Author: waszut_barrett@me.com

Every once in a while, the universe sends you a signal that you are on the right path regardless of recent obstacles. My trip to the St. Louis Scottish Rite theater and library was a success. Several loose ends were tied up for me in terms of both the evolution of Masonic scenery and its future preservation.

As I reached for the last Volland Studio folder in the library during March of 2017, I had a sense of profound relief. For months, I had been working at warp speed and the pace was staring to wear me out. That morning, there had not been a moment to spare, as I needed to quickly return to the conference center for USITT activities. I reached for the final folder labeled “Miscellaneous,” wondering if this might include Shrine or Grotto materials. When I looked at the first photograph, however, time seemed to stop. I just sat there staring at an image. This was a momentous discovery.

I silently regarded this depiction of a Volland scenic artist sketching out a camp scene, the same one created for the Valley of St. Louis in 1924. The caption on the photograph even read, “painting a 32’ x 90’ drop on a 60’ paint frame.” I was too excited to speak for a minute and then called over to the librarian. By now, John was a little immune to my gasps of delight as I paged through dozens of degree production designs. “Here is a picture of a scenic artist working on the camp scene from your collection,” I said. John raised his eyebrows and came over to my table. “Really?” he drawled, “How can you tell?”

First of all, I photographed the scene from the same angle. I then pointed to the caption, explaining, “The note at the bottom verifies the same width of ninety feet! This is not a standard size for Masonic scenery.” It was rumored that a special building had been constructed to produce the extremely wide scenery and I had always wondered about the validity of that statement. If a special building had been created for this particular installation, the paint frame would have measured the same size as the drops. During my evaluation, I had not encountered enough scenery to justify the expense of new structure.

Toomey & Volland had built a new studio just prior to producing the St. Louis Scottish Rite scenery and I had recently acquired that image for my files. Six months earlier, I had discovered the Toomey & Volland’s advertisement depicting the construction of their 1922 studio.

This had been one of many unique finds at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. That entire trip during October of 2016 continued to bear fruit for my own personal research projects.

I now added a photograph of a studio painting portions of a drop at a time. This was a process that I had read about and actually done myself when I had a limited paint area. For the St. Louis collection, it meant painting two-thirds of the drop and then shifting over the entire composition. Having done this for much smaller drops, I knew what a pain this must have been and marveled at the difficulty to shift a scene of that size. The photograph also showed the painting process as the scenic artist was working on the final part of the composition, the foreground.

Photographs of scenic artists painting scenery in studios are common. Finding the corresponding painted scene to accompany the photograph is unusual. What an exciting discovery! Here was one more find that contributed to the rich context surrounding the evolution of Scottish Rite scenery.

To be continued…

My final day at the St. Louis Scottish Rite was spent in their library. The librarian had approached me earlier that week, excitedly describing the many treasures. I knew that my time on the stage was extremely limited as a dance recital was scheduled for the weekend. Friday morning was their final dress rehearsal.

I entered the building that Friday morning and was greeted with a potpourri of glitter, spangles, and Lycra. Beautiful blond cherubs prancing around in tutus gathered at the entrance of the theatre, waiting for their next song. I had to chuckle to myself and wonder if the original membership had any idea that the auditorium would host legions of young girls gyrating to modern musical selections. Ironically, dance recitals and weddings make up the two main rental groups for fraternal theaters nationwide. The subsequent rental income from this type of clientele helps keep the lights on and pays for much needed repairs. Unbeknownst to the performers on the stage, they are all playing a game of Russian roulette as both the rigging systems and historical scenery collections are perilously close to failing and falling onto the stage floor.

No matter how many times I warn fraternal theaters about the dangers posed to those on stage, rentals continue. The scenario of impending doom always makes me feel like I am about to witness a tragedy. Here was Nell tied to the railroad tracks and I hear the whistle of the oncoming locomotive. It is just appearing around the bend and those able to help are distracted by the pretty flowers and scenery, not noticing the tragedy that is about to befall the heroine.

As I passed the souvenir stands and wandered down into in the basement of the St. Louis Scottish Rite Cathedral, I began to wonder what the librarian might consider “treasures.” Nothing could have prepared me for the neat stacks of file folders, all divided by Scottish Rite degrees. Each folder had black and white photographs, sketches, and designs produced by Volland Studios. The librarian explained that Volland Studios had gifted these old files years ago and they had just kept them in a neat little pile, waiting for some “expert” to tell them what to do with the acquisition.

