Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Place..... Springer Opera House ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 23, 2007, 11:35 pm Source: Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Columber Ledger -Enquirer Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/springer12653gph.jpg Image file size: 54.2 Kb 07- Year-Old Springer Is a Local Institution By Clason Kyle Definition: an institution. "An organization having some social, educational or religious purpose, or the building housing it. Colloquially, a familiar person or thing." This certainly fits the Springer Opera House, which for exactly 107 years has occupied the Northeast corner of First Avenue and 10th Street, although its appearance has changed somewhat during the century due to two major alterations. (One was the relocation of the original second floor theater to its present position and the other was a wing of hotel rooms added to the north side of the property.) Although not built for "religious" purposes, the Springer (rather unfinished>" opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1871 with a "Grand Amateur Concert by the Ladies and Gentlemen of Trinity (Episcopal) Church, assisted by Prof. Chase and other Amateurs." Ninety-nine years later the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church met in the opera house for over nine months while renovating their First Avenue facility. In 1877, the Church of the Holy Family presented a lecture by Bishop Gross, the proceeds to assist in the building of their new facility on 12th Street. And since the theater's restoration, practically all denominations have held benefits there, including gospel concerts by the St. John's Baptist Church of Phenix City. Gate Fellowship has been the most recent religious group to hold weekly services there, until completion of their new church. Although not built for "educational" purposes, the Springer was the scene of a "public school entertainment" in 1874, the proceeds being used to purchase "philosophical and chemical apparatus" for the school system and for many years was the site of graduation exercises of Columbus High School. It was also the site of the famous and heated political debate on January 10, 1906 between Georgia Governor Hoke Smith and his opponent Clark Howell, who was the publisher of the Atlanta Constitution. Going to theater has always been regarded as a "social" occasion, therefore many thousands of festive hours have been spent at the Springer by hundreds of thousands of local people. The occasion was doubtlessly jolly when the to-be- four-time-President-of-the United-States-of-America (but then an aspiring candidate for the office of Governor of New York) Franklin D. Roosevelt came out of the healing waters of nearby Warm Springs to deliver a speech in behalf of Al "Happy Warrior" Smith, Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Smith, a Roman Catholic, was defeated in the landslide vote for Herbert Hoover, but Roosevelt was elected to his powership by 25,000 ballots. Later as President, he made several appearances in Columbu, one being a speech from the steps of Muscogee County Courthouse, across the street from the Springer. If Roosevelt is the most famous politician to ever "play" the Springer, the most notoriously celebrated person to be seen here would have been Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, play-wright-poet-wit-aesthete and libertine who brougt "Culture" to the provinces on his cross-country lecture tour of the USA in 1882. If only these two widely diverse males had made appearances at the Springer, the structure would rate historic consideration. As it is, the glittering parade Of celebrated actors from wing to wing could well justify a claim by the theater of "America's Most Distinguished Stage." To prepare a top 10 list is well-nigh impossible, and the top 20 is barely tenable. There must be Edwin Booth, (3). Although driven into performing exile by his brother's assassination of President Lincoln, Booth was out of retirement by 1876 when he "Hamlet"ed here. Columbus was thus privileged to see him in his greatest success, termed by the noted New York critic J. Ranken Towse "as a whole it was a notable fine embodiment, remarkable for its general consistency and artistic polish-the best of its generation." Perhaps not the greatest actor of his time, Booth was unquestionably the most popular and the best paid, sometimes more than $10,000 a week. When he died, he left an estate of over a half a million dollars, plus contributing his residence at No. 16 Gramercy Park, New York, to be used as a club and held in trust for future generations of players. The Players was incorporated in 1888 and is today the leading theatrical club in this country. Many of its early presidents played the Springer. Joseph Jefferson, (4), was another actor who found touring immensely rewarding. He found a vehicle "Rip Van Winkle" - and he stuck with it because the public loved it, despite howls from critics who deplored the paucity of his roles. He was accused by a fellow actor of "carrying all your wardrobe in a gripsack. Look at that huge pile of trunks - mine. sir, mine. Examine my list of parts. . .Where is your versatility?" To which Jefferson is reported to have replied: "You are confounding wardrobe with talent. What is the value of a long