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Long winters in North Dakota--
what we need here is theater.
[orchestra plays lightly and brightly]
The great thing about the theater is, if you get involved,
that passion is always there, and that passion never dies.
Look at her Papa, she's right there.
Fargo is known for many things and I think
in the right circles it's, LCT is one of them.
The Little Country Theatre has existed for a hundred years.
How many things do we have at any institution
that have really lasted that long?
♫
(woman) Production funding for this program is provided by
the North Dakota State University Division of Performing Arts,
NDSU Development Foundation Centennial Endowment,
Major General Schroeder and Jean Schroeder,
and by the members of Prairie Public.
(Tom Isern) I think it's particularly important
to understand how Alfred Arvold fits in
as an exemplar of the institution
of which he was a part here,
North Dakota Agricultural College.
It's a land-grant college and called in those days
an agricultural college too, but of course,
a land-grant college is never just about agriculture,
although that's an important primary mission,
it also was about better living, particularly country living.
Alfred Arvold then believed that he had a personal mission
as part of the institutional mission to make life better
at the grassroots in North Dakota.
And being a theater guy, that meant theater, we needed
to have theater everywhere, across the northern plains.
And we needed people who would learn theater
here at North Dakota Agricultural College,
so they could go out and do it
and spread gospel across the countryside.
It was started as a part of the little theater movement
across the whole country.
The official formation was in February of 1914,
on Lincoln's, Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
He had an attachment to Lincoln that I think that,
that drove many of the date selections
in terms of things that he did.
There were only a few little country theaters like NDSU
when it first started, and it was, you know,
it was a showcase for bringing theater to communities
and these small units in rural areas.
(Don Larew) Alfred G. Arvold came
to the NDAC campus in 1907,
he got his degree in 1905 from the University of Wisconsin,
and he was hired in the area of oratory
in the English Department,
and he was also hired to handle
all public programming for the University,
so that meant graduations.
And he was also
really responsible for recruiting,
bringing recognition to the University.
And he was known everywhere;
I have in my scrapbook
a little map of the countries that were affected
by The Little Country Theatre.
He was very outgoing, he had very big ideas,
didn't worry about details as I understand,
I mean, it was more the big concept.
Again, he came from Wisconsin, the idea of circuses
and that kind of largeness, I think was part of his activity.
He had this dream of planting lilacs
all the way to Grand Forks,
and he wanted the University to come to Hillsboro in this way
and we would go to Hillsboro,
and there'd be this whole row of lilacs.
So every spring we'd have Lilac Days, Lilac Queen,
and queen, princesses, and we would go and stop at the towns
between here and Hillsboro and put on skits, music things.
Well, we just had a wonderful time.
And I think the townspeople liked it too,
and we planted the lilacs, but they didn't ever seem to grow;
we seemed to plant them every year.
(Don Larew) Then he also went out
around the state with the Student Life Train.
It went to Devil's Lake,
Minot, Bismarck,
and one of the other cities in the southern part of the state.
They did whistle-stops all along the way,
and they performed in these towns.
The band went, the theater went,
the home economics students did the food preparation,
the students ran the trains.
He was very much about taking theater to the people,
creating spectacles, pageants, you know,
one of his community projects was to turn El Zagal's area
into a bowl that could,
where he could stage major historical dramas
and he'd have thousands of people participating.
And he'd have horses and buggies and very much about making sure
that people in the rural environment had opportunities
to appreciate cultural things.
When they did the historical pageants initially in North Dakota,
it was a part of the acculturation for preparing
the new immigrants to learn about American history.
And they would do these things on the 4th of July
or they would do them where they would be a huge event,
and there would be thousands of people,
like 30,000 people would come,
everybody would come and watch this.
It was about participation, and that was the good feelings
that you got when you were in a theater production,
and they often would say, we weren't very talented, we
weren't very good, but he made us feel so good about doing it,
because we did the best we could.
He was truly embracing what a land-grant college does.
It has research, and it has education,
but it has the outreach, and he established outreach.
And so he felt that the lending library, for example,
that he had created, could help all these little tiny towns,
coming from this Little Country Theatre.
It started with scripts
that Alfred Arvold had brought with him
from Wisconsin when he came to North Dakota.
And he got a letter from a teacher who said do you have
some plays that we might think about doing out here?
And so he sent her some scripts, and apparently,
that teacher talked to another teacher,
and so he started getting these letters from people
in communities who wanted him to share with them,
so he started collecting more,
and so he had a whole big library
of 1-act plays, 3-act plays, skits, things that could
be performed by the common person without a lot of staging.
