Footlights Theater Group remembers all the good old days
By SALLIE BARR PALMER
Article published on Wednesday, May 7, 2008  |
LARGO – Feel like seeing a play? Nowadays you can choose from so many options – Ruth Eckerd Hall, the Mahaffey Theater, the Largo Cultural Center, the Tampa Performing Arts Center, plus several dinner theaters.
Forty-five years ago, it was a different story. Theater lovers had to produce their own plays.
It was in 1962 that a group of local enthusiasts founded the Footlights Theater Group, a drama club that was to stage more than 40 productions over the next 20 years.
Many of the early members were Honeywell employees, among them Carla Kerns’ father, Harold Will, who took to the boards as an actor, while his wife, Kay, worked behind the scenes. As time went on, the group grew beyond Honeywell to include a wider community.
It was amateur theater, but many of the participants had previous professional experience in acting, singing, dancing, choreography, costume design and directing.
“I used to watch the shows,” said Kerns, “but I was too shy to go onstage.”
Today, however, Kerns, a Largo Public Library employee, is working to preserve the memory of those long-ago productions.
Some time ago, the library took possession of several boxes of memorabilia about Footlights. They sat in a storeroom in the old library for a long time. Kerns came across the collection, and because of her family’s association with the group, started to sort through the material when she had time.
The boxes had been stored in someone’s garage before ending up in the library and much of it was water damaged or mildewed. Kerns is culling what can be saved. Quite a lot was salvageable, but some photos and clippings were too damaged to even see what they were.
Space has already been allocated for the collection in the library’s local history section, where it will be available to library patrons.
Kerns is filing the material by production, with a folder for each play with programs, photos, newspaper announcements, posters and reviews – there’s even a signed letter from cartoonist Al Capp, congratulating the group on its production of “Lil Abner.”
Meanwhile, another box was recently discovered, said Kerns. The library has gotten donations of scrapbooks from several members, so that material has to be sorted and included.
Among those donations were memorabilia including original costume sketches from Peg Spetz, a talented costume designer who had studied art at Harrow Art College in England and came to the U.S. in 1948 as the “postwar bride” of her husband Glenn, who was also active in Footlights. Spetz delights in a treasure trove of memories about the group, including the jousting scene during a performance of “Camelot” when King Arthur’s tights split and she had to crawl onstage behind the chorus to mend them.
Kerns is not the only library employee with ties to Footlights. Casey McPhee, the library director, worked on sets when she was in high school, and Kerns’ colleague Doug Leary joined Footlights in 1974.
His first show was ‘My Fair Lady,’ Leary said.
“I worked backstage. I first went onstage in 1976.”
Of the 44 productions, all but one was a musical, he said. The group started out at Largo High School and then went on to a series of venues. Eventually, problems arose with increased rents, buildings being torn down or found to be unsound, he said.
The group finally disbanded in 1982.
“The first production opened on December 12, 1962 and the final one on December 12, 1982,” said Leary.
Anyone with memorabilia relating to Footlights is encouraged to contact Carla Kerns at 587-6748.
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Article published on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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