After 64 years
THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1975
Page 7
Granbury opera house opening doors again
A drama production company,
which boasts a backbone of 19 Tarle-
ton State University student-actors,
will open the doors of the 90-year
old Granbury Opera House June 19
for the first time since 1911.
The students and the season’s
productions will be directed by
Mary Jane Mingus, director of
drama at Tarleton State University.
They are serving an internship by
their participation which nets them
12 hours of college drama credit and
a wealth of experience.
Currently, the Tarleton players
can be found ankle deep in sawdust
or dizzily perched in the rafters of
the 1886 opera house as they ready
for the first of four shows this sum
mer. The June 19 grand opening
will be a musical melodrama enti
tled “Gold in the Hills.”
Mrs. Mingus’ group is wiring
lights, making costumes, painting
sets and even selling advertising to
culminate a community effort that
resurrected the beautiful old opera
house from a roofless shell.
Local businessmen and artisans
gutted the building and built it from
the ground up. Irreplacable window
frames were done by hand in a local
cabinet shop and donations and
equipment came from every sector.
One of the ramrods of the restora
tion, Joe Nutt said that “I can’t
stress enough how this was the re
sult of everyone’s work. I’ve never
seen people unite and pull together
like this.
The townspeople got the opera
house up but they still needed a
production company. This is where
Mrs. Mingus, the Granbury Opera
Company, and Tarleton State Uni
versity joined to offer a program of
acting experience and college credit
while acting in a professional sum
mer stock company.
“Of course acting is just a portion
of the kids’ experience, ’ said Min
gus. “By the end of the summer
they will have done everything from
stage directing to lighting.
“For the students this is a chance
to expose themselves in the profes
sional theater in a company run like
the professional theater, she exp
lained. “And, of course, doing four
shows back to back will test their
abilities and make them work.
“They will be totally saturated by
the 12 hours of courses and the
shows so the group will soon find out
if the craft is for them,” Mingus
chuckled.
“This increased interest from
Granbury and our arrangement for
the summer stock is really going to
put us in the big time,” Mingus said
of the drama department with
pride. “Granbury has given us an
open door to draw students. ”
Mingus is not in it alone though.
JoAnn Miller, a native of Arp, is
directing the restoration of the
opera house. She is a nightclub en
tertainer and began her career as a
singer with Tommy Dorsey’s Band.
Last year she appeared in Dallas
dinner theater productions.
The students from Tarleton are
surrounded by even more of the
past than they bargained for. They
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are housed for the summer in the
“Mill House which even predates
the opera house. This piece of Tex-
anna is also being restored while it
serves as a dormitory for the actors.
The rest of the summer schedule
for the TSU players includes: July
10-27, a farce comedy with music,
“Charlie’s Aunt;” July 31-August
17, a 1776 comedy, “Pursuit of
Happiness,” and August
21-September 7, a hit musical com
edy, “Once Upon a Mattress.”
Rehearsals
begin for
dinner theater
Rehearsals started Tuesday for
the Aggie Players’ dinner theater
production of “What The Butler
Saw.”
A six-member cast and crews
under Director Bob Wenck have
three weeks to prepare the play.
It will be presented June 26-27
and July 1-2 in the Memorial Stu
dent Center Ballroom by the MSC
Summer Directorate. Tickets will
go on sale soon at the Rudder
Center box office. The ducats will
be $6 per student; $8, non-student.
Cast Monday in “What the Butler
Saw” were Craig McIntosh of Fort
Wayne, Ind.; Dana Herell, Mid
land; Cheri Lindquist, College Sta
tion; Frank Staggs, Laredo; Alan
Shinkman, Scranton, Pa.; and Steve
Kiser, Midland.
They will portray, respectively,
Dr. Prentice, Geraldine Barclay,
Mrs. Prentice, Nicholas Beckett,
Dr. Ranee and Sergeant Match.
The Joe Orton play deals with the
antics of a psychiatrist.
Kathi Cowgill will serve as assis
tant director and stage manager for
the production, first of two planned
this summer at Texas A&M Univer
sity.
“What The Butler Saw” is the first
cooperative undertaking of the
Aggie Players and MSC. “You’re A
Good Man, Charlie Brown is billed
for the second production.
Previously a regular semester ac
tivity, the Aggie Players is the
TAMU student company that oper
ates in conjunction with the Theater
Arts Section of the English De
partment. Wenck is in charge of the
section.
Prairie View
researchers
helping NASA
Researchers at Prairie View A&M
are helping NASA fine-tune its
satellite images of wheat growing
below. From such adjustments,
NASA satellites circling the globe
some day may be able to tell who’s
growing crops, where they are and
how they are doing.
A first-year crop of wheat has
been planted, bordered by bare soil
to isolate readings and eliminate in
terference.
“Since wheat is a basic human and
animal food crop, it would be expe
dient to study it in terms of its
growth and morphological charac
teristics periodically throughout the
life cycle, under both optimum and
stress conditions, note the resear
chers.
Aside from that valuable informa
tion, the team will also lie feeding
information to NASA computers so
that a satellite that is making three
trips a day over the wheat can adjust
its images to a number of variables.
A myriad of factors face the in
frared sensors on the fly-by. A
canopy of wheat gives off different
temperatures according to its
growth, age, water and soil condi
tions, the relative humidity, wind
velocity and time of day.
This is the first crop under the
project, although the planners hope
for three sequential plantings under
both moisture-stress and adequate
water conditions.
With such information, satellites
may be adjusted in the future to look
down on the earth and record where
the world’s wheat crop is growing,
who is growing it and how the crop
is faring.
Library contest
offers cash
for collectors
Cash prizes of 100 dollars will be
presented to the winners of the
third annual student hook
collector’s contest at TAMU.
Sponsored by The Friends of the
TAMU Library, the contest will
begin at the start of the fall semes
ter. Entries will be judged on the
basis of 25 selections from each
individual’s collection. An anno
tated bibliography and short de
scriptive statement about the col
lection are necessary to enter.
Contest guidelines also state that
entries should represent a specific
theme.