Bridget Wingert: Happy to Be Here

Local barn makes good

In 1953, the New Hope Gazette published a long series of the founding of the Bucks County Playhouse written by Don Walker. The Herald is publishing the serialized account. In part eight, St. John Terrell got a $50 donation from Dorothy Parker.Walker wrote a poem in her honor below.

Part Nine

Springtime for Henry Chapin

Dear Dorothy Parker, wherever you lie,

Do you still own a slice of Terrell’s pie?

Or was your 50 a gift from the heart

For the sake of a doubtful local art?

Or were you prompted by urgencies inner

To cut off the spiel and get on with your dinner?

Tell me and I’ll be a mum wooden Injun,

I promise I won’t even blab it to St. John.

St. John Terrell was not the only party connected with the Bucks County Playhouse who had an active press relations department. Our corporation had one, too, even though it was a strictly volunteer affair comparable to Sinjun’s as a pushcart is to a 10-ton truck. For example, on March 28, 1939, we plaintively issued the following press release which went into the waste basket of every newspaper office (including the local ones) it had the temerity to reach:

“NEW HOPE – Overshadowed, perhaps, in national importance by the groundbreaking ceremonies of Sunday, yet no less important from a community standpoint, was the first stockholder’s meeting of the playhouse corporation, held Friday night at the Solebury Boys School.

“At this gathering of progressive citizens, whose efforts are making the community development possible, prevailed the desired atmosphere of a group of friends working together for the common good.” I remember that meeting. It was required by law to make the new corporation a legally functioning organization. For weeks before it the stock salesmen had been driving in order to (a) sell enough shares to meet Florida refugee Henry Chapin’s requirements (so his “patronage” stock guarantee would operate) and (b) make a good showing for mutual encouragement and enlistment of more field-workers.

The room was large and chilly. Our gathering was pitifully small and huddled in a corner. The “atmosphere of a group of friends working together” was mandatory, just to fight off dank despair and frostbite.

After preliminaries, including a quickly mumbled treasurer’s report, the following directors were elected: Henry Chapin, Fredericka B. Child, Kenyon Nicholson, George Dyer, Moss Hart, Donald J. Walker, John L. Kuser Jr. and Marshall Cole.

Moss Hart, after being visited by a large delegation at his extensive institution at Aquetong, receiving us attired in silver-worked gaucho riding clothes, had graciously consented to buy a share ($100). So we put him on the board. Although he never attended a meeting the name looked impressive on the stationary.

After the stockholders’ meeting was over we had a newly elected directors’ meeting and as I remember, no one left the room; so thin our ranks, so tight the group, so same the faces. We took up a serious problem. It had been tough enough getting our depressingly few subscribers to agree to buy stock; it was proving tougher to get them to shell out the cash. Here we were with a signed contract for theatre construction obligating us to the tune of $22,450, with only $9,800 in the bank.

The contract was so shaved down, blandly ignoring dozens of items that were essential for the functioning of the structure, that we all knew substantial amounts of cash would have to come from somewhere, soon, or else we would have a summer season of lawsuits instead of plays. Anyone who has ever had any building done wakes up screaming, for years after the ordeal, from nightmares in which little gadgets, called “Extra” mushroom into devouring monsters.

Our meeting ended with our dilemma still staring at us through the window. However, at this meeting and at previous ones like it where we had shelved our pet ogre, I had noticed an odd attitude among the remaining members of the original “Hope Mill Association.” Whenever we reached our regular financial impasse a blank look would come over their faces, they would grow inattentive, then lightly suggest we go on to more interesting and esthetic subjects.

When a hard head would bluntly ask, “But what the hell are we going to do?” they would carelessly shrug, and led by some inner knowledge toss it off with, “Everything will be all right when Henry comes back.” They wouldn’t commit themselves any further, like saying, “Henry will put up the cash himself,” or “Henry knows where he can sell more stock quickly” or “Henry can hypnotize the contractor and make him give us the building.” They just said, “When Henry returns our worries will be over.”

On the way home I thought about this (by now) almost legendary president of our company. Mr. Chapin lived like most of the rest of us in a comfortable shabby Bucks County farmhouse. He drove a modest car, somewhat beat-up, much like mine. His clothes seemed selected for well-tested durability rather than style. His wife, Paula, knocked herself out peddling eggs and chickens; it seemed an awfully rugged hobby to pursue just for fun. I was aware Henry Chapin wrote books, but there are a goodly number of authors who pursue their tiresome task for eating money. Although our president had subscribed handsomely before leaving, I discarded the tentative thought that he had the kind of money that could do us any good.

He was tall, good-looking and well-spoken, but I had seen nothing in his approach to make me believe he was, or could be, a better salesman than the rest of us neophytes. Neither did he seem to possess the piercing eyes and undulating arms that would be needed to put one K. Litvin into a philanthropic trance.

I gave up the mystery. All I could do was to join my “Hope Mill” friends in our little pastime, “Waiting for Henry.”

On April 10th Mr. Chapin wrote to Mr. Dyer:

“Dear Geo.: I will be with you shortly, the 20th, and take up my manifold duties and responsibilities and headaches, etc. If Hell has broken loose by the time I get back, O.K., I’m ready for Hell. “Sincerely yours, Henry”

Hell had broken loose, alright. The river had risen and flooded the site, work had been disastrously delayed and the only reason we hadn’t run out of cash was because of nature’s playfulness. If nobody can work there isn’t any payroll.

Mr. Chapin arrived on schedule, took the reins of office from my bloodless fingers (I was vice-president), assumed a firm manner with contractors both main and sub- and breathed confidence into our quivering nostrils. The head man was in charge at last.

The answer to my little “Hope Mill” mystery soon came. The Childs, the Dyers, the Folinsbees knew Squire Chapin of old and he performed as they had quietly thought he would. As real work on the theatre began, and construction would be seen, stock sales spurted and paper subscriptions became hard cash. But it was never enough.”