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The Avalon from a Performer's Perspective: Gail Aveson
The Avalon from a Performer's Perspective
by Gail Aveson
Growing up in Easton, I was enamored of two buildings: the Tidewater Inn, with its majestic curved staircase, murals by John Moll and the elegant Crystal Room, and the Avalon Theatre. Although the Avalon was a movie theatre at the time, it still held the imprint of an earlier era with its Art Deco theme and secondfloor ballroom. I wanted to know everything about it.
My father, who was born in 1902 and therefore had some firsthand experience with the heyday of vaudeville, told me all about the acts one would see at the Avalon. After being completed in 1922, it was a silent movie theatre and a vaudeville theatre as well. It had a 300-pipe electric-pneumatic organ to accompany the movies and an electric player piano for the vaudeville. I remember seeing the marquee in an old picture with Victor Herbert’s name on it. He was a contemporary of Sigmund Romberg and several other composers of operettas. Mario Lanza was a big name then, as were Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald. Some of the first music I ever heard in my house was from that era.
As a child, I would wander around the house singing operettas and the Broadway songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Meredith Wilson and, of course, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter and others, all the time imagining myself on the Avalon stage. Fast forward to 1968, when I sang my
first solo at St. Mark’s UM Church and began my singing career on the Eastern Shore. I began to sing in different local choruses, solo at churches and perform with different theatre groups in the area.
Mayor Murphy was a friend of the family, and when I heard of his plans for restoring the Avalon (closed and shuttered in 1985), I told him I’d like to get involved. I gave a concert in 1989 at the Tidewater as a fundraiser for the Avalon and was promised a chance to sing a solo concert at the Avalon once renovations were finished.
On October 12, 1990, my dream came true. Helen Chappell wrote an article in the Star Democrat, and I was interviewed by Pam O’Brien at the local radio station. I was able to sing a concert with songs of my choosing for a sold-out house ~ songs from the Avalon’s heyday and some from Broadway. There were even a couple audience participation songs. I can never describe the thrill of that moment on the stage.
Since then, I’ve had many chances to sing on the stage with the Habitat Follies, Miles River Musicales, Cricket Theatre, Easton Choral Arts and “A Little Night Music,” the Avalon Christmas shows and with other small groups. It’s still as thrilling every time I look through the proscenium arch and remember the balcony and ballroom and, of course, the wonderful dome that is still there! I imagine the ghosts of performers past and their collective creative energy.
The town of Easton has done a wonderful job of caring for “The Showplace of the Eastern Shore”!
Well known on the Eastern Shore for more than 50 years, Gail has sung in many shows, concerts and churches. Solo concerts at the Avalon Theatre and Chesapeake College and in WSCL’s A Celebration of Music are some of the highlights of her career.
Historic WADES POINT INN ON THE BAY
