It was 1969….we saw the first man step foot on the moon; Woodstock happened; Richard Nixon was president; Sesame Street debuted on TV; the Beatles recorded their final album together; the New York Mets won the World Series; “1776” won the Tony award for best musical; a gallon of gas cost 35 cents and on June 24th, a small group of local residents met in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sullivan to discuss starting a community theater in the town of Washington, Pennsylvania.
Seated: Mrs. David Sowers, Frederick Frank.
Standing: Robert Sullivan, Mrs. James Funk, Abby Spitz
The meeting, led by Mrs. Frank (Lorry) Merrill, theater columnist for the Washington Observer, focused on deciding what type of theatrical organization would best serve the community, how the theater would be supported, who would become members and who would be enlisted as the performers and the production staff. Finding a suitable place to “put on a show” was spearheaded by Mrs. Marilyn McIlvaine – the only member of the original meeting to still be active in the organization.
“The Washington Community Theater” was the name chosen for this new group (and with the exception of a slight spelling change to the word “theatre”, 50 years later, we continue to be known as such). At this first meeting, it was decided that the group would be formed as a non-profit organization, which it continues to be. Many years later, in 2002, WCT was granted its nonprofit cooperative corporation status and officially became known as The Washington Community Theatre, Inc.
WCT was actually the second theater group to be established in Washington, PA. Historical records indicated that in 1930, a small troupe known as The Washington Center Drama League was formed and remained in existence for twenty years.
At the initial meeting in June of 1969, Mr. Robert Sullivan was elected as the first president of the group. Since then 17 different people have filled this role.
“The Washington Community Theater” was the name chosen for this new group (and with the exception of a slight spelling change to the word “theatre”, 50 years later, we continue to be known as such). At this first meeting, it was decided that the group would be formed as a non-profit organization, which it continues to be. Many years later, in 2002, WCT was granted its nonprofit cooperative corporation status and officially became known as The Washington Community Theatre, Inc.
WCT was actually the second theater group to be established in Washington, PA. Historical records indicated that in 1930, a small troupe known as The Washington Center Drama League was formed and remained in existence for twenty years.
At the initial meeting in June of 1969, Mr. Robert Sullivan was elected as the first president of the group. Since then 17 different people have filled this role.
And so it all began. The fall of 1969 saw WCT’s first production - “Anniversary Waltz” - directed by Ken Frazier and presented at the Beth Israel Synagogue. At that time, Lorry Merrill made the prediction that this show would mark “the overture of many more long seasons for WCT”. And how right she was!!
From 1969 through 1974, WCT produced only comedies and dramas (no musicals yet) – all at the synagogue. Nine shows were presented during those years. Lighter fare such as “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running” and “If a Man Answers” along with more dramatic shows such as “Death of a Salesman” and “Picnic” offered performers a chance to show both their comedic and dramatic skills.
From 1969 through 1974, WCT produced only comedies and dramas (no musicals yet) – all at the synagogue. Nine shows were presented during those years. Lighter fare such as “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running” and “If a Man Answers” along with more dramatic shows such as “Death of a Salesman” and “Picnic” offered performers a chance to show both their comedic and dramatic skills.
After six successful years of presenting comedies and dramas, the group decided it was time to spread its wings and mount its first full scale musical. It just so happened that another theater group which had been presenting musicals at the Washington Park Main Pavilion for a few years had decided to disband. WCT saw an opening and jumped through it. A group of WCT members met with the Greater Washington Parks and Recreation Commission and in July 1975, Peggy Pepper directed WCT’s first musical at the park – “The Music Man” starring Elaine Moore and Don Cummins. (The group repeated “The Music Man” in 1990 with Peggy Pepper again directing and starring Elaine Moore and Denny Frost and in 2014 with Helga Terre directing Summerlea Klinar and John Herrmann.)
And so began WCT’s 48-year-old tradition of presenting full scale musical productions at the Washington Park. The following year, in 1976, WCT was asked by the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Washington County Bicentennial Commission to perform an original musical “Rifles and Roses” which was written by Samuel Yahres to commemorate both our nation’s 200th birthday and the local historical event known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This was WCT’s longest running show – performed for 8 nights!
The fall of 1976 also saw the production of the only non-musical to be staged at Washington Park – “The Odd Couple” which was presented for four nights during the coldest September ever! We learned our lesson and all future fall shows were held at various indoor venues!
After six successful years of presenting comedies and dramas, the group decided it was time to spread its wings and mount its first full scale musical. It just so happened that another theater group which had been presenting musicals at the Washington Park Main Pavilion for a few years had decided to disband. WCT saw an opening and jumped through it. A group of WCT members met with the Greater Washington Parks and Recreation Commission and in July 1975, Peggy Pepper directed WCT’s first musical at the park – “The Music Man” starring Elaine Moore and Don Cummins. (The group repeated “The Music Man” in 1990 with Peggy Pepper again directing and starring Elaine Moore and Denny Frost and in 2014 with Helga Terre directing Summerlea Klinar and John Herrmann.)
