marion Cate, Mrs. Robert W. Hyde, Mrs. Michel A. Levy, the late Mrs. Marie Burroughs Livingston, J. William MacLennan, Mrs. Frederick Forrest Peabody (now Mrs. Girard Van B. Hale), the late Mrs. George Washington Smith and Mrs. James H. Wagner.
3000 Shared in Project
Some years afterward in writing of the year 1924 Mrs. Levy recorded: “At the end of the third season of plays, out of a population of 25,000, 2000 to 3000 people saw the plays and shared in the ideal and understanding of the art and recreation of the theater.”
Looking over old programs and Community Arts Association reports, one finds that an average of from 10 plays a year to 16 in peak years were staged by actors drawn from the community. Society leaders sometimes played beside their butlers and maids and industrial tycoons from the East beside local fish merchants. The list of plays included works of Shaw, Shakespeare, Barrie, Ibsen, O’Neill, Milne, Galsworthy, Dunsany, Sheridan, Pirandello – to name a few. Among outstanding directors who succeeded Miss Moise were Colin C. Clements, Charles Meredith and Irving Pichel.
“The reason we did not build a larger theater,” Mrs. Levy explained, in recalling the “Golden Age,” “was that the Potter, a good commercial theater, was still standing, and we had every reason to believe that it would be there indefinitely. We built the new Lobero as a community theater. Its original capacity has been increased to 670-odd seats; also the shop and rehearsal hall were added.”
The Potter, as everyone knows, went down in the earthquake. Gradually the Lobero, which had always been opened to the Artist Series concerts arranged by the Music Branch and the Master Courses of the late Mrs. C. E. Herbert, began to admit road shows to its stage.
Foundation Formed
Due to its large financial obligations, after the withdrawal of the Carnegie Grant and the simultaneous appearance of the depression, the group long interested in the theater were called back to evolve a new plan for financing the Lobero. The present Lobero Theater Foundation was formed, the stock of the theater was handed to it free from debt with the understanding that the stock be put into the hands of a civic group and held in perpetuity as a community theater.
According to this plan, the theater was turned over to the County and leased back to the Foundation, which assumed responsibility for its upkeep and operation. Departing from its original plan, it does not now give community plays but makes the theater available to such groups as the Players Club, the former Civic Theater, the Youtheatre and others.
Twice since the change took place a brilliant Summer season at the Lobero has dazzled the entire Coast. One of these in the late 30’s brought Arthur Beckhard here to produce a Noel Coward series with luminaries from the screen and stage composing the cast. The other was the season given by the Selznick Company in 1941 when Geraldine Fitzgerald, Dame May Whitty and other notables were the actors.
An example of the position the Lobero continues to occupy was the recent world premiere performance on its boards of “The Story of Mary Surratt.” Santa Barbara having given it a fine send-off, now the play is Broadway bound.
IV.
Sunday,
January 26, 1947
Community Arts Orchestra Played
Sixteen Sunday Concerts a Season for Four Years
In the accompanying picture we see the original Community Arts String Orchestra (later known as the Clerbois Orchestra) with Roger Clerbois as conductor. The forerunner of the Community Arts Association Music Branch, today it does not exist but the Branch, with activities much curtailed, became the Community Arts Association [sic: Community Arts Music Association] of Santa Barbara, Inc.
It was the late Adele Herter who inspired the creation of the Orchestra. She designed robes and a setting for its fortnightly concerts at the then new Recreation Center. Here we see the players in lavender robes against gold-stenciled blue draperies, their music on gold music stands. At the left in the picture is Anthony vander [sic: van der] Voort as concertmaster.
Although a great creative renaissance was beginning in Santa Barbra, quite probably the players and the large audience listening to them that March Sunday afternoon in 1921 – proud of this imposing beginning of an orchestra of their own – fell far short of dreaming what actually would come to pass here musically, once talented persons of vision and means had indicated to the people their potentialities.
‘Everyone Articulate’
For the ideal of the Community Arts Association as a whole (in which memberships once reached 1800) was “for every person to become articulate in his chosen field,” [sic]
The records of the Community Arts Music Branch show that it reached the local public most effectively through its scholarships, granted to more than 100 students between the years 1923 and 1929; and through its Summer band concerts, for several seasons in the late ‘20’s. Through the generosity of Maj. Max C. Fleischmann via the Santa Barbara Foundation, a 25-piece brass band sponsored by the Branch played around 48 concerts in Plaza del Mar and Alameda Plaza to audiences averaging 2500.
