Community Dramatics in Early Castle Valley

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 53, 1985, No. 2

Community Dramatics in Early Castle Valley

BY ELMO G. GEARY AND EDWARD A. GEARY

THE THEATER WAS THE GREAT entertainment medium of nineteenth-century America, despite the opposition of some religious and educational authorities. In early Utah, where Mormon leaders were themselves active playgoers, the theater was largely free from the aura of disrepute that attached to it elsewhere; but it appears that Utah audiences differed little from their counterparts in other sections of the country in their dramatic tastes, which ran strongly to melodrama and farce. The major national companies included the Salt Lake Theatre on their itineraries, and smaller groups of professional actors made the rounds of small towns and villages into the first two decades of the twentieth century before they were supplanted by the motion picture.

If theater in Utah differed from the national trends in any significant way, it was probably in the more widespread community involvement in amateur dramatics. National theater histories usually date the "little theater" movement from the 1890s. The Salt Lake Social Hall, however, functioned as a little theater from its completion in 1852, with several productions staged each season by the Deseret Dramatic Association. As Mormon communities were established throughout the core region in the 1850s and 1860s, they typically constructed their own multi-purpose social halls and developed local theatrical groups somewhat on the Salt Lake model.

Castle Valley, the region east of the Wasatch Plateau that constitutes most of present-day Emery and Carbon counties, was among the last areas in Utah to be settled. Following the conclusion of the Black Hawk War, stockmen began to use the valley for winter grazing in the early 1870s. A land survey under the direction of A. D. Ferron was completed in 1873, and the Powell surveys of the Green and Colorado river basins reported that the streams in the region could support agriculture. On August 22, 1877, just one week before he died, Brigham Young issued a call for people to colonize Castle Valley; and the first parties of settlers located on the Ferron, Cottonwood, and Huntington creeks in November 1877, followed over the next few years by other settlements on the Price River to the north and on Muddy Creek to the south. The 1880 census found 453 people living in the valley, and in the same year Emery County (which then included present-day Carbon and Grand counties) was divided off from Sanpete. The completion of the Rio Grande Western Railway in 1883 led to development of the coal deposits in the northern part of the valley, and this industrialization brought about the organization of Carbon County in 1894. The Emery County communities retained the character of Mormon farm villages for almost a century before undergoing their own industrial development in the 1970s.

Most of the first settlers in Castle Valley were second-generation Utahns who had grown up in older towns in the territory, mainly in Sanpete Valley. They brought with them the concepts of community life that characterized earlier Mormon towns, including the same ecclesiastical organizations, the institutions for distributing land and developing irrigation supplies (though this process was modified by the fact that Castle Valley, unlike the older regions of Utah, was settled under the homestead laws), and a tradition of community music and dramatics.

In earlier Utah settlements the first major building project was often a fort. By the 1870s, however, there was no need for fortification, and the Castle Valley settlers first built dugouts along the creeks and then cabins or dugouts on their homesteads, where they lived while they constructed irrigation canals. Not until 1880 were the first townsites surveyed and public buildings erected. The first public building was a log schoolhouse, eighteen by twenty-four feet in size, built in Orangeville (then called Upper Castle Dale). Its opening in time for the Christmas season of 1880 was celebrated by the first recorded dramatic production in Castle Valley, The Lost Ship, with a cast including John K. Reid, Jane Cox, Matilda Boulden, Samuel R. Jewkes, James C. Woodward, and Jasper Robertson.

John K. Reid, who had been active as an actor and director in Manti before coming to Castle Valley, was the chief moving force in community dramatics in Orangeville, organizer of the Orangeville Dramatic Association, and director of most of the early plays. Even after he retired from active participation he continued to be called upon to select play casts and give general guidance to theatrical groups. In addition, the talented Jewkes family supplied both actors and musicians for several generations. Other early Orangeville families who played a prominent part in community dramatics included the Van Burens, Moffitts, Foxes, Curtises, Fullmers, Coxes, Bouldens, and Johnsons. Sometime between 1886 and 1890, members of the Dramatic Association formed the Social Hall Stock Association for the purpose of erecting a theater. The building, constructed of sawed logs with plastered interior and rustic siding on the exterior, seated 160 and served as a meetinghouse for the

Orangeville LDS ward as well as a social hall for more than forty years.