And so began WCT’s 48-year-old tradition of presenting full scale musical productions at the Washington Park. The following year, in 1976, WCT was asked by the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Washington County Bicentennial Commission to perform an original musical “Rifles and Roses” which was written by Samuel Yahres to commemorate both our nation’s 200th birthday and the local historical event known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This was WCT’s longest running show – performed for 8 nights!
The fall of 1976 also saw the production of the only non-musical to be staged at Washington Park – “The Odd Couple” which was presented for four nights during the coldest September ever! We learned our lesson and all future fall shows were held at various indoor venues!
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The next several summers saw WCT present shows such as “Brigadoon”, “Mame”, “Oklahoma”, “Carousel”, “Hello, Dolly”, and “The Sound of Music” which was the first WCT show to use microphones.
Washington Elementary Educational Park (WEEP) School became WCT’s fall home for the shows “6 Rms Rive Vu” and “Our Town” in 1977 and 1978. In 1979 the group moved to the East Beau Street School for “A Thousand Clowns” directed by Bill Cameron. We packed our bags once again and moved our fall shows to the First Presbyterian Church in 1980 where we produced our first three dinner theatre productions – “Spoon River Anthology”, “An Evening of One Acts” and “I Do! I Do!”, our first musical staged at a venue other than Washington Park.
During its long tenure, WCT has been fortunate to enlist the services of several directors for its summer and fall shows. Peggy Pepper, Lane Merrill, Ken Frazier, John Robson, Jane Jasulaitis, Ann Funderburk, Beverly Dunn, Kathleen Niebuhr, Kathleen Mitchell, Jim Sharp, Patricia Gaio, Bill Cameron, James Meyers, Carleen Vilella, Cindy Berg, Jadene Deems, Dennis Taylor, Barry Wood, Joe Wagner, Adam Brock, Meghan Child, Helga Terre, Missy Voytek, Odessa Inez and EJ Christopher have all shared their talents and visions with the group throughout the years. However, no person directed more productions for WCT than Barry Wood who sat in the director’s chair for a total of 28 shows (musicals, plays, original revues) starting with his first show “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1984 to his last – “Brigadoon” in 2013.
Washington Elementary Educational Park (WEEP) School became WCT’s fall home for the shows “6 Rms Rive Vu” and “Our Town” in 1977 and 1978. In 1979 the group moved to the East Beau Street School for “A Thousand Clowns” directed by Bill Cameron. We packed our bags once again and moved our fall shows to the First Presbyterian Church in 1980 where we produced our first three dinner theatre productions – “Spoon River Anthology”, “An Evening of One Acts” and “I Do! I Do!”, our first musical staged at a venue other than Washington Park.
During its long tenure, WCT has been fortunate to enlist the services of several directors for its summer and fall shows. Peggy Pepper, Lane Merrill, Ken Frazier, John Robson, Jane Jasulaitis, Ann Funderburk, Beverly Dunn, Kathleen Niebuhr, Kathleen Mitchell, Jim Sharp, Patricia Gaio, Bill Cameron, James Meyers, Carleen Vilella, Cindy Berg, Jadene Deems, Dennis Taylor, Barry Wood, Joe Wagner, Adam Brock, Meghan Child, Helga Terre, Missy Voytek, Odessa Inez and EJ Christopher have all shared their talents and visions with the group throughout the years. However, no person directed more productions for WCT than Barry Wood who sat in the director’s chair for a total of 28 shows (musicals, plays, original revues) starting with his first show “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1984 to his last – “Brigadoon” in 2013.
The cast of of Oliver! in 1987.
FDuring its long history, WCT has prided itself on offering a variety of musicals and plays designed to attract a wide audience and to offer its performers, musicians and technical crews the opportunity to participate in top-notch theatrical productions. The first Oliver was presented in 1987 boasted the largest cast ever assembled on the park stage – 109 adults and children – and was, up until that time, the most-attended show in the group’s history.
Well-known musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Anything Goes, My Fair Lady, Mame, Annie, Bye, Bye Birdie, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Guys and Dolls, Beauty and the Beast, Evita, Cinderella, The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Hairspray, Mamma Mia along with lesser known shows like Where’s Charley, Little Mary Sunshine, Shenandoah, Tintypes, The Will Rogers Follies, No No Nanette, Urinetown and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum were just some of the musicals that played to appreciative audiences over the years.
