Summer Stock

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Summer Stock. As early as the first half of the 19th century, summer playhouses on the outskirts of growing American cities began to attract playgoers seeking entertainment as they escaped from city heat and crowds. Many began in parks or gardens where citizens came for light refreshment and cooling breezes. In New York, Chatham Garden had a popular theatre in the 1820s, and a decade later Niblo's Garden offered shows as well as food and drink. One of the oldest summer playhouses, operating up until 1994, was Elitch's Gardens Theatre, founded in Denver in 1890. Almost all these theatres were opened with the idea of presenting light olios for summer, but several of the more successful soon started to offer regular plays, particularly comedies. Although their development was assisted by the spread of trolleycar lines to outlying reaches around the turn of the century, it was really the arrival of the automobile several years later that spurred the greatest growth. One of the earliest summer theatres to gain widespread recognition was the Provincetown Playhouse, which opened on a wharf in Provincetown, Massachusetts, during World War I. However, it was atypical in many ways. Most notably, it was dedicated to serious new drama and not to the rehashed escapist material that soon came to characterize most summer stock. Second, it soon opened a New York branch for winter seasons. Third, it was built on a wharf. Many early summer stock theatres were begun in converted barns or mills and often self‐consciously retained a distinct rustic ambiance for many years. One result was the name popularly given to summer stock—straw‐hat theatre—which reflected its barnlike origins as much as it did the fashion of wearing straw hats in summer. Other examples, atypical in their dedication to serious theatre, were the Hedgerow Theatre in Moylan, Pennsylvania, and the playhouse at Williamstown, Massachusetts. Far more on the order of what the public came to think of as summer theatres were such long‐successful operations as the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania; the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut; the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts; the North Shore Players in Marblehead, Massachusetts; and the Boothbay Playhouse in Boothbay, Maine. Even if much of their fare consisted of frothy comedies, most of the better straw‐hats offered occasional serious dramas and tryouts of new plays. Many also lured stars, either Broadway stars in between major assignments or Hollywood names who did not want to commit themselves to a full New York season or feared the more demanding standards of New York critics. Other houses did not use stars but employed a genuine, if seasonal, stock company. These theatres were built on essentially traditional lines, but huge open‐air amphitheaters such as the one at Jones Beach, near New York, and that of the St. Louis Municipal Outdoor Theatre, also thrived, although they specialized in musicals. The Paper Mill Playhouse, a regular enclosed conversion in Milburn, New Jersey, because of its proximity to New York, was able to extend its seasons, usually of musicals, to an almost year‐round operation. The heyday of the straw‐hats was between the two World Wars and for a short period thereafter. One postwar development was the rise of tents, generally offering musicals in‐the‐round. Economic and other considerations then began to affect playhouses, closing some and forcing others to rely on packaged tours, usually featuring high‐priced names. Most of the tents gave way to permanent structures, with large concrete parking lots that retained little of the bucolic atmosphere once so carefully fostered. However, a number of the old, traditional playhouses still flourish.

Summer Stock, see STOCK COMPANY.