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A preface to a book like this inevitably runs the risk of sounding like one of those interminable Academy Awards thank-you speeches. (In my case, since it is highly unlikely I will ever get to deliver such an oration, I would like to thank the people who have inspired my theatrical career and my abiding love for live theatre-Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim. And that is no jest.)
But there are people without whom this book would have been impossible to write: the volunteers such as Glenda Ebhardt who clipped and pasted in scrap books, the newspaper stories that told of the Little Theatres ups and downs, the often unknown reporters who chronicled the growth of RLT Some of those who helped can be identified by name-even at the risk of unintentionally leaving someone off the list: Linda Bamford and others on the staff of the Little Theatre, especially Denise Michelle Penven who, with Fern Jeremiah, compiled a summary of RLT seasons, staff members, officers, and award winners that was invaluable; George J. Spence who, as a candidate for a master’s degree at Florida State University, wrote the RLT history that was a basic reference for this book; and RLT veterans like Dick Snavely, Rebecca Gill, Mary Lyman, Jimmy Thiem, Jerri Miller, Jimmy Leocarta, Harry Callahan and Roy Dicks.
There are many, many more, but it’s time to say, “Curtain Up!” and on with the show.
Guy Munger
October 1985
Raleigh Little Theatre gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the folllowing:
- Caroline Banks
- Landis Bennett
- K.C. Crowe
- William Daniels
- Bob Dean
- Jack Field
- Ann Fitz-Simons
- Beck Gill
- Sam Hood
- Colbert P. Howell
- Eleanor Jordan
- LA Lentz, III
- David Marsland
- Bob Mitchell
- The News & Observer
- North Carolina State Archives
- Courtney Proctor
- The Raleigh Times
- Bill Touchberry
- Saravette Royster Trotter
- Lewis P Watson
Read next: Chapter 1: The Beginnings