But there were also, from what I understand,
there were also how-to type packages, how-to do makeup,
how-to build a flat, how-to do the different kinds of things
that would be a part of these programs.
The physical space up in Old Main
was called The Little Country Theatre,
but it was also a program that included the lending library,
the package library and the outreach programs,
and the idea of community centers.
Initially they did performances downtown in the opera house,
because really, what they had in Old Main here was a chapel,
and eventually that's converted into a theater, but initially
it was not really considered to be a performing space.
And so then that was eventually converted
at the time of The Little Country Theatre's founding,
converted into that, into that performance space.
(Beverly Blanich) Small theater, beautiful little theater,
I think it seated 350 people
and it was, the stage was small.
Oh they had beautiful stained-glass windows
depicting scenes from Shakespeare.
Well, initially it was an empty attic space.
Back in 1916, they turned it
into what they called The Hayloft,
which I think they just simply put in a floor,
it was still cold up here so it couldn't be used
in other seasons, but they wanted to use it.
In 1923 then, they decided to convert it actually
into what they now call The Lincoln Log Cabin
or The Lincoln Cabin.
So those people that came in like for the lyceum,
they would have them here, host them
at dinners beforehand or perhaps afterwards.
They used it as a place to build scenery.
Above this level is where they had the costume shop
and the property shop, so it was a very functional,
very functional space as well.
The Lyceum Series was started in 1910
as a citizens lecture course
and continues in a much different way now,
but 100 years later, it brought
some of the most outstanding artists to this area.
(Beverly Blanich) That was a highlight, of course,
The Little Country Theatre,
the sponsorship from all these wonderful artists coming
to little old Fargo, you know, on the prairie, so to speak.
(Steve Stark) Because he had so many other contacts
from other, other adventures
of his around the country
and then being very involved with,
as a Freemason and the Shriners,
he had made contacts in show business all over the world.
And so he had virtually every famous name
that was appearing onstage coming
to North Dakota Agricultural College and performing,
everywhere from Elsa Lanchester
and Charles Laughton
and virtually everybody in between,
were all coming to NDAC.
(Janet Foss) The one I remember the most
for some reason was Harpo Marx.
Of course, he was such a riot in the show
and then afterwards very quiet and subdued... nice man.
(Beverly Blanich) The most interesting was
the Baroness von Trapp.
The whole family was there, and after the concert,
he always had the artist come up to the little log cabin
for, most of the time it was a turkey dinner.
Afterwards, the seven girls took care of all the dishes,
washing the dishes; [laughs] I was
a little embarrassed by that,
but they, they just all fit right in.
I think it's an incredible heritage
to think that this theater
was established at a time when there was
such an isolated sense of community, and people
were working, I think, very hard, I think, for,
and there was really no financial support to speak of
from the college for this theater.
And it was the box office
is what paid for the next production,
and so there was not initially, with Mr. Arvold,
there was not a financial support.
And so it was a creative way of, of doing theater,
I think, and again,
he was very committed in terms of, to bringing opportunities
for the communities to thrive and in an artistic way
and in a way that took away the drudgery.
Dr. Fred Walsh came in to take over the program,
and he perhaps more legitimized
the academic part of the program
and created the Department of Speech,
eventually Speech and Drama.
(Robert Littlefield) Fred was more of a,
you're cast and you play a role
that you're suited for, and you develop that character.
That was the, kind of the difference between
the early era, the Arvold Era, then what Fred Walsh brought.
So of course, there would be some,
that crossover between the two of them, was at times perhaps
a little uneasy because it was a whole different perspective
that Fred brought, and it took The Little Country Theatre
to a different place than it had been.
(Don Larew) He was interested in outdoor drama, which interestingly,
Mr. Arvold had that same interest as well.
During the time that Dr. Fred Walsh was here they,
they created the "Old Four Eyes,"
which is now the Medora Musical
out in the western part of the state.
There was a reporter, and she was trying to raise $20,000,
an amount like that, to do a production
and Fred said something like,
if you want to raise $20,000
to just do one production, why don't you raise $50,000
and create something that will last for a lifetime.
(Don Larew) He co-wrote in terms of that
and directed in terms of,
worked with that through the initial part of that.
I think that was outreach too;
it created opportunities for students in the theater program
and the speech program here to participate.
(Carol Olson Larson) It was
a gorgeous setting, I mean gorgeous.
I went out and performed in that for him
when I was Miss North Dakota.
They gave me a little bit thing that I could do
just to get me on the stage and to advertise it.
It was probably comparatively a pretty,
a pretty simple production back then.
(Martha Keeler Olsen) Fred Walsh created
The Prairie Stage and we would put together repertoire
of shows that were suitable for summer fare.