Some of the photos depicted the current St. Louis Scottish Rite scenery. Others depicted schematics of set pieces and various props. As at the Harry Ransom Center, I photographed everything that I could lay my hands on. Quickly, I realized that I would never be able to document everything in two hours and I would have to return that afternoon. I had already been approached by the executive secretary about being hired as a guest speaker that fall and knew that I would plan enough time to fully photograph or scan these images.

Paging through the contents of each degree, I immediately identified designs from other collections that I had recently evaluated and entered into my Scottish Rite scenery databases. With this set of designs, I could now cross-reference Sosman & Landis, New York Studios, Great Western Stage Equipment Company, Becker Bros. Studio and Volland Studios. It was almost too exciting to contemplate.

As new designs were created for the Fort Scott collection and fully included in Moses’ 1931 model, so too did Volland create several new designs for the Valley of St. Louis. I noticed that for both the 1924 Fort Scott and St. Louis designs, the foreground objects dominate the composition and take on a “larger than life” appearance. For example, the Fort Scott columns from the 15th degree ruins were massive – dwarfing any actor that might stand next to the painted detail. Similarly, the wood leg and cut drops in St. Louis reminded me of the redwood forests. The tree trunks of the drops were easily six feet wide!

I thought back to some of the earliest painted illusions for the stage. The incredible depth suggested on a relatively shallow stage was magical. The feeling of awe that I experienced in St. Louis was magical. I had seen hundreds of painted scenes in Masonic theatre across the country, but the designs for Fort Scott and St. Louis were the next step in the evolution of Scottish Rite stage design.

To be continued…

Over time, the St. Louis Scottish Rite collection was altered to solve the problem of warping boards that were rubbing. This was the same approach used by the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center as they made the argument in the May 5 online article, “After a great deal of deliberation, the rigging experts and the team decided to hang the historic drops using a modern webbing and pipe pocket configuration instead of the wooden battens. The approach would also allow for less stress to the drops, as the lightweight conduit in the pipe pockets would not weigh as heavily on their aging muslin.”

If the pipe is too light, it will not pull out the wrinkles and the scenery looks a fright.

Wooden battens remain the perfect solution as the weight remains evenly distributed along the bottom edge as the battens “clamp” the fabric and not pierce it. It is never a good decision to replace the wooden battens with pipe pockets. Warping boards are a common situation that is easily remedied; the order of the boards is swapped.

The Valley of St. Louis also encountered warping battens and selected to install pipe pockets during the 1970s. The pipe pockets that replaced the wooden battens failed, causing pipes to plummet to the stage floor. New pipe pockets were sewn onto the bottom and they also failed. The St. Louis Scottish Rite collection is one example and proof that attaching jute webbing and pipe pockets to historic scenery doesn’t work at all. Similarly to the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center, the Valley of St. Louis used thin conduit and reinforced the seams. Both failed. This has happened across the country as the battens are viewed as a liability and not an integral part of the original system, necessary for the longevity of each piece.

At the St. Louis Scottish Rite, approximately twenty-five percent of all the scenery was compromised and unable to be lowered to the stage floor. As the pipes were removed from ripping pockets, the loose curtains caught on neighboring lines being raised and lowered. Fortunately for me, there were a variety of rigging experts on hand during the USITT convention to offer advice and a helping hand.

When drops are narrowly spaced on 2-inch to 4-inch centers, the weight of a wooden batten that is clamped to the top and bottom of each scene is an essential part of the counterweight system. It is the perfect weight to safely pull out the wrinkles and effectively stretch the painted fabric. If wrinkles are visible, as it the case with the Fort Scott collection, the drops are not stretched because the weight at the bottom is too light. Insufficient weight promotes wrinkles and the drops are more likely to catch on neighboring lines.

Jute webbing also increases the likelihood of the fabric catching on a neighboring line as the top wooden batten no longer stretches the fabric taut and straight. On the top, jute webbing with grommets and tie lines were sewn along the edge of the thin old fabric. The May 5 MMHC online article also states “Rather than position them the standard 12 inches apart, grommets are placed six inch apart in the webbing to better distribute the hanging stress across the top.” It is not only about the stress and the placement of grommets. Tie lines running though the grommets and attaching the drop to a pipe have a tendency to shift over time causing the fabric to slightly bunch – like a shower curtain.

