Interview with Georgia Ellinger, April 11, 1989

Interview with Georgia Ellinger (1990_122_29_ellinger)

Teka Ward: Today is April 11th, 1989, my name is Teka Ward. I am interviewing Georgia Ellinger. We are at 4019 Hycliff Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, and our topic is Actors Theatre of Louisville. As we begin, tell a little bit about yourself. Georgia Ellinger: About myself? TW: Yeah. GE: Well, the reason I got involved with Actors Theatre was due to Citizens Fidelity Bank, I was a woman's representative of the bank at that time. And someone came to me and said there's going to be a meeting, an organizational meeting, of people who are interested in the new theatre, which has started and is now moving into the train station. They had started, of course, in the old Egyptian Tea Room. And I don't remember whether we had gone to any of those performances, I don't think so, but I was interested in the theatre and as the bank's representative I decided to go. As I did many things, because it was always the woman who was--you know the men were not that interested in it. So I went to the organizational meeting and it was a meeting for a support group. That was the purpose of the meeting, to form a support group of primarily women, but I don't believe men were excluded, and I think we had over--probably, maybe 150 people, I'm just guessing, at this organizational meeting. And Julie Ballard, Edie Bingham, to name a few, were the instigators of this movement toward forming a women's support group. And that's how it started. And I left with the office of being Treasurer. TW: From that meeting? GE: From that meeting. I guess primarily because I was a banker. TW: Right. Well- But I do want you to say something- You were the first woman Vice President of Citizen's Fidelity. Maybe not at that time, but- GE: Not at that time. TW: But that's what you ended up- GE: Yeah, I ended up being the first women to be named a full Vice President. But at that time I was called Women's Representative, and I had started a new department, which was unique in the United States--there were only about fifteen banks at that time, at least that I could determine from women's bank movement--that were operating a Woman's Department, and they were interested in knowing what the women of the bank, or customers of the bank, wanted from the bank. And that was my purpose: getting out and talking to women's clubs. So it just fit right in with this organization because after I got involved in it I began to go out and make talks to women's groups, women's clubs. And it was a two-way street because it was representing the bank as well as representing the theatre. And then I branched out into the schools. Richard Block was the one who came up with that idea. He thought we really should try to get the schools interested in it, so I started going around to all the schools. And it was really kind of hard to get into them at that time, which was 1966. So- TW: You mean for the principals to let you come in and talk? GE: Yeah, because, you know, they just sort of had a- I guess a reserve about letting strangers come in. And, perhaps they weren't even too interested in a new theatre that was starting. But, anyway, I did worm my way into PTA organizations and got involved with talking with some of the women's groups in the schools, both high schools and elementary schools, and middle schools, and trying to get them to realize that this was a new organization that was pushing back the horizons of a lot of people who had never been exposed to theatre. Because the idea as Richard started it was to become not only a regional theatre but a repertory theatre, which I thought was great. TW: Do you remember the first time you went to Actors Theatre or any of the plays? GE: Oh, Yeah. We went to the very first play that was performed in the train station, and from then on we were subscribers. So we just missed that first season in the Egyptian Tea Room. But we went to all the others. In fact, we went to every play that was ever performed down there, even after we started the Adventure Theatre. And the Adventure Theatre I thought was just wonderful. It was more or less what later became the Off-Broadway Theatre, the Victor Jory. TW: I do have here that you were the Treasurer 1966 from the end of that meeting- GE: Couldn't get rid of it. Eleven years. TW: That's what I was going to ask you. Eleven years? GE: Eleven years. And I used to say to Sandy, how do you know that that money's all in the bank. He said, "I trust you, you're a banker." I said, "That's absolutely the reason why you shouldn't trust me." (Laughter) But it was there. And it was really an experience when we began to go into some of the various committees where we had, for instance, the Matinee Meals and I'd get all these little grocery tapes with this little item circled saying "this was for Actors Theatre, the rest are mine." And I couldn't get these women to give me a decent bill so I could file it away, so God knows whatever happened to all those tickets. TW: Since you were in at the beginning of Actors Associates, you probably helped decide what it was Actors Associates would do. GE: Yeah, we did. I made a few notes before you came today and I don't know that you have had this information, or whether you've incorporated it any of the interviews, but we actually began our women's organization as a really final group which