The Theatre

By Bob Hess

I have always been a movie fan. My early experience with the legitimate stage was when the Jack & Maude Brooks tent show would come to town, which is the subject for a future series of articles.

This is the story of how I was involved in Timber Lake Playhouse.The seed was planted in 1960 when Andy Bro, who was a teacher at Shimer College, asked Don Mackay,

"Tell me, Don, you ever thought about Summer Theater out at your resort?"

"Well, yes, yes I have," was his answer. Seventeen months later Andy saw Don standing by a tree on the campus and thinking something was wrong, he approached him, then Don asked,

"Have you thought any more about the theatre?"

With this statement, TLP was born.

In 1961with the encouragement of Donald Mackay, who contributed both financially and physically, with a group of theatre enthusiasts, they decided to build a summer theatre in rural Mount Carroll. This was completed in 1962 just in time for their first season.

What surprised everybody was the quality of the productions. These weren't amateur performances, but were semi professional type theatre, with actors from universities from all over the country. Acting is one of the last professions, where you have to apprentice, and summer theatre is just what these aspiring thespians were looking for. Here they could get valuable acting knowledge, which they could add to their experience resume.

The first theatre was on land donated by Don and was an all-wood structure, largely made out of native wood sawed out of Don Mackay's timber. It was a rustic building, and, like native wood that isn't kiln dried it has a nasty habit of drying out, thus making openings at each joint, which later had to be covered with wood bats. It was a crude building, but it provided a playhouse for nearly twelve years.

Then, as the season started in 1974, the worst thing imaginable happened. In July a fire destroyed the entire building. The company of actors was left without a theatre. Someone thought of the "Karen Kupcinet Theatre", which was a part of the Shimer College campus. The rest of the seasons plays were presented in this theatre, which had less than half the audience capacity of the former theatre.

It was during that summer when two men, Ralph Hough and Andy Bro, came to me. They wanted to talk about some construction in the new proposed theatre. Mainly they had an idea that the new theatre should have a 36-foot revolving stage, a steel grid to hold lights over the stage and catwalks over the audience for special lighting for the stage. I will admit this was new to me, but with help from my brother who had some experience in stagecraft, also with conferences with the building contractor Wally Hutchinson and his architect Larry Liston we arrived at some parameters for my part of the building.

I had to start designing the turntable, so I tried to do my usual research. I found there were few sources of information concerning the fabrication of turntables, due to the fact that there are so few theatres that have them. The Timberlake revolving stage is probably the only one in the state.

We were lucky; the Pete Dillions who owned Northwestern Steel Co. of Sterling donated 15 tons of steel beams to fabricate the components. Turning 15 tons of steel into a turntable and catwalks took most of the summer of 1974 and early spring of 1975.

The stage manager from his position above and on the left side of the stage remotely controls the turntable, which is the only two-speed turntable in existence. From his location he can stop it within a fraction of an inch. All of the hydraulic components are located in a pit under the stage.

My late brother, Rev. Richard Hess designed much of the electronic lighting control system, which is operated from the booth in back of the theatre. This controls all of the stage and catwalk lights.

One of the things I learned about the theatre is things aren't always just what you see on the stage. The sets look grand under the special lighting, but with a regular light, they are pretty bland, so you see the lighting director in conjunction with the set designer are the people responsible for what you see. Another person that most people aren't aware of is the property person, who is responsible for everything on the stage. If an actor throws something at another actor, the property person has to make sure the missile will be there for the next performance. There are so many little things that go into a production that most aren't aware of, but this is what it takes, to be in show business.

Another thing I found was some actors are quite shy by themselves, but when they are performing as someone else, they assume that character with all of its strengths and weakness. That's what it takes to be an actor, and that's not for me.

For a period I was on the TLP board and my greatest accomplishment there was when Judge Rapp and myself came up with the idea to have them produce "Showboat," we met with spirited resistance but we prevailed and it went on to be the most successful show of all time, 118% house. Of course much of the credit goes to Leroy Stoner and his wife Marti, who put the project together. 118% house isn't anything to sneeze about.

While the theatre still has some technical difficulties with the sound reinforcement, consideration should be given to identifying the sources of the unsatisfactory results. Accomplishing this can sometimes be done when the actors learn to project their voices, then most of the audio problems will disappear.

The best place to be in show business is seated on the center aisle about four rows back. There, you can really enjoy the show.

The theatre will celebrate its Golden Anniversary in 2011 and the performances then, will be as great, as they are today.