But over and above these were ventures that put Santa Barbara in a national cultural spotlight, ventures climaxed in 1927 and 1928 by a daring invitation to the Persinger String Quartet of San Francisco to come here for two years’ residence.
Under the inspiration of the late Ethel Roe Eichheim, wife of the noted composer Henry Eichheim, the Music Branch raised $50,000 and kept the quartet here during eight months each of those two fabulous years, arranging one transcontinental tour for it and booking engagements for it in leading concert halls of Eastern and Canadian cities during the four months when it was not “in residence.”
Played for Children
While the Quartet was here, it was at the beck and call of the Branch. It played to bumptious junior audiences in public schools as well as to sedate listeners at Lobero Theater and exclusive music lovers in the lush drawing rooms of the ‘20’s. Then were the days of unthreatened fortunes, when the late David Gray, for instance, once bought out the entire Lobero and gave tickets free to first-comers to hear Negro tenor, Roland Hayes.
In the Branch report for 1924-25 appears a quotation from Beulah A. Ratliff in “The Survey”:
“The impulse to substitute beauty for mediocrity does not leap full-fledged from the civic consciousness of a small American city. The group recognition of art as a vital force in life and the ability to work together for beauty as well as for ‘business as usual’ is due to the fact that for several years the artistic interests of the city (Santa Barbara) have been drawn together and given opportunity for experiment and growth through the Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara.”
Orchestra Personnel
To go back to the March afternoon in 1921. The program labeled “First Community Arts Concert” gives the orchestra personnel as: 1st violins, Anthony van derVoort [sic: der Voort], Anne Waldron, Florence Hooper, Sadie Carlston; 2nd violins, Helene Portune, Mr. Mozart (no given name), Thomas Manicini; violas, Caro Clerbois, Mr. Bartlett (no given name); celli, Harry Kaplun, Roscoe Lyans; piano, Grace Kaplun. Lester Donohue, still a prominent pianist on the Coast, was the soloist.
Elma C. Levy (Mrs. Michel A. Levy), writing in the ‘30’s about the Community Arts Association, observed: “In this day of radio and sound pictures it may be difficult to conceive of a community of 25,000 people, such as this was, devoid of opportunity to hear any kind of music, except those privileged to attend the series of fine artists brought here by (the late) Mrs. C. E. Herbert, or an occasional band concert during the Summer season…”
16 Sunday Concerts
Poring over old programs and Branch reports, we learned that the Orchestra under Roger Clerbois conducted 16 Sunday afternoon concerts a year at Recreation Center. Three-fourths of the musicians used were professional, one-fourth talented amateurs and advanced students. They were heard by a total of 10,500 persons in the four years of the Orchestra’s existence – an average 1600 to a concert. Seats ranged in price from 25 cents to $1.25.
As there is a new community orchestra today, it may be interesting to learn about “salaries” in the old days. A professional musician was paid $7.00 per concert, $1.00 for each rehearsal except one, which he attended without pay. The director was paid double that amount. Two students received $5.00 each concert, no pay for rehearsals. Several non-professionals donated their services. A soloist received $25.
Reports of the Music Branch referred constantly to the “educational value of the carefully chosen program” and “the beauty and dignified spirit” prevailing at the concerts. “All this,” reported Mrs. Frederic S. Gould in 1924, after the 53rd concert, “we owe to our conductor, whose aims are of the highest, whose ability as a program-maker is very unusual and whose taste…has led him to give the very best of music.”
$6500 Subscribed
At the outset, Mrs. Herter secured 39 donors who subscribed $6500 in advance for the season with pledges for two years. “This,” records report, “was essential, for the low priced tickets only covered expenses to a very small extent, and one of Mrs. Herter’s objectives, indeed the principal one, was to furnish good music at small cost to the public. This object has been constantly kept in mind.” Tickets also were given away to school children, teachers, and student nurses.
In 1924, the Branch decided that a falling off of attendance and a deficit of some $600 at each concert accompanied by fewer donations made it necessary to discontinue the Orchestra. But such a storm of protest followed that pledges of funds poured in and Clerbois decided to continue the Orchestra under his own management, which he did for a number of years. He is still influential in the musical life of the City.