came out of this organizational meeting that I mentioned where we had so many people. We had the few people who had indicated they would be officers and so we met on April 19, 1966, at Actors Theatre in the Train Station. And out of that meeting Sara McNeil was named President, Mrs. L.D. Panke, Jr. was Vice President, Mrs. Eugene Cissell was Recording Secretary, Mrs. J. Stuart Taylor was Corresponding Secretary, I was named Treasurer, and Julie Morton became our special advisor, since she was, really, the person in charge of organizing the original meeting. And so we- After the meeting we had talked about committees and set up the committees and then we decided that we would draw up our bylaws and bring them to the next meeting, which was to be in May. So out of that original meeting we designated Roanne Victor as House Committee, and under that came Backstage and Properties. Newsletter was also part of it and the bookstore, we were establishing a bookstore. And the Newsletter, incidentally became known as "The Caboose," which I thought was awfully cute. Then we had an Art Division, which- we talked about exhibiting art in the lobby, in the waiting room, and that came under Roanne's committee. Then also under Roanne's committee came entertainment which would cover opening nights and luncheons, we were going to have various luncheons throughout the year. And then we came up with another committee called The Subscription, and that was to be managed by Bryan Clark, who was our Business Manager, and Sara McNeill our President. Then the Bookstore, we decided we'd start a bookstore, and the idea was that we would, after the season's plays were selected, we would try to get copies of all those plays in paperback form and sell them. And so we did, and Wig MacKinnon, Mrs. Cyrus MacKinnon, was in charge of that. The theatre events came under Mrs. J. H. Wimsett, and then we began to talk about things which were more or less we were just throwing around for the ideas. First of all we wanted to, especially, get about 600 subscribers for the first season. And that was to be worked on by Sara McNeill and our women's group, in conjunction with Bryan Clark. That first season we did sell 245, our own group sold 245, and that was done primarily with cocktail parties and coffees where we would have different members get about six couples together and Bryan Clark and Dick --oh, my gosh, my mind just went blank--Dick um, Block would be there and talk to the couples. Then I went out to talk to the women's groups. And that was really an experience because the women's groups had all more or less set their programs for the year. See they do that usually in the previous Spring and this was the summer and we were trying to really reach them before the season started in September, or- I guess it was late September. So I really called a group of women's clubs and more or less got them to allow me- I said "If you'll just give me five minutes." Well that usually became a half an hour because they had questions, I took brochures along with us, and we talked to them about the advantages of being season subscribers as opposed to just buying individual tickets. And then I started going into the schools later on in the year. So, that was pretty much what we did as organizers of the group. TW: That is a lot! GE: We were busy. We were busy. But I tell you the truth, Richard Block was the kind of person who really did inspire you to do this. He was an unusual person, and of course as you know Dick worked with us until 1969, when he had his last performance. And the thing that I wanted to mention to you that I felt particularly interesting, when Richard had his last performance as director, in April of 1969, and he did "The Imaginary Invalid," by Moliere. And Sandy called me one day, Sandy Speer who was the, I think at that time--we called him business manager, I'm not real sure, but I think he'd advanced to Business Manager--he called me, said, "Georgia, I can get about fifty tickets for you for fifty cents a piece. Do you want 'em?" I said, "I'll take 'em." He said, "What are you going to do with them?" I said, "I don't know, I think we'll bring about fifty of these little kids from down in the inner city." They were for Saturday for a matinee. So, we did. I was working with a group down in the city, again as part of Citizen's Fidelity's outreach program. I was working with a group which we called the Park Hill Community Planning Council. And they were located at Thirteenth and Oak Street. And so I called Gail Brown who was the director of that, and I said, "I've got fifty tickets." So why don't you get about forty-two little kids, this is a bus load--and we had an old school bus that we used to take these kids around town to different things which we thought would interest them-- TW: We meaning Actors Theatre? GE: No, no, meaning Park Hill Community Planning Council. I was on their Executive Committee. So, Gail said, "Well, I'll get the children from one of the schools down here, and we had our chaperones and we loaded up the bus. Now I don't know that we were a total fifty, but we were pretty crowded. And we went down to the theatre. Now these children were predominately, I would say almost ninety-five Black children. And that was another thing. We were trying to involve the Black community in this theatre, even in the beginning trying to go to Black women's club groups, and get them to come