And he had built this marvelous tent.
He set up a tent that sat about 200 people,
and no elephants! [laughs]
It was a trial-- you'd go in the night before
and stake all the stakes, and the next morning
you'd get up about 4:00 in the morning, set the show,
and take a rest and come back and do a show at night.
So it was really out there,
really doing grassroots, in-the-field theater.
They generally performed about ten different towns
and they did eight performances in each town.
They did three productions; one would run three nights,
another one three nights, and then they had a children's show,
they'd run matinees in the thing,
so that was a real outreach for the University.
For them I think it was a recruiting program,
but at the same time, the public loved it!
They came in, they saw shows, they went out happy.
(Michael Olsen) The Prairie Stage really gave you an opportunity
to work in theater at every level.
We were the techies, we were the actors, we were the roustabouts,
we were everything and gave
a real appreciation and
a well-rounded experience in the theater.
It was in the fall of the year,
and there was a production of 1776.
And my wife Martha had the female lead.
She'd been recruited to come to NDSU by Fred Walsh.
I came and saw her in this production.
And I knew people in the show,
'cause I had graduated from here, so I went
backstage and I was going to sweep this woman off her feet!
And next to her was this really big
good-looking guy, maybe 6'2", whatever.
He had his arm around her, and it was very chummy
and I said, well the heck with that.
Later, when we were performing "The Fantasticks"
here in this building...
(Michael Olsen) She had the female lead in that
and, of course she was wonderful, sang like a bird,
gorgeous, all of those things, and I went well,
what the hay, I'm going backstage again,
'cause I knew people in that show as well.
He came backstage and...
There's no guy standing next to her.
So I go hm, well alright, I walk up to her,
I grab her hand, I look into her eyes
And he said, "I fell in love with you
when I saw you in '1776,'
and you've done nothing tonight to disappoint me."
And then he walked away. Oh he was oh so theatrical!
So thanks to Little Country Theatre, 36 years later
I'm happily married to the same wonderful woman I saw onstage.
(Martha Keeler Olsen) Fred was a guy who got things done.
Fred had a way of positioning himself
so that he could maximize
people, resources,
for the thing that he loved the most, and that was theater.
And he was this interesting mix
of theatrics, politics,
and um... and business.
He had a really solid business mind,
knew what he wanted to do
as far as running the theater was concerned.
That was his training in theater, so he knew that.
But he was a politician, and he was a really good politician,
and I don't know, maybe the only theater head in history
that was also interim athletic director.
And that doesn't happen very often.
And that was because he knew the system
and he knew how things worked, and when that job was open,
apparently the president of the University thought
well, he's our man for a while.
We know how great athletics are
and how revered they are at NDSU,
and I think from that, he was able to rub shoulders
with people who could benefit his cause
of improving the facilities
and raise the visibility of The Little Country Theatre.
In fact, the Askanase Hall we're sitting in right now
was very much a Fred Walsh contribution.
Dr. Walsh and the whole staff was so proud of Askanase Hall
and of course, you know, he had brought this and it was
the first building, of course, built on any college campus
by private funds, and so he didn't really care to show me
the old Little Country Theatre.
This was my Little Country Theatre.
When they moved to Askanase Hall,
they separated that name from the actual physical place,
so now we are just The Little Country Theatre
or LCT Productions, which includes
all of the different things that we do,
like the Musical Theatre Troupe
and The Newfangled Theatre Company.
And the To Be Determined our improv troupe
and we hope someday soon, a dance company.
In addition, we're still continuing
to bring in guest artists for residencies.
In the past couple of years we've had the opportunity
to have an Indian master dancer work for an entire semester
that ended in a production with our students
of "The Recognition of Sakuntala."
Another semester we brought in
kyogen master artist Tokuro Miyake,
and that ended in a production as well
of "Wokashi," an evening of one-act comedies.
We've had Andrew Lippa here for a semester;
he's a Broadway composer,
right now has "Big Fish" running on Broadway.
And he did master classes and performances with our students.
We've had numerous other guest directors and guest designers.
In my experience, love often survives distance
better than it does proximity.
(Janet Dickinson) It's a tough dream
to want to pursue the theater,
either in acting, directing, or in, you know, as a teacher.
So it's nice to know that the arts were really, from so long ago,
that they kept fueling the idea of cultivating the arts
for these people and for the Fargo-Moorehead area.
It's really, you know, it's a cornerstone of that twin city.
Just that the inflection should be happy.
(Anna Peiri) Some of the professors
that I've met through the years have absolutely inspired me.
Through Don Larew we've learned so much about Fred Walsh
and Alfred Arvold, and through those men
learning more about our heritage as a little theater.