“An important result of this experiment,” a subsequent report stated, “was that the people learned that the Community Arts does not believe it must continue to support indefinitely every activity it originates and that in some instances it may prove best to make certain activities independent or turn them over to another organization well started.”
New fields of music entered by the Branch will be described in next Sunday’s article.
V.
Sunday,
February 2, 1947
Choral Music Flourished in Santa
Barbara
String Group Maintained ‘In
Residence’
The man engaged was Lyle R. Ring of Harvard, who arrived in October, 1923, and during a period of a year, conducted community singing in the public schools and at St. Vincent’s Orphanage.
Once a month between 200 and 300 children were herded into the gymnasium at Recreation Center, where as soon as Mr. Ring raised his baton they quieted down to convert their voices into united chorus work. Not only were they always ready for children’s programs, but the Spring festivals and other community celebrations could count on a trained group.
Choral Groups Formed
Mr. Ring also founded two choral societies, one of which was of Negro singers, among whom, according to old reports, he found excellent voices. He started a class in “music grammar” for the children whose instruction was paid for by the Music Branch scholarships. Mrs. Ralph Hoffmann (now in motion pictures as Gertrude Wesselhoeft Hoffmann) and Miss Mary Overman, now Mrs. John Kittrell, in connection with the choral work, were paid special tribute in Branch reports for their “whole-hearted cooperation.”
In the Summer of 1924 the Branch engaged Donald Francis Tovey of the University of Edinburgh for a series of concerts, a course of lectures and an interpretation class. Gradually, the program was deepening and becoming richer, building toward the halcyon days of the late ‘20s.
From 1923 to 1929, according to reports, more than 100 scholarships were granted. These were not confined to students of rare musical gifts. As the reports to the Carnegie Foundation explained (the Foundation was the “angel” paying the Association $25,000 annually to help carry on its interesting work):
“The majority of the people accepted as scholarship students are not expected to become important musicians, but through their ardent desire to study, the Music Branch wishes to give them means of making possible the happiness and solace that self-expression in music brings in the lives of those it touches.”
One of the scholarships granted was to the music supervisor in the Public Schools, who was sent to the Surrette Music School Summer session.
Arthur Bliss Engaged
In August, 1924, Arthur Bliss of London arrived from across the Atlantic to become Director of Music for the Community Arts Association of this little city on the edge of the Pacific. One of the distinguished contemporary composers, Mr. Bliss, a pupil of Vaughan Williams, has been especially commended for his independence in combining instruments and voices. “Morning Heroes,” a choral-orchestral work, is an example.
At the time of his coming, Mr. Bliss was professor of conducting and composition at the Royal College of Music in London. After his arrival, seven of the City Schools voted to have children’s choruses. Mr. Bliss conducted each chorus once every two weeks. Principals reported at once that school morale had improved; the intangible results of building fine music into the every-day life of the community through its children were less easily computed. An adult choral group founded by Mr. Bliss later became the Choral Union with Harold Gregson as director. Mr. Bliss also lectured in preparation for the Philharmonic concerts.
Mrs. Eichheim Active
It was in 1926 that the Music Branch expanded into its finest flowering. A newcomer, the late Ethel Roe Eichheim, wife of the late Henry Eichheim, violinist-composer, and long a musical benefactor in Santa Barbara, had taken over the chairmanship.
“She had,” Branch members recall, “a lovely quality of getting along with people, and brought the community together.”
She inspired the undertaking of a program far more ambitious than had hither to be essayed. The Branch now assumed the work of the Civic Music Committee, which for six years previous to that time had presented orchestral symphony concerts of the first rank, as well as recitals by the leading quartets and soloists. It scheduled three concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Granada Theater, seating 1600 persons.
The Branch further assumed the functions of the Artists Series Committee and that year contracted with Gabrilowitsch, Ponselle, Kindler, Schipa and Zimbalist.
Quartet Invited
It raised $50,000 and dispatched an invitation to the Persinger String Quartet of San Francisco to make Santa Barbara its residence for two years.
Almost to its astonishment the quartet came, and the Branch booked the four noted musicians out of here for tours and engagements in the East during the months it was not “in residence.” Under Community Arts management what was said to be the only transcontinental tour by a quartet ever to make money was booked. Santa Barbara leaped into national musical prominence.
To cope with this program, the Branch reported to the Carnegie Foundation, the Community Arts Association secured the services of a manager, George W. MacLellan. A guarantee fund was subscribed to cover any possible deficit in maintaining the ambitious program.