The Orangeville social hall had a well-equipped stage and good acoustics, according to reports of those who played there, and the extent of its decoration was remarkable for its time and place. The Dramatic Association numbered among its members Gavin Jack, a journeyman artist whose later work reportedly included the lions at the east and west entrances of the Utah State Capitol building. Jack painted three large ceiling panels in the social hall, one depicting a dying lion in the desert, the second the harbor of Marseilles, and the third an Egyptian river scene. Along the sides of the hall there were smaller panels representing famous musicians, dramatists, and painters, and on the stage curtain Jack painted Ben Hur's chariot race with Messala. Jack also prepared fresh scenery for each production which impressed audiences with its realistic effects. Fred W. Reid recalled an ocean shore scene which was so realistic that the flickering illumination of the kerosene footlights made it appear as though the waves actually moved.

The Orangeville Dramatic Association produced an average of three or four plays each season throughout the 1880s and 1890s. John Taylor, a member of the company and later LDS bishop and mayor of Orangeville, provided this description of the typical theatrical entertainment of the period:

Large crowds could always be expected when a play was ready for public presentation. Shows were almost always scheduled for two nights as one performance would not accommodate all those who wished to see the play. The first eight rows of seats were always reserved and sold at a higher price than the remaining eight rows. Tickets were obtained at one of the stores in advance of the performance, and many people brought butter, eggs, grain, or other produce to exchange for theater tickets at the store. Proceeds from plays were always devoted to some worthy civic or church project, so everyone believed it a duty as well as a pleasure to attend the show.

As you entered the social hall on the night of the performance, a small orchestra, composed of an organ, violins, and one or two brass instruments, was playing. (The orchestra members were hired by the Dramatic Association, and were always paid for playing at the entertainments.)

The plays were most often serious dramas, and it was not unusual to hear a great deal of crying and sobbing in the audience as the pathetic climaxes were dramatized by the actors and actresses. Between acts, specialty numbers were introduced. They were usually comic songs, recitations, or dialogues. The play often ended with a tableau, presenting a dramatic scene illuminated by colored light. Sometimes a short farce or comedy followed the serious drama.

The Dramatic Association often had two or more plays under way at the same time, and members were capable of repertory playing of several plays in succession. Plays were often taken to other communities, and the shows of other towns were often played at Orangeville in return.

This general pattern of community dramatics was repeated, with some variations, in neighboring towns. Huntington, the largest community in Castle Valley during the nineteenth century, also produced the largest number of plays. The center of dramatic activity in Huntington during the early years was a forty by sixty foot log meetinghouse erected in November and December of 1880 and completed, evidently, about one week later than the schoolhouse in Orangeville. Plays staged there during 1881 and 1882 included Dick Turpin and The Last Loaf. By the mid-1880s the Huntington Dramatic Club was in active operation with a sizeable membership that included, among the most active thespians, brothers Joseph E. and Milas E. Johnson and their half-brother Don C. Woodward, William Howard, William Green, Ernest Grange, Rose Grange, Peter Johnson, Hannah Johnson, Susan Wakefield, and J. K. Engle. Milas E.Johnson served as secretary of the organization throughout most of its existence, and his records list more than forty different plays that were produced before 1900, many of them staged several times. The list reveals the prevailing theatrical tastes and includes such classics of sentimental melodrama as Ten Nights in a Barroom, Damon and Pythias, Enoch Arden, East Lynne, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Playbooks were expensive and difficult to obtain, so the usual means of procuring scripts was to borrow one from a dramatic company in another community and have someone copy it. The standard fee for making such a copy, according to Milas E. Johnson's records, was three dollars. In such remote communities there was evidently little likelihood that the publisher's representatives would show up and demand royalties.

Audiences for the productions were large as a portion of the community population, but cash receipts were small. The price of a ticket was normally twenty-five cents, and this was usually paid in produce or merchants' scrip rather than cash. Moreover, the families of the actors and musicians received complimentary tickets, and an additional block of free tickets was given to the LDS bishop to distribute among the widows and old folks. Huntington Dramatic Club records indicate the following receipts for one play:*

Red fire was a powder used to produce a red light for the concluding tableau. It gave off pungent fumes as it burned, and as one early audience member recalled, "After the last curtain, everyone coughed but they were tearful and happy."

