Main Street – March 18, 1948

By Morris Rote-Rosen

A few columns ago, we mentioned the silent movie days at the Pember opera house. As a result we heard from several of our readers, asking for more such items, particularly about the road shows which made Granville their one night stop-over in the good old days of the show business. When special trains were run from Cambridge and from Whitehall and when Granville was known as one of the best show towns in Northern New York State.

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An Albany reader writes: "Your column is also enjoyed by 'outsiders' and the undersigned is always hoping that you will dig up some old road show records showing the 'One Night-Standers' that used to play the Pember Opera House. Since the movies actually drove this grand old style of entertainment from us, there are fewer and fewer records left to show what dramatic efforts regaled those of us about 30 years ago. Please don't pass up the opportunity to play up any news (out of the past) for your good column. (Signed) Howard Lake."

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Then we met Ray Brown who remembers the early days of the Pember opera house as a boy: "Let's have more such items of the old days of the Pember," says Ray. "I can remember some fine plays and the silent movies at the Pember many years ago." And Lester and Mildred Roberts recall the first days of the silent movies about which we wrote a few weeks ago and Lester wants more of them. While we are not going into a detailed history of the Pember opera house in our column, we will, from time to time, look behind the curtain of memory - and of the Pember theatre - and give it for the benefit of our readers.

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Many interesting items connected with the Pember opera house can be written covering the period of from 1901 when the theatre opened until it closed about 1930. The period covers an era of silent movies; high class Broadway shows; repertoire companies; minstrel shows; musical comedies and vaudeville; light, grand opera and many local talent plays. No community of the size of Granville during that period, was noted for such fine theatrical productions as were brought to the Pember theatre stage.

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"Way Down East" opened the Pember theatre in May 1901 and it was the beginning of a long line of plays and musical productions in which appeared such well known stars of the American stage as Denman Thompson, in "The Old Homestead," Neil Burgess in "The County Fair," Nance O'Neil and McKee Rankin in "Magda," James O'Neil in "The Count of Monte Cristo," Creston Clarke in "The Ragged Messenger," Lewis Morrison in "Faust," May Robson in "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," Thomas Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle" and many others.

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Among the musical shows were such leaders as "The Red Mill," "The Red Feather," "The Isle of Spice," "Bob White," "Buster Brown," "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," "The Spring Maid," "The Prince of Pilsen." "The Yama Yama Girl." High class light operas such as "Parsifal" and "The Messiah" also played at the Pember. And as for the top in minstrelsy, there were all the leaders in that group which this column will mention at some future time, as well as the many repertoire companies which played the Pember for week stands.

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Let's go back stage of the Pember opera house on the morning of a special train attraction. The stage had been "struck" the night before, the stage "drops" rolled and raised to the "flies." "Wings" stacked against the wall on the farther end of the stage. Braces and stage screws piled in another corner. The floor swept in readiness for the entrance of a special train, one night-stand show, with a car load of scenery and trunks, coming direct from a long run on Broadway, in New York.

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The troupe reaches Granville on the 10:12 morning train, from the south. The company played at the Harmanus Bleeker hall in Albany the night before. Performers come in through the stage door. They stop at the "Call Board," a paste board card, or sheet of paper, hanging above the gas jet on a post in the hall near the dressing rooms. The actors check the number of their dressing rooms they are assigned to. There are ten dressing rooms. One is a "Star" dressing room for the leading man or woman of the show. It is double the size of the others.

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The teams of Charlie Farrar, or "Mike" Baker, or Frank Kibling, drive up to the east side of the theatre and the opera house which had been dark and silent for a few days is now bustling with activity. Stage drops, wood wings, teasers, drapes, curtains, flood lights and trunks are unloaded from the hay racks below the theatre stage. Members of the show troupe direct the men with their trunks to their dressing rooms. Then the actors are taken to their over-night rooms assigned to them in the Munson House, the Central House and other rooming places in the village.

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Some of these shows called rehearsal for 2:30 o'clock that afternoon; others did not require rehearsals. We check the advance sale of tickets at the John G. Williams drug store in the Pember opera house block. Few seats are left, the best ones are sold, or reserved. Many of them have been sold in Whitehall, Fair Haven, Castleton and Poultney. Others were sent for the advance sale to Cambridge, Shushan, Salem, Rupert and West Pawlet. There are several tickets reserved for Granville theatre parties. Always for the same group.

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At 6:30 in the evening the stage crew, under the direction of the company's stage manager, is setting the stage. Men up in the "flies" pulling and tugging on "borders" and "teasers." Heavy curtains are hung, wings are set and the first scene is ready. The electrician has his flood light cables laid. All must be in readiness for the curtain to be raised at 8:20. The orchestra, except in minstrel shows, is made up of local talent. Florence Ott, at the piano, Phil Bremer of Rutland, violin, sometimes assisted by that young violinist, Louis Blossom; Frank B. Allen is cornetist; Harry Culver clarinet; Frank Stoddard, trombone, and others.

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At 7:15 we pick up the advance sale tickets from the drug store. We open the box office at 7:30. Only a few seats remain to be placed on sale, most reservations having been made as far as two weeks, or ten days, in advance. The special trains arrive about 7:30 and there is a rushing crowd in line. In a few minutes the remaining seats are sold and we place an "SRO" sign (standing room only) in the box office window. "Tom" Boyle gives us a nod and we go back stage to tell them to "ring in." The footlights are flashed as a signal for the orchestra. Exactly at 8:20 the curtain is up.