The Old Brewery Theatre

When I was a senior in high school, at Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia, California, I was very involved in a lot of things including drama.  Our Thespian troup was invited to take one of the eight one-act plays to the National Thespian Convention in Bloomington, Indiana.  We took one act of Blythe Spirit.  When we presented our play, Doris Marshall, who was the founder and director of the Old Brewery Theatre saw me and invited me to come to her theatre in Helena, Montana, when I graduated.  Well, I graduated in 1957 so that must have been my first summer in Helena.  I was there for three summers.  First as a kind of intern, although I got some pretty nice roles and during the third year I was listed as a lead actor.  We lived and had our meals in the Old Brewery on the third floor.  The costume department was also on the third floor.  The second floor had an apartment where visiting directors stayed ans well as a very, large prop room.  On the first floor was the theatre.  I think the theatre probably sat about 150.  Also on the first floor was the shop and store place of shop materials.  We literally worked night and day.  We did five regular broadway shows.  (Not musicals.)  They ran for two weeks.  They opened on a Monday night and closed on a Friday.  Then, literally night and day for the weekend, we worked striking the set and building the new one.  But, that wasn't all.  In the midst of all that we presented an old fashioned Melodrama and Variety show on Saturday night.  I have no idea how we did it.  We of course got paid very little above our room and board.  I had an extra job.  I think it was on weekends mostly, but I'm not sure.  I put on my cowboy clothes and drive the tour train, a jeep built over to look like a train (My brain has gone dead.  What do you call the train car at the front of the train with engines?)  . . . well, this jeep actually had steel built oved and around it to looke like a locomotive.  Then, there were cars behind where the tourists rode.  I had a microphone which carried my voice back to the people and I narrated the trip around Helena.  The stops that I remember were the capital, The Charley Russell Museum, and a stop at the Theatre where the tourists could pan for gold.  (A little gold was actually put in each pan when they panned.)
Anyway, it was a wonderful experience for me.  It was one of those places where, in my youth, I worked with abondon, with no concern for my body.  I think part of my knee problems can be attributed to my work here.  I could go on, so I will for just a minute.  The main street of Helena is called Last Chance Gulch.  It is a crooked street and I recall that about every block the street angled the other way.  It was said that the reason for this was so that when there waa a gunfight on one part of the street, the bullet could not hit anybody else on the street because of the angles.  That's enough.  There is more, but I'll save that for another time.  I did want to say that I only showed the cover of this kind of playbill for the Theatre.  There are fascinating articles on the inside as well as pictures of the participants, including me.