Providing costumes for the productions required some ingenuity, especially in the first years before the local companies had built up their wardrobes. Items of clothing were often borrowed from townspeople. Louisa Westover Johnson recalled an incident arising from such use of borrowed attire: "One of the actors, Will Green, who usually took the part of the villain, always strode across the stage in long, vigorous steps, especially during an intense situation. During one such act, a man in the audience called out, 'Hi there, don't tear my pants.' " Rose Ramsay Grange, together with Mrs. William Hunter, sewed most of the original costumes for the Huntington company, often working with a small picture from a book as their only pattern. On one occasion, several uniforms for colonial soldiers were required, but there was no blue material available in town from which to make them. Mrs. Grange therefore made the uniforms from green canton flannel, trimming the trousers with yellow stripes and the coats with yellow braid and brass buttons. She recalled that they looked very "elegant" upon the stage.

The towns of Price, Cleveland, Castle Dale, Ferron, and Emery all erected multi-use social halls in the 1880s or early 1890s, and the drama constituted an important part of their community entertainment in the pioneer period. Both the plays themselves and the conditions under which they were produced were similar to those in Orangeville and Huntington. However, these other communities did not develop the strong and continuing dramatic companies that gave Orangeville and Huntington their preeminence in community dramatics during the years before 1900.

By the 1890s a new generation was coming of age in Castle Valley. The communities were past the pioneer struggle for survival, and most towns erected new, larger, brick meetinghouses and social halls to replace the earlier log structures. With improved facilities and a youthful population that had grown up on community dramatics, productions improved both in quantity and quality. During the period from 1895 to about 1908, the Orangeville and Huntington companies staged as many as ten or twelve plays each year, with smaller numbers produced in the other communities. Since plays were often taken on tpur to neighboring towns, audiences in fact had many more productions available than just the hometown ones, and it appears that dramatic entertainment was available almost weekly during some seasons of the year. The coal mining communities of Castle Gate, Sunnyside, and Hiawatha, and the railroad town of Helper produced few plays themselves but provided welcoming audiences for touring troupes from the other towns.

In Orangeville the most prominent actor of the second generation was A. G. Jewkes, Jr., who was much in demand not only in his home town but also for leading roles in the plays produced in other communities. Jewkes recalled that he played the role of the villain so often that when he was called on an LDS mission and the Primary children were invited to pray for his success, young Myron Robertson, the son of Bishop Jasper Robertson, declared, "I won't pray for him. He kills women." Jewkes's villainous roles could have a convincing effect on adults as well. On one occasion when the Orangeville troupe was playing in Castle Dale, a man in the audience rose indignantly to his feet during a tense scene and shouted, "He's a lyin' son-of-a-bitch." On another occasion, in Ferron, a performance was interrupted by a woman who gathered up her children and started for the exit, proclaiming, "I'm not going to stay and see that bloody sight."

Other recollections of community dramatics at this period similarly testify to the realistic effects achieved. Margaret Johnson Young remembered a play staged in the new brick meetinghouse in Huntington in about 1901 in which Don C. Woodward, as the villain, threw Nellie Crandall into the ocean. He picked the girl up and tossed her off the rear of the stage down a back stairway onto a feather bed, while a stagehand splashed water back onto the stage. The whole scene, with the ocean backdrop, the lighting, and the effective acting, was so vividly convincing that young Margaret, eight years old at the time, went home and "cried all night." Performers sometimes went to great lengths in their effort to produce striking effects. On one occasion, J. Fleming Wakefield rode a horse onto the stage of the Huntington Relief Society Hall; in ariother play James P. Johnson was buried alive; in yet another performance Will Green, Jr., skinned his arms in falling through a trap door on stage.

Before the coming of electric lights, illumination for dramatic productions was provided by kerosene lamps and the dangerous red fire powder, so it is hardly surprising that accidents sometimes occurred. Hetty Guymon Anderson recalled one exciting moment:

One evening, during the most interesting part of the play, Neil Howard (then a small boy), sitting on the front row, knocked over one of the lamps spilling kerosene and spreading fire over the apron of the stage. In the excitement which followed, "Aunt Jane" Woodward, a pioneer who was accustomed to emergencies (being the only nurse and doctor in town), rushed forward and smothered the flames with her hand-knit shawl. Everyone then settled down for the remainder of the play, except Neil, who escaped through an open window.