This problem was visible during the Singers in Accord Concert at the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center during February 2017. Unlike ties lines and jute webbing, top wooden battens prevent any shifting from occurring. With wooden battens on the tops and the bottoms of each drop, it is impossible for the fabric to “bunch” and catch on neighboring lines.

A final point has to do with the bigger picture and the preservation of heritage. When pipe pockets and jute webbing replace the original wooden battens, the heritage is lost and the ability to appropriately display these artworks destroyed. We are no longer looking at a historic artifact. In the long run, it would have been cost-effective to digitally photograph each drop and hang printed replicas on new muslin instead of irreparably damaging the original artifacts. I compare the MMHC decision and the subsequent destruction of the Fort Scott scenery collection to the repurposing of any antique. The difference is that this was not a craft project that took an old book and transformed it into a keepsake box. The painted scenes now only remain as a shadow of history, failing to preserve any heritage.

This erasure of history at the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center brings to mind the song “Every Day a Little Death” from “A Little Night Music.” As each drop is forever altered and history lost, there is a “little sting” in my heart and in my head.

“Every day a little sting
In the heart and in the head
Every move and every breath
And you hardly feel a thing
Brings a perfect little death”

To be continued…

“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…

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center general director’s statement, “We aren’t buying anymore toys for you!” was just one of the many jibes that he had made since I was first hired. I have tried to keep this tale fun and full of interesting facts, but there was an underlying atmosphere of abuse while working with the CEO and general director during my two years on the project. It started out as a very subtle undercurrent that grew into a raging river by the spring of 2016.

I work with men all of the time and take all of their comments in stride, considering the context, factoring in the age of the man, and understanding the region that I am visiting. I have seldom encountered disrespect while working with Masons across the country. However, there is always the “test” as I begin any Masonic project and consider it as a type of initiation. The men are curious to see how much I really know. I realize that this is why scenery inventory sheets are never available at the beginning of most projects. The absence of these documents has necessitated the creation of a fun game called, “Guess that degree in three feet.” This game involves my calling out the scene and the corresponding degree for the drop being lowered from the flies within the first three feet of visibility. It earns the immediate respect of the men. After an hour of gentle “play,” all of the books and photographs pertaining to a scenery collection are soon placed on my worktable. It really doesn’t bother me as I see it as an opportunity to hone my own skills and knowledge about degree productions. In all of these interactions, I have seldom sensed any vibe from my Masonic volunteers other than genuine respect.

Now I speak of the men that I have worked with side-by-side in the restoration and evaluation “trenches.” I am not speaking of the Masons who occasionally come in to check on my “progress.” I understand that there are many Freemasons who truly resent me for my understanding of the Craft. Many of these same men, not only dislike me for my gender, but also my knowledge as an outsider. It has never bothered me though, as I continue to focus on the bigger picture – preserving Masonic heritage. I am not trying to infiltrate an organization and suggest that they suddenly begin the initiation of women.

What I encountered while working on the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center was something else entirely and I was completely unprepared for it. The reference to the Fort Scott drops as my “toys” was neither the beginning nor the end of a torrent of disrespect. I had no other option than to rise above it and try to ignore it at the time. There was nothing else I could do, as the general director was there to stay for the long term. Like me, he had been hired without committee selection or board approval. The CEO had single hiring and firing authority and he would never dismiss his friend; doing so would admit that he made a mistake. The CEO and general director had a working history that spanned over two decades and I was odd “man” out.

The type of disrespectful treatment that I encountered on the project was so foreign to me that I didn’t even know what to do other than document it. As the abuse increased throughout the fall of 2015, I decided to keep a daily record of all interactions and started to carefully file away all emails on a separate hard drive. I have always had a work journal, but it solely documented materials, labor, research, and process – never anything personal. From that point on, I kept a detailed log of every interaction and every derogatory statement. This turned into my own personal publication titled, “Memoirs of a Masonic Mishap.” It kept me sane during 2016. Simply stated, work and all interactions with the CEO and general director became sheer hell.

I had a hunch that I was being set up for a very big fall as the emails from the CEO began to suggest that I was unskilled for my position. He was attempting to systematically discredit me and remove my name from all contributions. My colleagues began to suggest that I just leave the abuse and resign from my position, saying, “Go! Just leave them high and dry!” However, I simply couldn’t do that. I truly believed that the heritage center had the potential to be something special and I wanted to remain a part of it. There had to be a way to change this and I threw myself into every project even more.

But like the scenery, it is difficult to make people appreciate something that they just don’t value.