The quartet members were: Louis Persinger, Louis Ford, Nathan Firestone and Walter Ferner. An average of 600 persons attended their concerts; sometimes only standing room was left at Lobero Theater.
Daily Events
To scan the old Community Arts Calendars, issued regularly, is to find evidence that something was doing every day. The calendar for January, 1928, for instance, lists a Planting Committee exhibition of flower paintings by Edna Ellis Baylor; four concerts by the Persinger String Quartet; an exhibition at the School of the Arts of students’ work; a concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, George Scheevoigt [sic: Schnéevoigt] directing; a play, “The Last of Mrs. Cheney” presented by the Drama Branch, for four performances; a concert by Walter Gieseking.
It would be impossible to speak of every individual who contributed to the success of the Community Arts Association. Among Music Branch directors who served from the beginning and still are active are Mrs. Carrie S. Price, Miss Florence Fernald, Mrs. Henry J. Profant and Miss Mabel C. Washburn. Mrs. John A. Jameson was an early director. Robert Easton and Mrs. August Magnus have been board members for many years.
When George MacLellan left the organization in 1933, Mrs. John A. Berger took over the management of the Branch and is still its secretary.
Branches Separate
At the expiration of the Carnegie Grant in 1930, the Association found itself in financial difficulty and it was necessary for the Drama Branch to withdraw in order to save its property. The School of the Arts disintegrated. This left the Music and Plans and Planting Branches as the only departments under the organization of the Association. The Music Branch separated itself in order that Miss Pearl Chase and the Plans and Planting Branch could keep the name and carry on as much of the activities of the old Community Arts as she wished to.
The Music Branch reincorporated as the Community Arts Music Association, Inc. Today its only activity is to bring the annual Winter concerts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra here. It has hopes, however, of one day adding the San Francisco Orchestra and the San Francisco Opera to its musical offerings.
VI.
Sunday,
February 9, 1947
Santa Barbara’s Community Arts
School Had Widespread Influence
In Walt Disney’s studio the bright young men include Ward Kimball, Campbell Grant and Ernest Nordli (Nordli is recently in New York taking a refresher in illustration), who were star pupils of the School of the Arts, one of the parent branches of the Association. Richmond I. Kelsey, who went from student status to faculty standing at the School, later also joined the Disney staff. Among other graduates who are well known Southern California artists are Joseph Knowles, Paul Julian and Channing Peake.
National Influence Seen
At one time during his directorship Frank Morley Fletcher (now in Ojai) had the vision that, because of Santa Barbara’s desirable setting, the School might “be national in influence, doing for American art what the Institute of Technology in Pasadena is doing for American science and engineering.”
That was even before the school had a permanent home. The full dream was never realized, but in terms of the enrichment of life the School paid big dividends. Many a pupil received his first opportunity for instruction there.
Today, as the Community Institute (bought and remodeled by Mrs. Max Schott and presented to the Public Schools District) it is keeping the faith to a degree in adult education, University extension and junior college classes, which include the fine arts.
The dream was born simultaneously with the awakening of interest in the drama and community music here just after World War I. A group under the direction of the late Fernand Lungren, the late Marian Craig Wentworth and Arthur Farwell, who was then leading a community chorus, purchased the old Dominguez Adobe at the corner of Santa Barbara and Carrillo Streets.
Festival School
Under its mellow tile roof what was known as the Festival School of the Arts opened classes in drama, music, dancing, French and the graphic and applied arts, and a little gallery for exhibits. Many of the teachers gave their time and turned their salaries into a scholarship fund. Mrs. Wentworth headed drama; Arthur Farwell, music and Albert Herter taught the life class. Some 200 students were enrolled immediately.
When Mr. Fletcher came from Edinburgh to be director, the adobe was outgrown, and the School, now allied with the Community Arts Association and receiving its share of the Carnegie Grant, took over an old church on Ortega Street. The committee dug in and worked as gardeners, painters and even janitors to convert it into a usable school.
Then the earthquake struck and down went not only the former church but also the original adobe. The property at the corner of Santa Barbara and Canon Perdido Streets was bought and plans were drawn for erecting permanent buildings a unit at a time, the total expenditure estimated at about $225,000.