James W. Johnson reported another near disaster that happened when the Huntington troupe took The Cuban Spy on tour to Castle Dale:

In one place in the second act the building was supposed to burn, and the hero was to carry the leading lady off the stage in flames — and it proved to be just that. Ernest Grange had charge of the red fire, which, when the time came, he lighted behind the wings. Someone accidentally tipped over the tin plate. The fire went through the cracks under the stage where the Relief Society had stored cotton, etc. There was a real fire. When the hero picked up the frightened leading lady, her clothes were actually burning. The rest of us behind the crowded wings were fighting fire. The curtain fell and deafening applause followed. The audience said after the show, "that was the most realistic fire we ever saw. My, it was exciting!" Oh, they didn't know the half of it.

James W. Johnson was one of the most accomplished of the second-generation players in Huntington. He studied drama at Brigham Young University under Walter Cluff and Byron W. King, a visiting professor from Chicago. When he was called to serve an LDS mission to the Netherlands in 1906, he decided to produce the tragedy Virginius in his home community to raise money for his mission. His account of the experience provides some insights into the character of the plays, the players, and the audiences of the period:

I talked it over with all my dramatic friends, who agreed to take part. It wasn't too easy, since some of the men had been used to casting, and I couldn't accept their judgment in this case.

I finally succeeded in completing my cast of eighteen characters and gave out the scripts, with instructions to learn them in ten days. I knew it would take longer. I read the play to the group. It sounded too big to some, but they agreed to give it a try, since the cause was just.

Then the obstacles began to pile up. These characters had to first learn to think in that pompous air of the Romans. They had to walk in those stiff-measured steps, and learn how to wear tunics. (We used sheets.) I demonstrated the walk, the attitude and bearing of the soldiers. Two or three of the lead characters said it was silly and refused to try to act like that. The idea of the lead man having to measure his steps and marking his stage position. Then, I was too short to play the part of Virginius.

We were to rehearse on Friday night again. Meantime, I got in touch with Dr. King, who came right out. When he got through with them there was no more mutiny. He stayed three days with us, and we worked. I actually learned how to play tall — that is, in long lines, and people didn't notice my being short any more.

The cast took on new life and began to work in earnest. Dr. King wired east and had his school send out all the costumes, from the mailed jackets, helmets, feathers, etc., tunics, and everything complete, even to grease paints.

In May we played at home to a full house. It was a revelation to our friends, as most of them had never seen a tragedy. If you recall, Virginius loses his mind, breaks into prison and strangles the chief, Decemvre. When the lead brings his daughter's ashes to him, he dies.

After the last curtain, people flocked to the stage. One woman was still drying her eyes. She said to me, "James, it was wonderful. You sure played the crazy part; it was so natural."

A vital part of this "golden age" of community dramatics was the work of the Emery Stake Academy in Castle Dale. Although Castle Dale was less active in community dramatics than some of its neighboring towns during the pioneer period, it was the first center of school dramatics in the region. The academy was opened in 1890 but had a rather sporadic existence until its first permanent building was erected in 1899. 30 It was the first regularly established secondary school in the area and was designed to serve students from throughout Carbon and Emery counties. Community rivalries prevented this goal from being realized, however, and the student body was composed mainly of young people from both Castle Dale and Orangeville.

Dramatics at the academy served public relations and fundraising purposes, as well as providing entertainment, and involved faculty and townspeople in addition to students. Indeed, the most influential figure during the period from 1901 to 1916 was probably Hector T. Evans, who, though he had no official connection with the academy, served as the stage manager of numerous plays and often played roles in the musical productions that required a strong baritone voice. In addition, since he worked for the Emery County Progress, Evans was probably responsible for the unsigned drama reviews published there. The academy players took their plays on tour throughout the valley, traveling in a white-topped buggy that they called "the gospel wagon." Louise Kofford Bunnell recalled that often the women as well as the male members of the troupe were required to help push the buggy out of mudholes as they went from town to town over the primitive roads. These barnstorming tours were often remembered for their amusing misadventures. James W. Johnson, who taught at the academy for a time and, together with his wife, Luella Guymon Johnson, took part in several productions, recalled this incident:

This night we were playing in the old log church house in . The climax of the play was where the leading lady held up a mob and stopped them from destroying the property. This she was to do by shooting over their heads. . . . Luella Guymon Johnson was leading lady, and when I got the gun for her I discovered we had no blank shells. I told Prof. Hickman about it and he said, "Use the loaded ones," jokingly. I took him at his word. I told Luella about the loaded shells and said, "Shoot in the air." When it happened I held my breath. I could imagine seeing the shingles flying off the roof. I daren't tell where this took place for fear, even yet, that I might be made to replace those shingles.

