See/Hear: The Very Little Theatre's Karen Scheeland and Scott Barkhurst

It’s a mere three months post-interview, and a month after I thought I’d have it up on the blog, but at long last, the Very Little Theatre interview!

Back in the day when it was so cold that I had to keep my jacket on in the green room during the interview, VLT past president Karen Scheeland and VLT board member (and publicity director) Scott Barkhurst gave me an interview and tour of the VLT’s building. Details from that to come later (though hopefully sooner than three months — Scott, feel free to poke me about that).

The VLT, 24th & Hilyard (interior and exterior)

That building, by the way, has been around since 1950. Of course, that was 21 years into the so-far 79-year run of the VLT, so even the building is a bit of a newcomer. There are rumblings and mutterings about how to improve the building (dead spots on the stage have led to some miking, for instance, and the less said about the electrical system, the better — though the lighting designers do a superb job) or whether to construct a new building — but nothing, as far as I know, is yet decided.

1978's The Chalk Garden, with Karen Scheeland [then Karen Biggs] and Gerda Brown

Karen Scheeland became a member of the all-volunteer organization in 1969 after playing a role in 1968’s Devil’s Advocate.

1996's It Runs in the Family, with Stan Boyd, Achilles Massahos, Scott Barkhurst, and Ron Hart
Scott Barkhurst was a music student at the UO when he played the flute in the VLT orchestra in 1967. Later, he helped with lights and eventually, he says, “turned into a VLT person,” becoming a member in 1973. They spoke with me in late March.

Scheeland recently turned in a performance as Vi in Memory of Water, which closed June 21, and Barkhurst played the tailor (among other roles) in April’s On the Razzle; both remain active in all kinds of ways every VLT season. (This year’s season closes out with Truman Capote’s Glass Harp, opening Aug. 1, directed by recent VLT president Suzanne Shapiro*.)

Read more by clicking here.

Talking with Barkhurst and Scheeland gave me more appreciation for the huge amount of work undertaken by the VLT community. So here follows the interview, part of the Suzi-has-good-intentions-and-not-enough-time-to-fulfill-them See/Hear occasional blog series.

I should mention that I’d ask one question, and these two would pretty much just go, setting each other off, causing digressions and laughter. I’ve tried to reproduce a bit of that for the blog.

Tell me about what the VLT means to you.

SB:What I saw when I started was that it was not just a bunch of theater people — actors; it was a cross section of everyone — dentists, teachers, housewives, students. The common factor was that they all enjoyed working in theater. Some members worked in the box office or served as costume people, but maybe their spouse was an actor. And in the 1970s, the members meetings were held here, in the green room.

KS: Those used to be quite contentious! We were all friends but would express our opinions. The elected board members work hard. It’s active theater; you’re doing it. The production manager makes sure the sets are all built; the tech manager maker sure the [lights and filters] are up there — all are very hardworking.

SB: We’re different in that our board and overall production staff here are all members.

KS: There’s a real sense of community. We’re definitely a community theater. A few years ago, [some teachers at] Thurston High School needed a venue because their subject was not controversial but intriguing, about a girl who wanted to be a high school wrestler, so they came here. We’ve had the Rose Children’s Theatre, the Eugene Storytellers Association. We get requests all of the time.

But that’s hard because our own runs are four weeks. One Saturday afternoon [during a run], the next play auditions, and we start getting ready for that play.

SB: [Newer performance and intermission space] Stage Left is a nice room, but if you do other shows, it’s a read crush for publicity and for the box office, so it gets a little anxious around here. But we’ve done memorial services, 80th birthdays and more.

KS: We were always the young guard, Scott, and now you look around, and … well.

What about getting volunteers to build sets and design shows?

KS: We used to have grad students do the set designing, and sometimes they worked out, and sometimes they didn’t. So Jim Roberts and Joe Zingo [now of Actors Cabaret of Eugene] came to the board with a proposal and said they’d build the sets. They were at Sheldon then. So they were the designers of our sets for a while.

SB:Back in the 1940s through the’ 60s, VLT members would show up every Monday night to build and paint and would go right up through opening night. And after we had about five years of graduate students, some really good and some, hm, not to great, Jim and Joe stepped in. But then they went off and created their own theater. So we got Carl Keller …

KS: … who made the most solid sets. We try to salvage the platforms from every set. And not we have John Elliott, the shop supervisor at the UO.