New Buildings Added
In the Summer of 1925 the School took refuge at the Roosevelt School but by September the cottages on its new property had been remodeled enough to be used, and during the Fall term two new structures were built to accommodate art classes, drama and dancing groups.
In the Spring of 1925, according to old records, a total of 273 persons were enrolled in the School. Of these 200 “were people of real talent in moderate or less than moderate means.” The remainder “were people of leisure who could study elsewhere if desired.” A report on the year 1924-1925 said the number of children and adults was about equal.
That year an average of 24 scholarships was maintained: 14 were for music pupils; six for the graphic arts and four for drama.
It was possible to study at the School any of the graphic, decorative or plastic arts; the fundamentals of pantomime; speaking and singing voice; diction and stagecraft; harmony; violin; ensemble and choral work; expressive and social dancing; or French. Individual lessons could be had in voice, piano, violin, pipe organ, ‘cello, harp, mandolin, guitar, harmony, dancing, or French; and new courses were added in architecture, (Atelier of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design), sculpture, modeling and casting and ballet.
Faculty Members
In addition to Mr. Fletcher, the faculty at this time was composed of Charles Paine, British artist, teaching design; Arthur Bliss, supervising and assisting in music; John Frederic Murphy, architecture; Mme. Maria Kedrina, ballet, and Marshall Lakey, sculpture. Mr. Lungren was chairman of the committee in charge of the School; and Jeanne Auge, executive secretary. At one time Mr. and Mrs. James Bodrero taught design; the late Edward Borein, etching, and Archibald Dawson of Scotland, modeling and bronze casting.
Among later faculty members were Miss Mary Welleshoeft, drawing; Esther I. Julian, children’s classes, and Amory Simons, sculpture.
In October of 1928 the School was separately incorporated “to permit of more specialized operation by technicians more closely in touch with the varied problems involved in its growth and expansion,” although the control remained vested in the Community Arts Association.
Policy Differences
There are notes in the reports which hint of periodical differences of opinion as to policy in all the Branches. Before 1928 the policy of the School had changed. “The earlier conception of all the allied arts was forgotten,” and only the graphic and plastic arts were taught. The year 1928-29 is mentioned as “the most successful” in the School’s history. An exchange scholarship was arranged by which a student of block-printing came from the University of Mexico to study here, while a student of sculpture from Santa Barbara was sent to Mexico.
Through the loss of the Carnegie Grant, the arrival of the depression and some inside difficulties, the Community Arts Association lost the School. Fletcher left, but after 1929 an attempt was made to retain enough of the physical property to start all over again without the previous heavy overhead. John A. Berger became executive-secretary. Albert Herter took over as director briefly, to be succeeded by Belmore Browne, who kept the school functioning for three additional years. John M. Gamble was the last chairman.
Loss to Community
What a loss it was to the community to have the School fold up is indicated in a letter from the late Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation to the Rosenwald Foundation, in 1932.
Of the Branches, Dr. Pritchett wrote, “The Art School is in my judgment one of the most important and effective. Under great difficulties it has brought together a group of teachers and has attracted students from all classes of the population. Among them some of the most promising have been children of Mexican parents who have become American as a consequence of the transfer of California from Mexico to the United States. The school today is in my opinion an extremely successful and valuable agency. I have no doubt that if given time it will acquire the support in the community which will enable it to maintain a permanent stand.”
VII.
Sunday,
February 16, 1947
Plans, Planting Branch Fought
‘Cupola War’
This last article on the Community Arts Association, dealing, as it will, with the Plans and Planting Branch, and how under its guidance Santa Barbara “leapt at the throat of the cupola era”, should spur on a “leap” on bad modernistic [sic] that is threatening to engulf American towns – including Santa Barbara – this moment.
In reading over old Community Arts files and the glowing press Santa Barbara received from ocean to ocean for its effort toward beauty and uniformity, one finds it hard to believe that the aura of the Golden Age could so have waned that contemporary residents are found inflicting and permitting outside interests to inflict, architectural monstrosities in the name of modernism on State Street.
Public opinion was once so thoroughly aroused against banality here that newspaper comment of the ‘20’s was found granting that certain architectural and business practices might be all right for other streets in other towns, “but this is Estado.” Because this community feeling has disintegrated, it may be providential that, if any one of the four Community Arts Branches was destined to survive, as such, it should be the Plans and Planting.
The efforts of this Branch have always been largely educational. Artists and art patrons will always be found to keep the cultural hearth fires burning, but only an aroused community itself can save a town from its own degradation.
