“Pack up the Luggage, La, La, La. Unpack the luggage, la, la, la. Pack up the luggage, la, la, la. Hi, ho, the glamorous life!”
I was on the road again! The “glamorous life” aspect was debatable. While driving to St. Louis for the United States Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT) convention during March 2017, my favorite musical selections were all from “A Little Night Music.” This trip was another escape from the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center fiasco. Seeing the now irreparably damaged drops at the Ives theater urged me to try and save other collections since the fate of the Fort Scott scenery was no longer in my hands. I could now focus on the future of other collections.
Several months prior to my departure, I had contacted the executive secretary of the St. Louis Valley to schedule an appointment. Visiting a Scottish Rite theater while attending USITT had become my standard practice. It all started in 2009 when USITT was held in Cincinnati, Ohio. I had visited the Scottish Rite and York Rite theaters that were just down the street from the convention center to finish some research for my dissertation. That year, one of my return trips to the Scottish Rite theater I even included Bob Moody. He was the scenic artist responsible for this third generation of Scottish Masonic scenery in the building. When the scenery was painted, he had been in the employ of Volland Studio and was testing his newly acquired scenic art skills. He chuckled as he looked back at his early work. There was a lot of spatter everywhere!
When the conference returned to Cincinnati in 2015, I took another visitor to the Scottish Rite theater -Rick Boychuk. We ascended high above the stage and looked at the rigging installation in detail. This system also had an identification tag as in Winona, Minnesota. The label credited the manufacture and installation of the rigging to the same company that produced the scenery – Volland. For the next few years, I brought as many people to Scottish Rite theaters as possible. There is nothing that compares to seeing the scenery properly lit and in the original venue.
Now I was traveling to St. Louis and excited to see a collection produced in the same era as the Fort Scott scenery. Again, this was a Volland collection as Hugo Volland was a Scottish Rite member. Remember, by the 1920s, Volland Studio had replaced Sosman & Landis Studio as the leading manufacturer of Southern Jurisdiction scenery. This was nearing the peak of Volland productivity.
On the morning of March 7, 2017, I left Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and the Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana behind, driving toward St. Louis. As scheduled, I parked in the ramp next to the skyway behind the Scottish Rite Cathedral by 9:50 AM. I wound my way to the executive offices and located Bret Akers. He was extremely excited for me to evaluate their collection as the Valley of St. Louis was at a crossroads. As with many other Scottish Rite theaters across the country, St. Louis was trying to juggle the increased expenses of deferred maintenance issues and decreased income from plummeting membership.
In 1924, the Scottish Rite bodies in St. Louis, Missouri had moved into their newly constructed home that had cost in excess of two million dollars. One door down on the same the street was an even more impressive edifice – the Masonic Temple. The two buildings were a testament to the rapid expansion of the Fraternity and income generated from candidate classes with hundreds of members. The Scottish Rite auditorium was 165 feet wide and 130 feet long, seating approximately 3000 Masons. The Proscenium opening was 96 feet wide. Some degree productions necessitated a cast of 450 actors. They sometimes called in the help of the Shrine.
For the next four days, I painstakingly examined the rigging system and all of the scenery. Each day, I invited a variety of scenic artists from across the country to share the experience. Who knows when they would have this opportunity again.
“Bring up the curtain, la, la, la
Bring down the curtain, la, la, la
Bring up the curtain, la, la, la
Hi, ho, the glamorous life”
To be continued…
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