Theater facility to be named 'Bolton Lunceford Playhouse' for long-time director, actress

As theater company members rise in yet another standing ovation for the talented producer and actress, Resident Director Emeritus Bolton Lunceford is surprised by the annoucement at Tuesday night's WLTCo. annual meeting that The Playhouse would bear her name. At right, she is shown during rehearsals for Driving Miss Daisy in which she starred and directed.

The directors of the Washington Little Theater Company have voted to name The Playhouse in honor of long-time producer and director Bolton Lunceford.

"It is difficult to adequately recognize all the contributions she has made to the Little Theater and to Washington, but we would like to begin with a decision of the Washington Little Theater Company is renaming our playhouse, and it henceforth shall be called … The Bolton Lunceford Playhouse," board member Margaret Norris announced at Tuesday night's annual meeting.

The announcement took the honoree by surprise, and she was nearly speechless. "I am so grateful, so honored. My heart is just overflowingright now."

Lunceford, recently named the theater's Resident Director Emeritus and still an active board member, has directed at least one play every year for the past 30 years,

"No one can remember how many plays she has produced," Norris said, "but the best estimate is 45 to 50, averaging at least one play a year, and several years she produced three plays."

She has been a mentor, too, to many young directors as they took their first steps in directing, said board President Jo Randall.

"One of the most common things heard about this lady," Margaret Norris said, "has been her ability to prevail upon her actors and support crews to perform things much broader and more difficultthan the individuals had ever dreamed they could do."

She also starred in several productions, most recently "Driving Miss Daisy."

"Soon after the Washington Little Theater Company was formed in 1971, Bolton and Mell Lunceford became members," Randall said, "and their influence is still being felt."

"The union of a highly experienced producer and actress with a struggling small-town theater was really the beginning of 37 years of drama, comedy, and music which enriched the lives of Washingtonians," Norris said.

The Luncefords were instrumental in turning the old Washington High School gym into a playhouse that will now bear Bolton's name. "When the theater needed a permanent home - after giving performances in gyms, schools, the National Guard Armory and the Lions Club - the Luncefords spearheaded the drive to acquire a building," Randall said.

After the theater received a gift of a building, the hatchery building on West Liberty Street, from Helen Callaway, that building was sold and the money used to make the old school gym into a theater.

"Bolton and Mell were the 'powers' behind this, not only contributing their theater know-how but getting in the building with other volunteers and actually helping build," Randall said. "The chandeliers in the Playhouse were Bolton's idea - large vegetable cans with prisms on them."

Mell Lunceford drew up plans to remodel the old gym which were refinedby Lawrence Graham of The University of Georgia. Volunteers built risers, advanced the old stage, and made the back of the gym into two floors with a lobby below and a light-and-sound area above.

After the Playhouse was renovated, Bolton directed the first production in the new Playhouse, Arsenic and Old Lace, in October 1978, and has directed at least one production every year since.

Through those years, Norris said, she enriched the lives of not only Washingtonians in the audiences, but local residents "who would become actors, stage hands, lighting and sound technicians, set builders, and prompters, and who would become enlightened and broadened by the training and counsel provided by this exceptional woman."

A sign with the new name will mark The Bolton Lunceford Playhouse is in the works, Norris said.

Tuesday night's annual meeting featured entertainment, the election of officers, and the recognition of 2007 directors.

Reader Comments

No comments have been posted. Be the first!

Other Stories With Comments:
Article	Comments
The Office Cat	1
Family escapes death in semi hit-and-run	1
Feed a family of four for $10 a week	1