‘Santa Barbara Unique’
Irving F. Morrow, San Francisco architect, once wrote:
“Every little town is pathetically afraid someone may suspect that it is not New York. … Santa Barbara stands unique among American cities in that it cannot so much as boast of a major axis, and remains unashamed.”
He went on to observe that “it required insight and clear-headed purpose to turn a deaf ear to the arrogant pretensions of Beaux-Arts grandiloquence” even here.
When we speak of the educational work of the Plans and Planting Branch we refer to pamphlets of the ‘20’s, which dinned into the public such slogans as: “If you would have America beautiful, tell business to respect beauty.” “Buy your gas from the best-looking filling station and your food from the stand that is attractive, not ugly.”
The Branch fostered children’s gardens; a home garden campaign for adults; wildflower planting on vacant lots; the planting (in 1923-24) of 26 small yards with the assistance of Landscape Architects Morrison and deforest, and the cooperation of local nurserymen. It helped with flower shows, originated garden tours and extensive cooperation with the National Better Homes in America Campaign, which Herbert Hoover initiated at about that time. This cooperation included a competition for small house designs among pupils of the High School.
War on Ugliness
In July, 1926, Kenneth L. Roberts, writing an article in the Saturday Evening Post, on “California’s War on Ugliness”, declared: “Greatest of all the examples of California’s war…is found in the City of Santa Barbara…”
He continued: “The campaign to save the Missions spread up and down the state. The Community Arts Association came into existence in 1920 for the purpose of affording training and expression in drama and the allied arts. The members kept on rubbing the dust out of their eyes and watching a few more ancient adobes vanish before the heavy foot of progress. In 1921, the Community Arts Association started a music branch and watched the rise of a few more samples of cupola-era architecture. In 1922, the association started what is known as the Plans and Planting Branch, and the work of rescuing Santa Barbara from the engulfing fog of the cupola era was on in earnest.”
Came the Quake
He goes on to say – and truly: “The stage having thus been set, the Community Arts Association received unexpected assistance – assistance that would probably have been refused if it had been offered ahead of its arrival.” Mr. Roberts referred to the earthquake of 1925.
It was then the Plans and Planting got in its best educational licks. Bernhard Hoffmann, who was its chairman, took the lead in a move to rebuild the town “safely and beautifully.” Spurred on by the Branch, the city set up an Architectural Board of Review and a Community Drafting Room. J. E. White was elected Board chairman; William A. Edwards, the late George Washington Smith and the late Carleton M. Winslow, architect-members, and Mr. Hoffmann secretary. Plans for everything from laundries and round-houses to hotels and railroad offices, had to be approved by the Board. Sometimes that meant complete revision of a plan and a lusty protest followed. But cooperation was usually spontaneous.
Very modestly a Community Arts report to the Carnegie Foundation in 1925-26 observed: “The guidance in the rebuilding of Santa Barbara was very largely left to those who had worked and planned for its development along beautiful and appropriate lines and were ready to serve devotedly in the emergency.”
Mr. Hoffmann, who was also President of the entire Association, resigned in 1927 to devote all his time to the Board of Review. Miss Pearl Chase, to whom goes most of the credit for keeping the Branch intact today, became its chairman, and is still holding that post.
Better Homes Prizes
An example of typical Community Arts originality was the manner in which the Plans and Planting Branch added its own ideas to the local observance of the annual National Better Homes Week Campaign.
The Branch established a small house and garden competition of its own with cash awards – a plan immediately approved by the National Headquarters and later copied extensively throughout the country.
This resulted in Santa Barbara City and County receiving the highest national award 17 times, sometimes in urban, sometimes in city and county and other times in county divisions, the award being based on “the educational quality” of the Santa Barbara campaign, not merely on the excellence of the small house and garden designs.
Demonstration houses were “borrowed”, either furnished or unfurnished (in which latter case local merchants loaned furnishings for the week) and these were opened to the public during Better Homes Week with hostesses from various organizations in attendance in each room.
Last Contest in 1941
The 17 national cash prizes were used by the Branch for putting out photographs and printed descriptions to aid in future competitions. Last of these was held in 1941 through Purdue University where the Better Homes Headquarters is now housed.