To be continued…

The devaluation of historical scenery at one theater can affect the understanding and appreciation of others. At the same time we were planning the future of the Fort Scott collection in the Ives Auditorium, the City of Winona was also planning for the future for their Masonic collection.

During the summer of 2014, Paul Sannerud and I had put the entire Winona scenery collection to bed over the course of two action-packed weeks. Under the City’s watch, the collection had suffered extensive water damage from a leaking roof. To facilitate repairing the roof and restoration of the theater, Sannerud and I were hired to remove and place all of the drops into a custom-designed storage unit. This would protect the scenery during the renovation. Here is the link to images of the drops from my 2010 evaluation so you can see the collection in its entirety: https://www.cityofwinona.com/…/Historic-Masonic-Theater-Bac…

An individual representing the City of Winona contacted the general director of the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center during the fall of 2015 to discuss the significance and value of the Winona Scottish Rite scenery collection. Remember, at this time I was the Curatorial Director for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. The general director chose to not include me in the discussion concerning the Winona scenery collection and I was unaware of the conversation until he casually mentioned it a few weeks later.

I was finishing a meeting and packing up my notes when the general director made an offhanded comment about the City of Winona needing to find a home for their scenery collection or they were going to throw it away. My surprise changed to dismay and then smoldering anger as he explained his conversation with the individual from Winona. The general director described how he said that there was no market value for the historical scenery at all and the entire collection was simply a “cookie cutter collection” that had been replicated all over the United States. I immediately asked, “Who did you speak with from the City of Winona? Was it Chad Ubl? That’s who handles the management of the Masonic theatre and I’m surprised to believe that they would throw something out that they spent money on to store.” The only name that the general director could remember was “Mike.”

I decided to do a little checking before I tackled any problem, still reeling from the fact that I had not been included in a discussion about a local historical scenery collection. So I called the Sanneruds (Paul Sannerud and Peggy Nelson Sannerud) to see what was going on in Winona. The news of recent events was disheartening and I wondered how much the general director had devalued the Winona collection. I inquired if Ubl had been replaced by a gentleman named “Mike.” Sannerud explained that Ubl was still in the employ of the City, but there was a new plan for the Masonic Theater.

A potential investor, Mike Slaggie of Hurry Back Productions, had entered the picture. An unknown persona at the time, he would forever alter the future of Winona Masonic Theater and their scenery collection. Slaggie planned on making a significant investment in the restoration of the Masonic building as he envisioned it as a future multipurpose arts venue. His vision to restore the building, however, did not include all of the scenery and suggested that preserving the entire scenery collection would be detrimental to the endeavor. He saw a theatre museum as a liability to the overall success of this venture.
Here is a brief summary of why the Winona scenery collection is important on the world stage. The Winona Masonic Center was primarily placed on the National Register because of its scenery collection. Both Lance Brockman and Charlie Nelson (same man for whom the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center library is named) had made a concerted effort to outline the cultural heritage stored high above the stage. I believe that it is the most complete Masonic collection produced by Sosman & Landis Studio of Chicago.

This 1909 collection includes stage settings for Symbolic Lodge (Blue Lodge), York Rite, Shrine, and Scottish Rite degree productions. The designs for the auditorium interior are still available and contained in the Performing Arts Archives at the University of Minnesota. Additionally, many of the drop designs are also available in the online scenery collection database in the University of Minnesota Libraries (http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch). In other words, there is artistic provenance for the scenery collection. Some of the wooden counterweight frames (arbors) also have original manufacturer tags from Sosman & Landis – the first that I have encountered to date. Rick Boychuk (author of “Nobody Looks Up: the History of the Counterweight Rigging Systems”) could elaborate on the international significance of this particular counterweight rigging system too. Most importantly, I have recently been able to document the earliest use of Masonic scenery in the Southern Jurisdiction to Winona, Minnesota. This was an extremely significant collection that should be preserved in its entirety for future generations and not auctioned off piece-meal. The assessment and comments made by the general director were dead wrong and I believe contributed to the demise of this significant collection.

The Winona incident made me wonder why the general director was going out of his way to devalue historical scenery. Did he not realize that his actions – as a representative of a Heritage Center – had a lasting impact on the future preservation of other fraternal artifacts?

What might have been the outcome if the general director of the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center had forwarded on the Winona inquiry to the staff member who was hired on in part for her specialization in Masonic scenery?

To be continued…