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Kathleen's well-written description of our history has itself become an artifact of our history.
--Don Love
I founded an Equity theater company here in New York and we kept it going for 12 years (closed in 1992).
I thought that was good. But the Webster Groves Theater Guild is an institution. Right?
-- R. Mary Hopkins
But the odd thing is, when you walk down that street you realize the third house on the left isn’t a house at all. There’s a marquee and bright lights out front. It’s the Theatre Guild of Webster Groves. And the little street is Theatre Lane.
Walk inside and you’ll realize the theatre was indeed once somebody’s home. There are three tiny bathrooms and a kitchen. Two dressing rooms and a meeting room undoubtedly were dining and living rooms long ago. Go upstairs to the auditorium. You won’t see any bedrooms but a small stage and seats for an audience of 147. (Editor’s note: Nowadays, it’s only 128.)
How did it turn from a home into a theatre? Who comes here and why? And how did all this start, anyway?
To answer those questions, you have to go back 50 years -- and the ladies’ rest room. There, in cabinets that once held towels and sheets, are dusty scrapbooks, yellowed newspaper clippings, stacks of old photographs. You’ll find a story of many people, some talent, a lot of work and more good times than anyone can remember. The whole thing began in a[n] era of the Black Bottom and the Varsity Drag. And, it happened like this.
One evening in 1926, a group of about 20 friends met at a home in Webster Groves to form a nonprofessional theater group. It started out slowly. They performed plays wherever they could find a place--church parlors, some’s dining room, the Monday Club. In the summertime, a few plays were even performed outside--in members’ backyards. It was a casual organization. Props and costumes were stored in attics, basements and garages.
Gradually, the membership grew and a formal Theatre Guild was formed. The group performed five three-act plays a year on the stage of the Webster High School auditorium. Plays like "An Inspector Calls," "Night Must Fall" and "Little Women", which according to the St.Louis Star Times of 1948, played to "capacity crowds."