One of the publications was a Book of Small House Designs edited by Edward F. Brown and Carleton M. Winslow. It contained 62 plans submitted in the National competition of 1923. Seven of these plans were sold for $35 each to local home builders by the Plan division, whose idea for a home planning service was extensively adopted throughout the country. The book also was widely circulated, in America and abroad.
Among those who have served as Branch sub-chairmen are: Plans committee, L. Deming Tilton, John Frederic Murphy, Chester Carjola, and Wallace Penfield; Planting committee, the late George S. Edwards, Mrs. Charles B. Raymond, the late Miss Sophie Baylor, Mrs. Thomas M. Dillingham, Frederick B. Kellam, Herbert F. Greene and Mrs. John F. Manning.
Weekly Garden Tours
Among activities of the Branch today are the weekly Garden Tours in season; a monthly free Garden Hour giving advice in planting and care of gardens; and a constant stream of educational material for city beautification. The Branch cooperates extensively in putting on the Fiesta and the Community Christmas. During the war it sponsored an organization known as Garden Hosts for entertainment of officers and their families stationed here.
Currently it is repeating history by throwing its weight with the new Architectural Board of Review, set up to preserve a uniform architecture on State Street. Mr. Murphy is representing the Branch in this important move to counteract a trend as bad as the cupola craze. •
Players Club a Hardy Perennial,
With 20 Years of Fun to Look Back Upon
By Verne Linderman
Most of the cultural movements in Santa Barbara have been sensitive plants which must be nursed into flower and watched over anxiously, with frequent replenishments of soil.
Not so the Players Club. Like a hardy geranium with fragrant leaf and bright blossom it has flourished through vicissitudes and has perennially proved that art need be neither self-conscious nor financially prohibitive.
Its sole purpose being to keep alive the tradition of community drama in Santa Barbara, every year it gives an amateur production which proves that successful plays can be put on here – and make money.
“Never too many, nor too good,” one of the old guard described the Players’ method, but Santa Barbarans have a way of remembering Players Club plays and turning out for them. Many are inclined to regard Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” 1941 Players Club offering, with Paul Whitney directing, as the best community play ever given at the Lobero Theater.
Born at Fish Market
The origin of the Players Club is all but lost in the dim past of 20 years ago. Some of the amateur actors who had appeared in the first Community Arts plays at the old Potter Theater met at a cioppino dinner or two at the old Larco fish market, where Reno Becchio, one of the community actors and a noted chef, entertained them in a large private room, into which the deep sea odors of the market did not penetrate too pungently. Over the savory cioppino, the conviction grew with Harrison Ryon, Paul Whitney, J. William MacLennan, Dr. Irving Wills, Scotty Hamilton and Reno that there should be some organization of local actors.
The upshot was a meeting at the Lobero Theater in 1929, when, so the old guard declared, there had been a succession of poor directors in charge of Community Arts Drama Branch plays. Among the protesting group present were Reno Becchio, Paul Whitney, Irving and Kate Wills, Beatrice and William Ashworth, Scotty Hamilton, Gertrude Wesselhoeft Hoffmann, (now in movies), the late Edith Wallis, the late Helen Hoit, the late George McConnel, Litti Paulding, Mary O. Steele, Dr. James Ware, Nienke and Otto Neidermuller, Doris Overman Howard and the late Anne Hathaway, who was one of the most devoted and self-sacrificing supporters the theater has ever known.
‘Dr. Knock’ a Hit
They decided to bring back Irving Pichel, who had previously directed a number of plays here, and to put on the Jules Romains plays, “Dr. Knock,” themselves. Pichel remained here several years as director of Community Arts plays, and “Dr. Knock,” staged in March, 1930, was so successful dramatically and financially that in succeeding years the Players twice repeated it.
At a meeting at Lobero Hotel (then Margaret Baylor Inn) Whitney was chosen president, but as his work as a future writer and drama critic on The Daily News prevented his taking the post, Ryon was elected and served three years.
The Players Club is said by its members to be the only mixed luncheon group in the country devoted to the theater. After the two organization meetings it began to hold weekly luncheons at Russel Smith’s restaurant, then in La Arcada Building. “Russel” looked upon the Players as such good customers that he gave them a room of their own upstairs. They hung the walls with autographed photographs of the distinguished guest speakers. Robert Bordeau, photographer member, made pictures of members in their best theatrical roles, and these also appeared on the walls. When Russel took over Restaurante del Paseo, the Players followed him there.