into it. But we didn't get very much response. And Richard always you have to create your audience. You have to create your future audience by getting children involved. So we brought these children down and I'd say that almost none of them had ever seen a live play. Certainly no play put on with lights, and costumes, and if you remember the story of "The Imaginary Invalid" it's certainly not a children's play. But all these kids sat there absolutely entranced. And we didn't have a bit of problem with them as far as their demeanor was concerned, because they were just fascinated by the play. So when it was all over and we started to count noses we were minus two. So, we went back in, turned on all the lights in the theatre, looked under the seats, we thought a couple of them had gone to sleep somewhere. Couldn't find them, looked in the restrooms, looked in the halls, and in desperation we said, "We've got to get the rest of them back or their parents are going to be crazy wondering where they are." So we go back to--it's actually located at Thirteenth and Dumesnil. Now I don't know how your geography is of Louisville, but that is a lot of blocks from Actors Theatre when it was in the train station. So we got back to the center and there they were. They were waiting for us. And we said, "How did you get back?" "Oh, we found our way back." They just found their way back I guess by asking questions. They beat us back to the center. But those kids were absolutely entranced by that play. So that was one of the things that I felt- really one of the outstanding happenings during that period. I really do. And who knows, maybe some of those kids today are season subscribers. I hope they are. We don't have a lot of Black subscribers, and we have really tried. And that was Richard's- one of his ideals because he not only did some unusual plays, which offended some of the white community I guess, because one of them was "In White America," and that lost us a lot of subscribers. I know that for a fact because we used to call the people who didn't renew and I was one of the people who got some of the flack from some of the people who said that was one of the plays they did not like and they wouldn't come to see it. So that was kind of disappointing. But at the same time Richard kept trying by bringing good Black actors, and integrating them in part of the cast, so, you know, we really did try. So that's just one of the things. I've made some notes here. I know we'll never probably get to all of them. But, let's see, what have I got here now. Oh- so then, our subscription numbers really fell, from a peak of about--oh, I can't remember, you've probably got better figures than I have--but it seemed to me at one time they were close to five thousand, under Richard. And he always said he didn't want Actors Theatre to be an in-place to be. He wanted it to be the place that people wanted to be because it was good theatre. That was what interested me. So, when our subscriptions began to fall, then it was evident that the Board had to make some kind of decision. And they did. And in 1969, in June--I think it was in June--Jon Jory came in to Louisville. He'd already been approved by the Board and hired. And he came in one Saturday and he wanted to meet with a few of us who would particularly be able to fill him in on what was going on in the women's group, the volunteer group. So as I recall the people there- We met at the Old House Restaurant for lunch. Sandy Speer was one, Roanne Victor, Judy Miller, Betty Pots, who was at that time the President, and myself met. And I think we talked for about four hours. I'm sure it was four hours. And I was coming home and I thought, that was Victor Jory's son I was just with, and I didn't even think of Victor Jory. So that says something for Jon. And Jon made a remark, and I may not quote him verbatim, but as I recall he said, "I am the greatest and I want a chance to prove it." And I thought, I didn't even think of him saying that as an egotistical remark. You felt that he knew this, that he was great, and he could prove it. And he did. And his first show, as you probably know from the history, was "Under Milkwood," the Dylan Thomas. One of my very favorites. And Jon at that time, when he was talking to us at The Old House, really was- he said, "I'm picking your brains because I know that it's very important that we have a good volunteer group." And he was talking about some of the things that we had done and elaborating on some of the things that he planned to do, and one of the things that he mentioned was that he felt that the audiences should have a greater rapport with the performers. He was thinking of these little chats which he did bring into being later on. And then one of the things he wanted to do was to bring in entertainment in the subscribers' bar. We had a little subscribers' bar at that point. He mentioned the idea of the Adventure Theatre, which came into being under him. And he said it was very important that we arrange these talks with groups, in various homes and in organizations. And then he said we must reinvigorate the women's volunteers because we can't exist without it. And Judy Miller was our President that year, and then with Jon of course came Trish. One of the funny things I remember about Trish, as I remember, we just had a wonderful introduction to each other, became very very close friends. Trish