I hear you have legendary set and costume collections.

SB: It’s a challenge on this size of a stage to find space for the furniture and props that have to be in the plays.

KS: And ask Scott about the different places he’s played [music] — offstage, in the shop …
SB: And we once had a quartet in front of the stage.

[Here, there was a lengthy discussion of whether Music Man or Annie, Get Your Gun was the 60th anniversary musical. Note: The record shows that Annie was correct.]

So tell me about the challenges of the space.

KS: There’s no flyloft, and acoustically, it’s all right, but there are dead spots on the stage — and people who know this stage can find and avoid them — but the tech director is now using microphones to even things out.

SB:After assorted test drives, the mics are making a big difference. They’re a good way to hear the show, especially over the hearing aid devices. A member was the architect in the 1950s.

KS: This [company[ was founded in somebody’s living room. Then shows played in the Heilig Theater, a legitimate theater space [downtown], and then we had a storefront. The next move was to the old fairgrounds when the fairgrounds was an old fort: There was a woodstove for heat. And then this was built in 1950 on the edge of town. It was desolate, even.

SB: Over the years, we’ve outgrown the space, and we’ve done a lt of refurbishing of the heating and the electrical systems.

KS: The roof here leaks.

[Here, we had a long discussion about whether the theater should refurbish or rebuild, redacted for space and confidentiality.]

KS:But we’re a long way from decided about what to do. We’re a self-supporting group; we do not owe anyone any money. But women didn’t used to work [outside the home], so they could volunteer in the box office. And there was not a Hult Center; there were not all of the distractions. We had the LCC and UO, and there was us, and we would advertise each other’s shows.

SB: The landscape has completely changed. In some ways, we’re the victims of our own success. Runs used to be two weeks, Tuesday through Saturday or Wednesday through Saturday.

KS: But box office spikes made it clear that that didn’t work.

SB: I remember when we went to three weekends, and then back in the ’90s, we had 1,400 season ticket holders, and we had to move to four weeks; we changed the season to year-round, and Stage Left got pigeonholed in.Now we vary between 1,280 and 1,500 season ticket holders.

Wow.

KS: The VLT offers people a safe venue to be in. People are intimidated by the Hult Center. People think you’ve got to have money, to be somebody to go there. In our theater, people feel a part of it. They know where they’re going.

SB:Season ticket holders will wave off ushers. Despite the physical limitations of the theater, to the audience, it’s a really lovely space. We surveyed patrons, and the most common comment was, “Don’t change a thing.” It’s a very inviting space.

How do you pick your season?

SB: You pick your season carefully. A committee [of members] boils 60-80 scripts down to 10, and then the members vote that down to five. We look at technical difficulty, of course, and language is a big one.

KS: They don’t like blasphemy!

SB: We’ll get letters from people about language, but in the season ticket holder letters, we send out information about language issues …

KS: We warn them!
SB: … we give them a heads-up, so they don’t bring a 5-year-old, for instance.

We try to tread the fine line between doing good plays and not appealing to the least common denominator. But you have to know where you fit in the whole market.

KS:Willamette Rep, for instance, is having a hard time figuring out its audience.**
Musicals are the number one, comedies are number two, mysteries are number three. One-acts and new plays are dead last, usually.

SB: Once we had an original script from a guy in Bend, who offered to fund the production. We were angst-ridden about whether we should do it because we never accept money. We were founded in a pioneer spirit, and we don’t want to be beholden. It’s a community theater, and we don’t want to have to fundraise. The thought is that if you accept money, then people will try to tell you what to play. So we’ve never been in debt.

KS: Back to the community theater aspect. My first husband directed All My Sons, and one of my sons went out on stage to replace the other one who was too sick to go. My boys grew up here.

See photos from some of the VLT’s first 75 years here.

*Shapiro, in one of those twists of fate, was part of a “Victorian quartet” that carolled (caroled?) during EW’s annual holiday party. Seriously. Y’all didn’t know that the godless commie heathens of the Weekly sang carols in a living room during the winter holidays, did you?

**Willamette Repertory Theatre announced a mere few days after this interview that it was closing down, in part due to a lack of ticket sales. Prescient much, Karen Scheeland?