bill of fare if the stuff is badly cooked? You change your hat and fancy you are playing another character. Believe me, it requires more skill to act one part 50 different ways than to act 50 parts all the same way." Columbus was certainly not in disagreement, bringing Jefferson back three times in the same role as the greatest snoozer on the Hudson. Three members of Broadway's Royal Family, (5), the Barrymores, have played the Springer. The first was Mrs. John Drew who "was without her equal on the stage" and who was one of the first to undertake the responsibilities of theatrical management. Her total See 107-year-old, Page S-14 Continued From Page S-13 ,career in the theater was over 70 notable years in length. Since her daughter Georgina, and her son-in-law,Maurice Barrymore, were almost always on the road, Mrs. Drew supervised the rearing of her grandchildren. Ethel, Lionel and John Barrymore. After her death, these youngsters were shoved into the theater in order to make a living. Although Mrs. Drew played Columbus with her greatest success, Sheridan's "The Rivals," Miss Barrymore appeared here in 1930 in a rather inferior vehicle, "The Love Duel." However as a local bonus, she had two of her children, Ethel Barrymore Colt and John Drew Colt, in her supporting cast. Miss Barrymore had a personal magnetism- coupled with a handsome face and figure - that drew in audiences. Conversely another great actress of the American theater who also drew in audiences was drab off-stage. But behind the footlights, she was the personification of one of her own great lines: "Charm is the bloom upon a woman. If you have it, you don't have to have anything else, If you haven't it, all else won't do you any good." Maude Adams (6), made everyone believe in fairies by her portrayal of "Peter Pan but the local audience witnessed her in "Frou Frou," in a week that the Springer was alternating between the live theater with items like "Flo Flo" "Hitchy-Koo" and The Wanderer" and D. W. Griffith's film "Broken Blossoms." As colorful and positive as Maude was unprepossessing was Minnie Maddern Fiske, who played the Springer three times in a career that saw her as the wife of a New York publisher, Harrison Grey Fiske, and as an actress-winning her soundest triumphs as Ibsen heroines (making them popular as they had never been before)-and as the dauntless battler of a monopolistic syndicate of theater- owners who threatened to control all Broadway theaters and to prevent an uncooperative actor from securing a national tour. Mrs. Fiske was a dauntless foe for over a dozen years. She even bought a theater that was the eventual factor in her husband's economic collapse. She was doubtlessly still barnstorming throughout the country when she played Columbus in 1920 in an effort to pay bills. The Ledger's review termed "Miss Nellie of New Orleans" as an "artistic success" for Mrs. Fiske, and did report that the curtain had risen some half an hour late due to the "marvelous" scenery that had taken five hours to hang. The review carried the initials "FGS," doubtlessly for Fred G. Storey, eventually editor of The Enquirer. Two foreign actresses of distinction, Fanny Janauschek, (8) and Helena Modjeska, (9), came to America after the Civil War. Janauschek was especially popular in Columbus, Between February, 1873 and November of 1888, she appeared here in seven plays, twice as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's tale of Scottish murder and greed, Born in Prague in 1830, she did not attempt to perform in English until 1871, when she appeared on Oct. 10 at the Academy of Music in New York in an English version of Mosenthal's "Deborah." Two years later she did this role at the Springer and Columbus was indeed privileged to see her in all her majestic roles. Critic Towse wrote: "It was in great dramas that she shone and when they disappeared from the stage, her occupation, like Othello's, was gone.After holding a high seat among the queens of tragedy, she was, in her declining years, reduced to the necessity - as a mere means of livelihood - of appearing in thc cheaper kinds of melodrama, which she often made extraordinarily effective by her still undimmed dramatic genius." Such a favorite was she that many Columbusites stood all night in the cold at the 12th Street railroad depot simply to watch her private coach pass through the yard. The distinguished Polish actress - born in Cracow Helena Modjeska made her acting debut in 1861. By 1876, she and her husband Count Bozenta had developed sufficient friction with Russian officialdom though her known sympathies with the sorrows of her native Poland that they fled to the security of a chicken farm in Southern California, where she learned English but never ful1y mastered the language always speaking it with an accent.She was the first exponent of Ibsen in this country, debuting his "Thora" Which eventually became Known as "A Doll's House" in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1883, where she was reviewed thusly: "Her portrayal of the innocent, gay, true-hearted Thora (Nora) is full of beauty and varying charm, reaching in the second act a nervous intensity and strength and yet maintaining a rare delicacy and grace which seem in the power of none so well as of this actress. In the final act, Modjeska was the strength of every scene and in