Lunch Every Thursday
Today they can be seen every Thursday lunching in the Red Room, usually with a top-notch speaker, occasionally with only the old guard on hand. Among the earliest members, aside from the founders, were Hazel Ryon, Leslie MacKinnon, the late Edwin Poffley, the late Clara E. Herbert, the late Maria Custis Pettingell, and Jane and Byron Abraham.
The original requirement to be a Player was participation, either as actor or production staff member, in a community play, experience elsewhere, or the equivalent thereof. The requirements have in subsequent years been somewhat relaxed, but still every member is theater-minded. Times come, and go – the Players Club continues. Tyrone Power was its most famous member; Dick Kern its youngest.
One of the secrets of the success of its productions has been a more or less voluntary system whereby 20 of the members underwrote each play by putting up $10 apiece. This small backlog always proved sufficient to insure its success financially. Formerly the club owned a notable collection of costumes, but gradually these have disappeared.
“The Players’ job,” one of the old guard recalled, “was never art for art’s sake, but the production of interesting plays at a profit for a good time in the doing.”
In addition to “Our Town” and “Dr. Knock,” plays they have produced include: “June Moon” with special music by Frank Greenough; “Gold in the Hills”; “The Trial of Mary Dugan”; “The Bellamy Trial” given in the Superior Court chambers of the County Courthouse; “The Night of January 16”; “Arsenic and Old Lace” (in 1943 after a lapse of two blackout years); “Double Door”; “Out Goes She” by Lily Broadhurst; “Mr. and Mrs. North” and “The Gates of Youth,” by Lily Broadhurst and Mildred Cram.
Many of these were directed by Ashworth. Mrs. Steele held the book; in all she has prompted 48 Lobero plays.
Lackawanna Riot
Time was, in the heydey [sic] of the prewar years, when the club staged four good parties a year, not counting the annual Christmas party for Santa Barbara children, which still goes on. The biggest riot was the Lackawanna party, given in the little School of the Arts Theater, now Alhecama. Paul Whitney wrote a skit, a burlesque of service clubs, for which Frank Greenough composed the music. Irving Pichel, now a noted Hollywood director, in short pants as a boys’ leader, gave a talk on “Boys” as one of the features.
At the suggestion of the late Fred D. Jackson, a Player and a Kiwanian, the skit was repeated for a Kiwanis Club convention here. It was not too well received.
Other parties were an “underseas” affair with everyone dressed in cellophane; and a Forty-niner party, for which the club rented the present Elks Club (then La Hacienda) and decorated it as a gambling joint, printing fake money.
There was even an offshoot Players breakfast club whose members called themselves “California Peasants.” They did a great deal of the planning for the main club and dreamed of taking native California dances to Europe. Hitler was coming to power, but it was safe enough to talk.
Father of Bennetts
Shy and all but unknown, Eugenie Leontovich addressed the Players in broken English when she came to do “Candlelight.” Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Genevieve Tobin, Martha Graham, Georgia Graham (Mrs. Winthrop Sargent), May Robson, Marie Dressler, Margaret Wicherly, Edith Oland are some of the noted speakers who have appeared at the luncheons. When Richard Bennett spoke, Harrison Ryon made the error of introducing him simply as “the father of Constance, Joan and Enid.” If there was a player who had not known who Richard Bennett was before, he did afterward.
Real life and the theater have always been closely allied with Players. Once, a patron in Montecito gave a party for the club after a play. She hired a butler for the occasion, and was amazed to see her guests shake hands with him as they entered. At first the Players were not aware he was a real life butler. They were simply greeting a fellow-member, Edwin Poffley, who usually took butler parts – and superbly.
When “The Bellamy Trial” was staged, Harrison Ryon, as foreman of the jury in the play, had already spent the entire day in the courtroom trying a real malpractice case. While the play was going on, the real life jury was meeting and called Ryon out to hear its verdict.
Players Club presidents have been: Bernie Marcus, 1932 and 1933; Mrs. Byron Abraham, 1934 and 1935; Frank Crane, 1936; William Ashworth, 1937 and 1938; Harrison Ryon, 1939; Byron Abraham, 1940 and 1941; Monroe Langlo, 1942, his term finished by Mrs. Abraham when he went to war; the late Dr. William Mason Danner, 1943; Mrs. Mary O. Steele, 1944; Hugh Weldon, 1945; and Mrs. Atwell Westwick, 1946-47. • |