In 1995, our production of “Li’l Abner” had a rather unlikely star. It wasn’t Abner or Daisy Mae. It was Casanova - the show’s pig who ran away just a few days before opening night. This incident garnered some great free publicity in the paper and luckily, Casanova was found and was able to make its theatrical debut as scheduled.
1997 saw the longest show ever presented by WCT – “Camelot” – This was the only show we ever did that actually started on one evening and ended in the early morning of the following day!
Doing a show in an outdoor venue such as the Main Pavilion at Washington Park is not without its challenges. Birds flying back and forth during a show, a family of skunks walking down the hillside, a leaking roof causing cast and audience members to dodge raindrops and, worst of all -- THE STORMS!!! Show week is often the stormiest time of year here in Washington and it is rare that we get through an entire production without rains, winds, thunder and lightning affecting at least one evening of the show. One performance of “L’il Abner” had to be cancelled when the electricity went out after some of the audience had arrived. Two performances of “Cinderella” were cancelled when the park lost power and in order to accommodate a lot of disappointed little girls, the group did something it had never done before – perform a matinee and an evening show on the same day!
An unusual and a bit controversial choice for our group, “Urinetown” was performed in 2017. In addition to being a great show, it also turned out to be the only time in WCT history where the leading lady became ill prior to the opening night curtain, could not perform and was replaced by the show’s director! The director happened to be a “man” sporting a full beard. And in perhaps one of the funniest happenings ever to occur on the park stage- Mr. Adam Brock donned dress and wig and appeared on stage as “Miss Pennywise” – delighting the audience and cast alike. It turned out to be a preview of how easily he was able to slip into a gown and heels when he did the ultimate star turn as Edna Turnblatt in 2018’s sold out performances of “Hairspray”!!
WCT is not just summer musicals. Comedies, dramas, small-scale musicals, musical revues and readers’ theatre shows have all been part of WCT’s repertoire over the years. “Arsenic and Old Lace”, “The Nerd”, “The Foreigner”, “Love Letters” “Stepping Out”, “Jerry’s Girls”, “Greater Tuna”, “Godspell”, both the male and female versions of “ The Odd Couple”, “The World Goes Round”, “Quilters”, “Nunsense”, “Company”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” the very challenging “Into the Woods” and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” are just some of the fall productions that have been done. James Myers penned an original murder mystery “Invitation to a Murder” that was presented at the Ramada Inn in 1994. Washington’s own American Idol, Adam Brock, wrote and directed a musical revue “Love’s Simple Explanation” in 2011. “Always Patsy Cline” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes” were two of the highest attended fall shows with both selling out two of their three performances at Julian’s Banquet Hall.
In 2017, WCT achieved a long-desired goal of instituting a children’s performing group, WCT KIDZ. The group realized that not all summer productions are appropriate for or have a need for casting our younger members. So, the board decided it was time to provide those young aspiring thespians with a venue in which to develop and practice their singing, dancing and acting skills. The troupe, designed for kids 7- 15, presented three full length productions at the Elks– “The Nifty Fifties”, “Groovy” and “Dorothy in Wonderland” and “James and the Giant Peach” at 19 North. The WCT KIDZ troupe has helped promote Washington Community Theatre by performing for the Shriners, the Syria Mosque in Cheswick, Kidsfest at the Crown Center Mall, at the Howard Hanna benefit Christmas party, the Church of the Covenant and for Washington’s Got Talent.
WCT, like all theatrical organizations, both amateur and professional, was negatively impacted during 2020 and 2021 by the COVID pandemic. The entire 2020 season and two of the three shows originally scheduled for the 2021 season had to be cancelled due to COVID restrictions. Only the 2021 fall show, “Into the Woods” was able to presented. Thanks to director Adam Brock and company, the show proved to be a huge success and and enabled WCT to return to doing what it does best – presenting quality productions to the Washington and surrounding areas – this time at a new venue for the group – 19 North in downtown Washington.
2022 brought the return of a full theatrical season – “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “James and the Giant Peach” and “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.”
Well-known musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Anything Goes, My Fair Lady, Mame, Annie, Bye, Bye Birdie, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Guys and Dolls, Beauty and the Beast, Evita, Cinderella, The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Hairspray, Mamma Mia along with lesser known shows like Where’s Charley, Little Mary Sunshine, Shenandoah, Tintypes, The Will Rogers Follies, No No Nanette, Urinetown and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum were just some of the musicals that played to appreciative audiences over the years.
In 1995, our production of “Li’l Abner” had a rather unlikely star. It wasn’t Abner or Daisy Mae. It was Casanova - the show’s pig who ran away just a few days before opening night. This incident garnered some great free publicity in the paper and luckily, Casanova was found and was able to make its theatrical debut as scheduled.