The most ambitious of the academy's many productions was the 1907 staging of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Thomas M. Dyches, a member of the faculty, played the role of Shylock, and the part of Portia was played by Louise Kofford (Bunnell), then a student, later a lifelong leader in community artistic affairs in Castle Dale and Price. Hector Evans declared that this was the most outstanding amateur drama he ever saw, adding that it was better than anything produced by the Walters Stock Company, a popular professional troupe. The popular success of the production is further attested by the fact that it earned a net profit of $ 120, which was used to buy books for the academy library.

The principal of the academy in 1911-12 was W. King Driggs, patriarch of the performing King Family. The major production of that year was his original opera The Navajo Princess, which was elaborately staged in Castle Dale on April 25 and in Price on April 26 and 27, 1912. Hector T. Evans played the leading male role, and Margaret Johnson (Young) was the leading lady. During the dress rehearsal, at the climactic scene, Evans drew a large knife and threatened to plunge it into the princess's heart. Evans was always a dynamic player, even in rehearsal, and Margaret was so frightened by the realism of his action that she fainted. The rehearsal was halted, and Milton Olsen ran down three flights of stairs to get a handful of snow to rub in the actress's face to revive her.

Although professional stock companies are not an aspect of community dramatics as such, they were an important part of the entertainment scene at the turn of the century. Most of the professional or semi-professional troupes that toured rural Utah were based in Salt Lake City. These companies were especially active in the period between 1900 and 1915, as were other traveling entertainments such as minstrel shows. Coming to communities already deeply involved in amateur theater, these touring companies exerted considerable influence. Local actors attempted to adopt the techniques of popular professionals, and the audiences were able to compare the quality of the professional work to that of the local community theater. The comparison did not always work to the advantage of the professionals. When the Royal Slave Company, which advertised itself as a New York company, played Castle Valley in October 1906, the Emery County Progress commented, "The playing was quite satisfactory but the price of $ 1.00 was too high. No use to raise prices on country Jakes if it is a New York company." On the other hand, signs that the professionals respected the local amateurs were most gratifying. In 1907 an actress left the Inland Stock Company while they were touring Castle Valley, and Luella Guymon, a popular Huntington community player, was pressed into service to take her place. She performed well enough that she was invited to remain with the company for the rest of the season. The Progress declared that Guymon was "a most clever young lady and one who will make a hit if she chooses the dramatic profession. Miss Guymon has, also, a splendid mezzo-soprano voice. She enters into her work with snap and vim and has a fine stage presence. She comes from a splendid family and all Emery County wishes her success."

As the growing popularity of motion pictures increasingly crowded the touring stock companies out of the larger communities, they visited the small towns more and more frequently. In 1917, for example, the Walters Stock Company toured Castle Valley in January, a Chautauqua troupe in May and again in October, the Crawford Stock Company in October, and the Howard Foster Players in December. Indeed, small communities such as those in Castle Valley were the last stand of the traveling show. Luke Cosgrave, a touring actor throughout the country for forty years, reported in his memoirs that it was while he was playing an engagement in Price in 1923 that he made the decision to leave the stage for the movies.

Some general patterns become apparent from a survey of dramatic activity in Castle Valley. In the years before 1900, virtually all local entertainment was community generated. The local dramatic companies cut across the lines of age and social status to a considerable extent, and particularly in the towns of Orangeville and Huntington they represented a major, continuing focus of civic life. In the drama (as also in music) it was recreation by participation, but in addition some of the performers evidently attained a degree of skill. Reviews in the local newspapers provided published criticism, and the audiences, with many productions to compare, were apparently free in assessing the strong and weak points of each production.

