Playhouse Plans
~story and photo by Jeff Tryon
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s it celebrates its 70th year, the venerable Brown County Playhouse will push ahead into uncharted waters, trying to create a successful formula of a diverse range of live performing arts productions and events for visitors and residents. This year’s unexpected loss of the Playhouse’s first executive director, and the launching of the new music center, left the organization seeking to redefine its place in the local entertainment spectrum. The next act for the Nashville landmark will take it back to its roots—plays staged by amateurs. But the productions will be mounted by a local community theater group instead of Indiana University. Acting executive director Hannah Estabrook said the
Playhouse will do less next year, but will try to do it better. “I guess ‘less is more’ is kind of the model we’re going for next year, because this year we had event after event after event. It’s not only exhausting our resources, but the community can’t support us for every event. We’re just trying to put on the best shows we can, and make sure we’re not running ourselves into the ground trying to put on a show every night.” Since a local board has been managing the Playhouse, it has presented concerts featuring local and nationally touring musicians, plays, live radio shows, magic shows, youth musicals, nostalgia musical groups, and movies. New board member Mark Stolle got the ball rolling in a new direction by calling for volunteers for a new amateur community theater group.
28 Our Brown County • Nov./Dec. 2019
In September, Stolle announced that the new “Theatre Brown County” group will mount a production of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by Christopher Durang next June. Stolle said the group also plans to produce a musical in mid-September of 2020. He said the all-volunteer group will hold open auditions with no pre-casting of roles, and stressed that the group will need a lot of volunteer help in nonacting positions. Estabrook said that once the June production is done, they may consider adding more plays in the fall timeline, when there are more people in town. “We want to do live entertainment,” she said. “We’re Continued on 30
