He remodeled to upgrade the facility and added air-conditioning. Stephens, an owner of High's Dairy Stores.
Olney Theatre advertised itself as the “South's first professional summer theater.” Tickets for evening performances cost $1.67 1940's Olney Theatre had a rustic feel, with inverted peach baskets serving as chandeliers and an open-air lobby with an oak tree growing in it. Elissa Landi and Leslie Denison starred, along with Gordon Richards, Howard Ferguson, and Zoyla Talma. Olney Theatre's first production, The Lady Has a Heart, had its first performance on July 25, 1938. The class was taught by Dorothy Martin and George Vivian. The National Academy of Stage Training, a professional school of drama that had been founded by Cochran in 1932, moved to the Olney Theatre and began its first summer course there on June 20, 1938. Cochran, (who was also managing director of the National Theater in Washington, DC) was the first managing director and actress Ethel Barrymore was the first associate director. It was built on the Woodlawn Lodge estate, which was the site of a former roller skating rink in what was then rural Montgomery County. It began as a summer playhouse popular on the “Straw Hat Circuit” and intended to serve as a relaxing weekend destination for Washington dignitaries. Cochran, Harold Smith, and Leonard McLaughlin. Olney Theatre Center Through the Years 1938ġ938: The theatre was founded by Stephen E. The Theatre intends to continue expanding to better meet the needs of our community.
Montgomery County’s 1 million residents play a dynamic role in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, and is a driving force behind the region’s creative economy.Īs of January 2020, Olney Theatre Center employed 40 full time staff, 20 part-time positions, 26 early career apprentices and players, and more than 400 professional artists. Now the area is occupied by every kind of family that makes up 21st Century America, along with major corporations, shopping districts, civic associations, non profit organizations and a diverse collection of houses of worship. Situated on the unceded land of the Picataway-Conoy people, the Olney area was once a rural farming community with a unique Quaker heritage. Olney Theatre is now the cultural anchor of a rapidly changing region and serves one of the most diverse, best educated, and wealthiest counties in the country. Over the years, some of the biggest names in theater and film have appeared on our stages, including Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Bob Fosse, Phillip Bosco, Eve Arden, Eva Gabor, Burl Ives, Jose Ferrer, Carol Channing, Olivia d’Havilland, Tony Randall, Paulette Goddard, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Jane Seymour, Anne Revere, Frances Sternhagen, Arthur Treacher, James Broderick, Olympia Dukakis, Sir Ian McKellen, Marica Gay Harden, John Colicos, Uzo Aduba, Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, Robin de Jesus, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, among many, many others.
For more than 8 decades, OTC has brought impactful theater performance and education to our community, helping to grow the vibrancy and vitality of our home in central Maryland. 1938 ♦ 1940s ♦ 1950s ♦ 1960s ♦ 1970s ♦ 1980s ♦ 1990s ♦ 2000-2012 ♦ 2013 - The Present Overviewįounded in 1938 as a summer playhouse, Olney Theatre Center (OTC) now produces year-round world and American premieres of plays and musicals, and reimaginations of familiar titles presents the work of leading companies tours nationally and locally teaches students of all ages and mentors the next generation of theatremakers.