1997 saw the longest show ever presented by WCT – “Camelot” – This was the only show we ever did that actually started on one evening and ended in the early morning of the following day!
Doing a show in an outdoor venue such as the Main Pavilion at Washington Park is not without its challenges. Birds flying back and forth during a show, a family of skunks walking down the hillside, a leaking roof causing cast and audience members to dodge raindrops and, worst of all -- THE STORMS!!! Show week is often the stormiest time of year here in Washington and it is rare that we get through an entire production without rains, winds, thunder and lightning affecting at least one evening of the show. One performance of “L’il Abner” had to be cancelled when the electricity went out after some of the audience had arrived. Two performances of “Cinderella” were cancelled when the park lost power and in order to accommodate a lot of disappointed little girls, the group did something it had never done before – perform a matinee and an evening show on the same day!
An unusual and a bit controversial choice for our group, “Urinetown” was performed in 2017. In addition to being a great show, it also turned out to be the only time in WCT history where the leading lady became ill prior to the opening night curtain, could not perform and was replaced by the show’s director! The director happened to be a “man” sporting a full beard. And in perhaps one of the funniest happenings ever to occur on the park stage- Mr. Adam Brock donned dress and wig and appeared on stage as “Miss Pennywise” – delighting the audience and cast alike. It turned out to be a preview of how easily he was able to slip into a gown and heels when he did the ultimate star turn as Edna Turnblatt in 2018’s sold out performances of “Hairspray”!!
WCT is not just summer musicals. Comedies, dramas, small-scale musicals, musical revues and readers’ theatre shows have all been part of WCT’s repertoire over the years. “Arsenic and Old Lace”, “The Nerd”, “The Foreigner”, “Love Letters” “Stepping Out”, “Jerry’s Girls”, “Greater Tuna”, “Godspell”, both the male and female versions of “ The Odd Couple”, “The World Goes Round”, “Quilters”, “Nunsense”, “Company”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” the very challenging “Into the Woods” and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” are just some of the fall productions that have been done. James Myers penned an original murder mystery “Invitation to a Murder” that was presented at the Ramada Inn in 1994. Washington’s own American Idol, Adam Brock, wrote and directed a musical revue “Love’s Simple Explanation” in 2011. “Always Patsy Cline” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes” were two of the highest attended fall shows with both selling out two of their three performances at Julian’s Banquet Hall.
In 2017, WCT achieved a long-desired goal of instituting a children’s performing group, WCT KIDZ. The group realized that not all summer productions are appropriate for or have a need for casting our younger members. So, the board decided it was time to provide those young aspiring thespians with a venue in which to develop and practice their singing, dancing and acting skills. The troupe, designed for kids 7- 15, presented three full length productions at the Elks– “The Nifty Fifties”, “Groovy” and “Dorothy in Wonderland” and “James and the Giant Peach” at 19 North. The WCT KIDZ troupe has helped promote Washington Community Theatre by performing for the Shriners, the Syria Mosque in Cheswick, Kidsfest at the Crown Center Mall, at the Howard Hanna benefit Christmas party, the Church of the Covenant and for Washington’s Got Talent.
WCT, like all theatrical organizations, both amateur and professional, was negatively impacted during 2020 and 2021 by the COVID pandemic. The entire 2020 season and two of the three shows originally scheduled for the 2021 season had to be cancelled due to COVID restrictions. Only the 2021 fall show, “Into the Woods” was able to presented. Thanks to director Adam Brock and company, the show proved to be a huge success and and enabled WCT to return to doing what it does best – presenting quality productions to the Washington and surrounding areas – this time at a new venue for the group – 19 North in downtown Washington.
2022 brought the return of a full theatrical season – “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “James and the Giant Peach” and “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.”
Fun Facts
- WCT has produced 49 summer musicals, 60 fall or spring shows, and 4 WCT KIDZ productions.
- 31 different people have served as directors for our productions
- We have performed at 12 different venues
- 9 shows have been repeated over the course of the 50 years. They were:
The Music Man (3 times); Brigadoon; Mame; Fiddler on the Roof; Annie Get Your Gun; Oliver; Jerry’s Girls; Stepping Out, The Odd Couple and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. - The first Oliver in 1987 had the largest cast, with 109 members. The smallest cast was one of the one acts we did – “Bag Lady” – with only 1 person having to perform a 20 minute monologue
Many people have served in many of the various production roles over the years. Some certainly deserve special mention:
- Barry Wood has directed the most shows for us – 28; followed by Peggy Pepper, having directed 17
- Elaine Frost has served as choral director for 35 shows.
- Carleen Vilella has choreographed 26 shows.
- Patty Thompson has produced nearly every show – both summer and fall from 2001 to 2022.
