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The Bakersfield Californian Thursday, November 11, 2010
Eye Street
Index Herb Benham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Taste of Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Arts Alive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 The Lowdown with Matt Munoz . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Beauty and the Beast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35-37
Editor Jennifer Self | Phone 395-7434 | e-mail jself@bakersfield.com
True love: Mad about ‘Maggie’ Revival of local play sheds light on unlikely romance BY SUSAN SCAFFIDI Contributing writer
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n 1960, two local women wrote a musical about Bakersfield which was intended literally as a backyard entertainment. Over the next 50 years, “Maggie” has left an indelible mark on the city, and is gearing up for another production. Ann Agabashian was the piano accompanist for the 1960 edition of the “High Fever Follies” fundraiser for Memorial Hospital when she was introduced to writer and poet Barbara Gardner and asked to write some music for the show. “Howard Miller, who would become the director for Bakersfield Community Theater, was looking for local material for the show,” Agabashian said. Agabashian said the audience reaction to the local material was so strong it inspired a search for a local story that could be made into its own show. The search took Agabashian and Gardner to the Kern County Museum, where then-curator Frank Latta told them the story of Maggie Mooney and Lord Sholto George Douglas, who met in Bakersfield at the beginning of the oil boom and the birth of the cotton farming industry. Agabashian said once the book, lyrics and score were written, the two women decided to “put on a show.” “We thought, ‘Let’s treat this like a big party,’” Agabashian said. “So, with our friends, we decided to put this on in the backyard of one of our friends’ home in Old Stockdale.” Agabashian said someone wrote a review of the show for The Californian. “The following morning our phones were just ringing off the hook,” Agabashian said. “Everyone wanted to see it.” “The crowd was made up of people who were not that many generations away from the real characters (in the story),” Agabashian said. The backyard party turned into a weekly event. Agabashian said eventually they accepted donations from the audience and donated the money to build a theater. “Bakersfield Community Theater was built by ‘Maggie,’” Agabashian said. Longtime co-producer Phyllis Adams said “Maggie” was produced again for the community theater in the early 1970s, this time with a full orchestral arrangement, then restaged later that decade and in 1981 at the Civic Auditorium (currently the theater at Rabobank Convention Center). Agabashian said these later productions benefited the Chamber of Commerce. “‘Maggie’ provided seed money for the Chamber of Commerce building,” Agabashian said. A 1998 production to help celebrate the city’s centennial helped in the restoration of the Fox Theater. Adams said the current production will also benefit the Fox, while cele-
HENRY A. BARRIOS / THE CALIFORNIAN
Rikk Cheshire, left, plays Lord Douglas and Tessa Ogles portrays Maggie in the Fox Theater production of “Maggie.”
Maggie Where: Bakersfield Fox Theater, 2001 H St. When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday Admission: $25 For tickets and more information: Fox Theater box office, 324-1369 or Vallitix.com
brating that theater’s 80th birthday. Adams said efforts to produce this latest version of “Maggie” involved an enormous campaign of fundraising and publicity, including a flood of posters around Bakersfield advertising the show. “We just had to contact all of our friends and all of our friends who knew ‘Maggie’ before,” Adams said. “It’s the new people to Bakersfield who didn’t know anything about it. We had to get the word out.” “Of course, I’m in love with the show, simply because it’s a sweet love story,” Adams said. “There’s no violence, no four-letter words, and it’s a true story.” Lord Sholto George Douglas was the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. As a younger son of an English peer, Douglas had social rank but no fortune; the only way Douglas could maintain the lavish lifestyle in which he had been raised was either to marry a rich woman or strike it rich on his own. The United States, land of self-made million-
Rikk Cheshire plays Lord Douglas and Stephanie Jones plays Belle in “Maggie.”
aires, was an ideal place to do both. According to the June 1, 1895, edition of the San Francisco Call, Douglas met Maggie Mooney while she was performing as a singer in the Bakersfield “resort” known as the Bijou. Because of Douglas’ social standing, the newspaper devoted considerable space to the wedding, which had occurred the day before in San Jose. The paper also reports a number of obstacles the 22-year-old Douglas and 18-year-old Mooney faced in getting together, including a trumped-up arrest for insanity by those who wanted to prevent
the marriage. The couple were married for 25 years during which they lived in the Bay Area and in England. They had two sons, and Mooney continued her performing career during much of their married life. “Maggie” focuses on the Douglas-Mooney romance, as well as the competition for oil, land and Douglas himself among the local residents. The latest production is staged by Spotlight Theatre, and is directed by Hal Friedman, with choreography by Marvin Ramey. “Maggie” stars Tessa Ogles in the title role and Rikk Cheshire as Lord Douglas.