said, "I'll never forget"--she told me this later--"I'll never forget till the day I die the day you picked me up at Actors Theatre." I had to get her out of the office. Her trunk was sitting in the middle of the office. She hadn't even had time to move into an apartment. Whenever she wanted a change of clothes she went into the office and took clothes out of the trunk that was still sitting there. She had come over on the QEII. And she said, "You picked me up in the office, you got me in your car, and my head at the end of the day was whirling. I think that you were so sold on Louisville that you were trying to tell me everything you knew about it in one afternoon." And we did, we rode all over Louisville and I talked to her about different things in Louisville. It was just really a fun fun experience. And of course Trish was a really ball of fire. She came in with all sorts of new ideas and just had a million of 'em. Any questions? TW: I do understand that she had just an enormous impact. GE: She did. She lived that theatre. As a matter of fact, in one interview that I remember she gave, she said it was her life. And I think at some point, after all those years, she realized that it was taking over her life, and she had to recapture it. And that's when she went back to England. And boy do we miss her. I miss her every day. But Trish came in with all these great ideas, and with our first meeting with her we came up with these various committees, and the care and feeding of actors is mine. I just felt that there was- Since I was involved in the bank in meeting newcomers as they came into Louisville I realized the importance of making these people welcome, and so I said, "Well, why don't we establish the committee and call it The Care and Feeding of Actors. Which we did. Then of course later we established Matinee Meals, and I'll tell you about that later. Bill and I did the first Matinee Meals. That was a story in itself. And then another one of our committees was Spread the Word. I love some of these committee names. And one was Rehearsal Helpers, the other was The Office Rescue League, The Props Women, their job was to assist the Property Manager with obtaining props, either from antique stores or flea markets, and so forth. And then the Le Boutique de Noel was in its second year that year, and that was to continue, and that was very successful. And then of course the Adventure Theatre committee. We had more needs when we started do- You know, go off in that direction, having more actors coming in for that, and possibly greater needs for the props and so forth. So that was pretty much initiating that first year when we had Jon and Trish heading up the team. But then- I think- This is something I always thought was a real fun thing. Trish, with her British background said--well, we always had been having some sort of a luncheon, or some activity in the Spring of the year--and so I think it was in 1970, our first Spring with us, I'm not real sure whether it was that year or the next year, but be that as it may we were going to have some kind of a celebration and Trish said, "Well, why don't we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday, it's in April." So we did, and whatever it was, 404th or 405th, whatever, we celebrated his birthday, and we decided we would do Bloody Marys and we were going to charge, oh- a quarter for them. And, we said, "Well, we'll just make it 2 shillings, that's pretty close to it." And then for lunch we'll go to H. Salt and get fish and chips. Are you familiar with H. Salt? TW: No. GE: Well, that was part of Kentucky Fried Chicken. And they had come to Louisville about that year, to establish their headquarters, here, after they'd been in Nashville, and they had bought a company called H. Salt Fish. It was a California company that was established a Brit. And the fish and chips came in- they were wrapped in a bag that looked like a newspaper, an English newspaper. So thought that just fit beautifully with Shakespeare's birthday party. So we had reservations for how many we needed and we went down to H. Salt and picked them up. And we had all these wonderful cheap Bloody Marys which Bill and I mixed up. Had them in gallon jugs, and at 25 cents, or two shillings a serving, you can imagine how those were really going over. And a lot of our little gals that I've always designated the "blue hairs and the golden oldies," socked 'em away that we had to put them in cabs to go home. It was a riot. And we had gallons left over, so we left those for the cast and for the office staff, and I don't know how much work got done around there, but Sandy said it was quite an experience. That was really great. So that was Shakespeare's birthday party. And, then we did the first Matinee meal. I definitely remember this. This was on April 24, 1971. See, we were part of Equity at this point, and because we were part of Equity the ruling said that you have to give the actors a meal when they go from a matinee performance to an evening performance. So Trish called me and she said, "Can you get this thing in motion?" And I said, "Sure, will." So Bill and I again decided we would do it. Because we were just feeling our way--we didn't know what this was going to entail. And if I remember it was a big cast, because the performance at that time was "Dracula," with George Ede. And so we said, "Well we'll do lasagna. That's easy to prepare and take