It's so remarkable that this tiny college
in Fargo, North Dakota has such rich history.
Having a degree from North Dakota,
has really made me more marketable
in the theater opera world, 'cause people see that.
And so, that gets them interested
and reading the rest of the stuff on my resume.
Okay, so let's see, a little bit of the...
We have students that are out working as scene designers,
we have them working as scenic artists, painters.
We have actors that have worked in New York
and have done touring productions as well,
and we have a stage management training program,
we have a couple really fine students that are working
in that field in terms of the moment.
So I think there's
of opportunities for the students.
It was a really good comprehensive experience.
You know, I have a lot of friends here
who work in my particular industry of scenic art
that come from a variety of backgrounds, but I find that
the people that come from programs like Little Country Theatre,
you get a very full understanding of production.
People need to be prepared to go out and create theater
wherever they land, that you're not, you can't just count on
being one part, but you have to be ready to fill in
with whatever's needed wherever you go.
And that was definitely the training, the heritage
at The Little Country Theatre, teaching people that
you can set up a theater in a barn, literally, if you need to.
At NDSU you get that experience of what it is to really be
an all-around theater professional,
not just an actor, not just a designer,
but a theater professional.
And this goes in between.
You will do everything from stage management to directing,
from designing to playing the leading role.
I'm not saying you'll, you'll fill all those positions,
but the opportunities are there.
If you work hard enough, you'll get 'em.
And my experiences at NDSU with Little Country Theatre are
something that are going to live with me until my dying days.
Seem natural, seem like you're actually having this conversation.
(David Boyd) There were great mentors, leaders, and there was
a high level of professionalism and intensity
that they instilled in all of us
because they all exhibited that the whole time we were there.
[singing vocal excercises]
Every instructor has the best interests of every student
in their mind, and everyone is constantly watching
the entire department to see where people can grow
and how to stretch different people.
[piano plays accompaniment]
♫
I had professors who would cast me in roles
that I didn't expect to be cast in,
so I had to stretch myself as a performer,
really try to heighten my sense of creativity
and my ability to perform in, in different circumstances.
So that was really an incredible experience.
Who are you? 'Cause I have a feeling I might know.
I said it doesn't matter.
Well, have you ever taken a life?
NDSU's program is very unique because it truly prepares you
for a life in professional theater.
So you learn about audition situations, you learn
about making it in New York, how to scrape together enough money
to pay your rent while still going on auditions every night.
John's waitin' on us, our boat leaves at noon.
(Anna Pieri) The nice thing is there are
so many successful NDSU alum in New York that you really have
this "Bison Nation," as we call it, already there,
a support system of these wonderful artists
that know where you're coming from.
They're so happy for you and so supportive.
It was a great springboard for me to go to New York,
and it was a great group of people and a great theater.
And they really did top quality work
and I just so appreciate that I had that opportunity.
There's nothing more important
in the lives of human beings
than the self-expression that comes from the creation of art.
Heaven's glory is sun!
I look forward to what is possible
for the theater students and the community
that experiences The Little Country Theatre
in the next century.
A happy 100th anniversary to Little Country Theatre.
Happy 100th birthday Little Country Theatre.
Happy birthday Little Country Theatre.
100 going strong, hope to see the second hundred.
Happy birthday Little Country Theatre.
Have a great time this year, and congratulations.
I wish a great 100th anniversary
to my alma mater here at NDSU and The Little Country Theatre.
Happy birthday Little Country Theatre,
wishing you many more years to come.
Cheers to The Little Country Theatre
on celebrating its centennial.
Happy birthday LCT, it's been a great hundred years,
hope you have a hundred or more. [laughs]
Happy 100th anniversary Little Country Theatre.
Happy 100th birthday Little Country Theatre.
Thanks for the memories and here's to many, many more.
Happy hundred years Little Country Theatre, I love ya'.
Happy anniversary Little Country Theatre,
a hundred great years of theater on the plains.
Happy 100th year anniversary
Little Country Theatre.
NDSU Little Country Theatre,
congratulations on your hundredth anniversary.
Have a happy, happy birthday.
Happy 100 years Little Country Theatre.
Happy 100th LCT.
From New York City, I'd like to wish you
a very happy 100th anniversary.
Happy 100 years! Muoaw!
(woman) To order a DVD copy of "The Little Country Theater,"
please call 1-800-359-6900
or visit our online store at prairiepublic.org.
Thank you.
(woman) Production funding for this program is provided by
the North Dakota State University Division of Performing Arts,
NDSU Development Foundation Centennial Endowment,
Major General Schroeder and Jean Schroeder,
and by the members of Prairie Public.