Saratoga News

Bill Peck (right) plays Romeo, with Renee Frescia, a VITA Conservatory student, as Juliet in June, 1983.

In Saratoga, the show always goes on

BY WILLYS PECK

As described in a couple of previous articles, the theatrical scene in Saratoga has comprised many acts, and the show goes on.

There was Dorothea Johnston and her Theatre of the Glade; Lilian Fontaine and the Los Gatos Evening High School Theatre Workshop, which was succeeded by the Los Gatos-Saratoga Community Players; Pat and Paul Beaudry and their Summer Circle Theater; John and Kay Breeden's Saratoga Players; and another talented couple, Ivan and Jaleen Holm, who brought their peripatetic King Dodo Playhouse to Azule Crossing for a few seasons in the 1970s.

In terms of longetivity, one company can claim a lineage going back 33 years, as well as an enviable record of successes in the field of musicals. This is the Saratoga Drama Group, and, although modesty should forbid, I'll claim a little credit for launching its progenitor, the Federated Drama Group.

As the name suggests, it was church-sponsored--the Saratoga Federated--and it started more or less as just a play-reading group. However, it was soon apparent that there were enough participants of the "Hey kids, let's give a show" persuasion to launch some kind of production.

That first show, in the late summer of 1963, was a predictable choice: Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It was followed in the fall by an old-fashioned melodrama. Then, as first president of the group, I started agitating for something a little more gutsy, namely, Inherit the Wind, the fictionalized dramatization of the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial" that saw the disintegration of religious fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan.

Given the theological overtones of this play, one wouldn't ordinarily expect to see it produced by any church-oriented entity this side of the Unitarians. However, an assistant pastor who was the group's adviser, the Rev. Frank Jaggers, espoused the cause and the production went ahead in early 1964.

With a strong cast and an energetic director, Robert Vachon, the play was a success; the drama group was launched. The church's Richards Hall, with a small but adequate stage, accommodated this and subsequent productions of South Pacific, Teahouse of the August Moon and The King and I.

Before long, the Federated Drama Group moved its productions to the Saratoga Civic Theatre, and still later cut its church ties to become simply the Saratoga Drama Group, with many of the same participants. I have always been impressed by the wealth of talent in SDG shows, and, although they undoubtably would be staged regardless of organizational origin, I still have a good feeling about helping the seminal group get launched.

I am told that one custom that characterized the Federated Drama Group productions has been continued by its successor. This was the practice, on opening night, of assembling the cast backstage just before curtain time and having someone offer up a prayer. My last experience with this was in 1970 when Katie Hassett, producer for A Thurber Carnival, did the honors. I'd like to think that the tradition continues.

There have been other, shorter-lived, group efforts, but one that will always have particular poignancy for me is the Valley Institute of Theatre Arts, or VITA, which lasted for 15 years and expired before its time in 1990.

One reason for this emotional attachment is the fact that VITA was founded by my son, Bill, and his Saratoga High School drama teacher, Judith Lyn Sutton.

Another reason is that VITA got its start in my back yard, in the amphitheater my wife, Betty, and I created not long after our marriage in 1952.

Over the years, the Theater-on-the-Ground, as I call it, has been the locale for a variety of productions, from the real-estate sendup, How Subdivided Was My Valley, staged with newspaper friends from the San Jose Mercury staff, to a full-scale Romeo and Juliet in 1955.

Along the way, there have been variety shows, often with excerpts from regular dramas, under such umbrella titles as Midsummer Night's Steam, Teahouse of the Sonic Boom and It Ain't Necessarily Show. I have even essayed some original docudramas, such as Ten Hours to Maywood, about the first day-and-night U. S. Air Mail flight.

VITA, though, really gave the place a touch of class, in the academic as well as stylistic sense, in that it was here the group started its conservatory, which developed into instructional and production sessions for various age groups.

I would say that VITA's high point, in terms of patronage, popularity and altitude, was in the seasons it performed at the Mountain Winery. During the 1981 season, Annette Bening, of film prominence, played Juliet and my son was Romeo, an accomplishment that fairly well eclipses my own distinction of playing the duck to Olivia de Havilland's Alice, of Wonderland note.

Somewhere, somehow there may be those who would again take up the multitudinous and arduous tasks involved in running a conservatory-type theater. VITA's demise could probably be traced to a variety of causes, not just one or two, and these would have to be addressed.

Together, though, they brought to an end an enterprise of great merit. It is to be hoped that a similar venture will be tried again. Saratoga has the credentials as the location.