down there." And we really didn't have any facilities for serving it. We set it up, I think, in the dressmaking room where they did costumes. And we did lasagna and put it in big glass rectangular containers, you know like the--I don't know what you call 'em--anyway, those pyrex containers, and we did monuments to go over the end of them, like with "Rest in Peace." And we had vegetarians, so we had to do some that were without meat, and some with the meat, and the menu was a tossed salad, which we prepared here at home, we did the lasagna, we did garlic Italian bread, and coffee and tea, and that was our part of it. And all of that to serve that whole cast cost sixteen dollars and thirty-seven cents. I think that's remarkable. Well, the prices in those days were a lot less anyway. And then for dessert, Lynn Siler, who was I think either our President at that time, or our Secretary, Lynn Siler has always been a great cook and she did these marvelous dessert lemon squares. So those were just wonderful. And I got a note from Trish thanking us for it and she said, "I remember that night they were doing a midnight performance," just because it was "Dracula" and they thought it would be fun to do it at midnight, and she said "the midnight performance really was a disaster, not from the standpoint of its performance, but for the happenings. Max Wright, who was playing at that time," --You know Max Wright, who's with "Alf" now? -- "he cut his face and he had to have six stitches, and Stanley" --and I can't remember who Stanley was but she just said, "Stanley cut his cheek and had to have three stitches, and George Ede sprained his ankle." That was really something. So, anyway that's the beginning of- We started to call the Matinee Meals, and I know you know how we work that now. Well, different- They always have to have a chairman, just for Matinee Meals, 'cause it's just gotten to be such a big thing, and they do reimburse whoever reimburse whoever furnishes the meat because things have gotten so expensive that it was really hard to get people to do this. And I became President in 1977, after eleven years as Treasurer, and when I was President that was one of the things that I really felt was essential, to really get changed, and that was to reimburse whoever did the meat, because we had so many young people who were doing this and they just could not afford it. It was too expensive. So that was one of the things that under my Presidency came into being. And as far as- I don't know, I think also we began to furnish the Apprentice Program. I don't remember the year that we started the Apprentice Program, but then when we started that we had to have a committee to take care of nothing but the Apprentices. And so, through all these years we've had just one committee after another come into being. When we had the Care and Feeding of Actors that also not only later became part- part of it became the Matinee Meals, but we had to help them with obtaining housing, short-term housing, and that was where I had a fairly good entre, because being in the Newcomers' Division, which my Women's group at Citizens had then become the Newcomers' Services for the bank, that's what we called it, and I had a lot of entre with a lot of apartment houses, and realtors and so forth, and so we had to get short-term housing for some of the actors who were coming here for a couple of months and then we also, as a group of women, started getting linens and pots and pans, and that was a problem too, because you get them together and we'd dish them out in boxes and they were supposed to bring them back, and sometimes they didn't bring them back. And it um- One- Another funny thing I remember of the care and feeding was taking them to the airports, or picking them up at airports. And after we had done "Getting Out," it was in the wintertime and we had a particularly icy winter that year, and Bill and I were to pick up, at the Mayflower, the girl who played the junior--I cannot remember the character even--I can see it now but I can't remember the name of the character--but the one who did the young girl in "Getting Out"--she had a cat, and so we had to pick her and her cat up to put her on the plane. And a couple of others were going back to New York. One gal I know when we went in the Mayflower to help her out to the car--and we had gone down there at six in the morning, and it was ice, just solid sheets of ice--and we went in and this one suitcase, I'm positive it was filled with bricks. It was so full. She was a great reader--I think they were all books. We picked her up, we picked this agene au, and I think we had two others in the car, but the little gal with the cat, the cat was in its cage and it poo-pooed, in the cage, and stunk up the whole car. It was a riot. We got them out to Standiford Field and got them on the plane and I think we both collapsed after that. They just barely made the plane. So those were some of the funny experiences. My mind's just full of them. I could go on for a month, really, thinking about some of them. Um- Course we moved into the new building, that was a big thing. Trying to think- Oh, under Lynn Siler, Lynn Siler was president in 1970, I think I'm getting the cart before the horse because we were already talking about 1971, but when Lynn Siler was president we established another committee called the Arty-Facts, not a-r-t-i, but a-r-t-y facts Committee.