Although community dramatics remained active after 1900, changes were afoot that would eventually lead to their eclipse. While the touring professional companies provided some stimulus to the local players, they also represented competition for the community's entertainment dollar. Other factors, as well, that at first seemed to stimulate dramatic activity in the end contributed to the decline of community dramatics. In about 1904 in Huntington and 1907 in Orangeville, the LDS wards appointed amusement committees to take charge of entertainments. This move, which received churchwide emphasis after 1910, led to a centralization of responsibility and had an effect on the established dramatic companies. While the community dramatic associations were made up almost entirely of members of the LDS church, and while in most instances they performed in church-owned buildings and donated their profits to church projects, they had nonetheless maintained an independence in the selection, casting, and staging of their plays and had governed their activities by artistic principles, as they understood them. This independence was lost to some degree under the amusement committees and further eroded when the Mutual Improvement Associations were given the primary responsibility for ward activities. The growth of school dramatics, first at the Emery Stake Academy and later in the public high schools at Price, Huntington, and Ferron, also contributed to the decline of the community dramatic associations. The schools developed dramatic departments that were active in producing plays and other entertainments, and their auditoriums eventually replaced the LDS meetinghouses and social halls as the main setting for dramatic productions.

With all of these institutions involved in dramatics, the period from 1900 to 1920 was an active one, but the focus was definitely shifting away from the community associations. Players who had performed actively for thirty or forty years were displaced as the high schools and the MIAs drew mainly on young people as performers.

In Orangeville the community dramatic association that had been such a vital force for twenty years declined soon after the turn of the century. In 1907 the social hall was deeded over to the LDS church. The Gavin Jack paintings had deteriorated by this time, and since the building was now primarily a chapel they were taken down or painted over. By 1910 the dramatic association had dissolved. The young people took their talents to the Emery Stake Academy in Castle Dale, and although there were revivals of dramatic activity in 1919 and 1922 interest never again reached the earlier levels.

The Huntington Dramatic Club survived until 1922. The period around 1904 was a difficult time, as Bishop J. W. Nixon's attempts to consolidate community activities under church control provoked much resentment among some long-time members of the dramatic club. A similar dispute developed again in 1910. The activity of the club remained high throughout this period, however, and one member estimated that at least thirty plays were staged between 1915 and 1920. Several factors contributed to the persistence of community dramatics in Huntington. Since most Huntington people refused to support the stake academy in Castle Dale, the talented young people tended to remain at home instead of being taken out of the community as was the case in Orangeville. Several members of the second generation, such as James W. Johnson, Evart Johnson, Luella Guymon, and J. Fleming Wakefield, were not only highly talented performers but also deeply committed to keeping alive the community dramatic tradition. In addition, Huntington was the largest community in Castle Valley, larger even than Price until 1910, and therefore had more people to draw upon as performers and more buildings suitable for dramatic performances. The brick meetinghouse was the main theater from its completion in 1899 until the Relief Society Hall was opened in 1906. The original log meetinghouse remained available as a rehearsal hall until it was destroyed by fire in 1918, and in 1912 J. W. Nixon built the Bonita Theater, which was used for touring companies as well as for movies until it burned down in 1920. (Although Nixon, as bishop, had challenged the prerogatives of the Huntington Dramatic Club, he was an active participant in community dramatics himself, and one of his daughters, Grace Nixon Stewart, who began her career playing child parts in local plays, later studied in Boston at the Leland Powers School of Dramatic Art and was for many years a prominent teacher of dramatics in Salt Lake City.) Even after the demise of the Huntington Dramatic Club, there were other efforts to revive community dramatics in Huntington. The Junior Chamber of Commerce, with G. Rulon Johnson as the chief mover, staged several plays in 1922-23. In 1931 Clifton Howard and Clyde Johnson led another brief dramatic revival. These efforts, however, were overshadowed by the work of the drama department at the Huntington High School, which opened in 1915.

The general assumption is that the coming of the motion picture sounded the death knell of the drama as the great American entertainment medium. Certainly it is likely that, in Castle Valley as elsewhere, the movies alone would eventually have displaced community dramatics. However, as we have seen, there were other factors at work. In addition to those already discussed, it should be noted that the communities themselves were changing. The large second-generation population that had energized community life in the 1890s began to leave the area in the period from 1910 to 1920 in search of better economic opportunities. This population drain of young adults, which continued for many decades, left the Emery County communities largely composed of the old and the very young, with a relatively small proportion of the population in the twenty- to forty-year-old range that had earlier supplied most of the participants in community dramatics. Consequently, entertainments increasingly took the form of performances by the youth with the remainder of the community serving as spectators rather than participants. Essentially by the 1920s the era of participatory arts was over. The era of consumerism had arrived.

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