the first act her personation was delightful in its winsomeness and its changing, dainty color. The character, indeed, is a beautiful one, and in that pure womanliness, the exquisite art necessary for its interpretation, where is the actress so gifted as Modjeska? Modjeska, in truth, was the performance. It would be Impossible to predict the success of 'Thora' without her." The latter statement was eventually solved with the appearance on the American stage of a Russian, Alia Nazimova, who became acclaimed for her performances of Ibsen's heroines. She repeated many of her stage successes on the screen. Through the generosity of a member of the board of trustees, Miss Glesca Marshall, the Springer owns a lovely beaded purse that was made by Madame Nazimova. She (Modjeska) had planned to present the purse to Nazimova on her Los Angeles opening in an Ibsen drama. However, Modjeska became ill and died several days before the opening. She made her family promise to attend the opening, which they did, although it was on the day of her funeral, and presented the purse to Madame Nazimova. No. 10 should be-. Exactly who should No. 10 be? It could be Otis Skinner, who appeared at the Springer three or four times, and was everybody's favorite leading man, co-starring with Modjeska, Ada Rehan, Henrietta Crossman and Mrs. Fiske, to name just four. It could be the "Count of Monte Cristo" himself, James O'Neill, who appeared as this swash-buckler at least four times at the Springer between 1886 and 1907, and who fathered one of the great playwrights of American theater, Eugene O'Neill. (Eugene was always carted about with his father on tour, so doubtlessly was here too.) It could be (Sir) Charles Wyndham, who appeared at the Springer when it was only one year old. A London surgeon who was an amateur actor who turn professional to join the company of Ellen Terry and W.H. Kendal, Wyndham was knighted in 1902 for his contribntions to drama. A theater of his, Wyndham's still functions in the West End of London. It could be Dan Emmett, the great minstrel man who composed the unofficial but rallying anthem of Confederacy, "Dixie," He came here on a farewell tour in 1895 with Al G. Field's Minstrels. It could be the satiric Will Rogers, who lassoed a wisecracked his way into the hearts of audiences. He was here (again) with Al G. Field's Minstrels. (There's an undated Springer program, but the year is probably 1905-6-7.) It could be John Phillip Sousa, the master bandleader himself. Or even a member of his musical aggregation Meredith Willson, who later was to compose "Music Man," which has as its rousing finale, "76 Trombones,' a sentimental and rousing salute to Sousa. It could be a skinny, small lieutenant named Irvin Berlin who never learned to play the piano except in the key of F sharp but who became America's first songwriter. He was here in "Watch Your Step" in 1919, right after the U. S. troops returned from "Over There." It could be the great violinist Fritz Kreisler. Or it,could be the great diva of the Metropolitan Opera Company, Geraldine Farrar, who sang "Carmen." It could be any of a number of great dancers, toe pointers like Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, or Agnes de Mille and Pavlova's first great partner, Adolph Bolm. It could be one of two blacks, each of whom "did their thing" in the Springer, either the unexcelled pianist "Blind Tom" Bethune, who played before the crowned heads of Europe, or the great educator Booker T. Washington, who addressed the Georgia State Teachers Association in convention here in 1895. It could be comedian-composer George M. Cohan; tradegian Lawrence Barret (eight times here in the 1880s); the silver-tongued orator William Jennings Bryan (Feb. 22, 1900) Buffalo Bill Cody (twice); to-be Academy Award winner Marie Dressler in the 1910 production of "Hitchy Koo," it could be Sidney Greenstreet; Charlotte Greenwood or Ruth Gordon; William S. Hart ("The Virginian"); violinist-composer Victor Herbert; the darling Lily Langry; Frank "Davy Crockett" Mayo; the, one actress in America for whom Sarah Bernhardt had praise, Clara Morris; Mable Paige; Gregory Ratoff in the reliable tear-jerker "Blossom Time;" the effervescent Fritzi Scheff, or even Ann Sothern. The performing "gold" from the "mine" of memories that is the Springer Opera House seems limitless, chiefly through the research efforts of Mrs. Lawrence Rosenstrauch of Tallahassee, Florida, who was the former Laurette Rothschild of Columbus. She has put in hundreds of hours of micro-film reading and tabulating, making the compilation of such a piece as this an easy task. This writer wishes to quote from a letter he received from Mrs. Rosenstrauch, dated Jan. 28, 1971: "There are so many fascinating personalities of the Springer's past, but please (this she had underlined) somewhere mention Springer's present and future (she had both of these underlined); for in many ways its being 'alive' today - and making theater history - is as important as its past. To have saved," she wrote, "a historic building as a monument would have been great, but the fact that it was saved and is producing quality theater (this too she had underlined) is to me a great plus. Lucky Columbus." Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978. S-13 b& 14. 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