Spotlight shines on McCarter’s rich history

Theater has entertained Princeton with 75 years of drama and fanfare.

By: David Campbell
   On Feb. 21, 1930, McCarter Theatre raised the curtain on its very first opening night. Onstage was a performance by Princeton University’s Triangle Club of its show that year, "The Golden Dog."
   That year’s Triangle Club Show was the brainchild of Joshua Logan, a member of Princeton’s class of 1931, and Alfred M. Wade of the class of 1930. Mr. Logan would go on to become one of the giants of the Broadway stage, garnering acclaim for such hits as "South Pacific" and "Mister Roberts."
   Also onstage that night was a Princeton sophomore named James M. Stewart. Mr. Stewart didn’t make the cast that year, but managed to get a part in the show as an "accordion specialty act." Jimmy Stewart, of course, went on to become the Hollywood screen legend, starring in such classics as "The Philadelphia Story," which earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1940; "It’s a Wonderful Life;" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."
   This year, McCarter Theatre is celebrating its 75th anniversary season. On Saturday night, the board of trustees and the associates board of McCarter Theatre Center will host a gala benefit honoring the theater’s rich history and featuring a performance by entertainer Lily Tomlin.
   In addition, William W. Lockwood Jr., special programming director at McCarter, has written a book, titled "McCarter Theatre Center: Celebrating 75 Years," commemorating the theater’s legacy.
   Mr. Lockwood, a member of Princeton’s Class of 1959, is perhaps the best suited person to write such a history, given that he personally witnessed and/or contributed to a good deal of it — by his estimate, his relationship with McCarter encompasses about 60 of the theater’s 75 years.
   He started attending performances there as a child of about 7 or 8. He worked as a ticket-taker while a student at Princeton — and, as a student, was an active member of the Triangle Club, where he still serves as faculty adviser. Since 1963, he has overseen programming at the theater, bringing in an array of music, dance and special events.
   "I was immersed at a very young and early age, fully, up to my neck and shoulders," said Mr. Lockwood, who has relied in part on his personal cache of McCarter memorabilia in his attic to reconstruct the theater’s distinctive history of performances for the book.
   Talk about a personal history.
   He contributed those materials to the McCarter archives housed at Princeton University’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, where the Triangle Club archives are also kept.
   "We have imperfect archives here, but I had a lot in my attic," said Mr. Lockwood, a Princeton resident. "And a lot of it was in my head. I was sort of a walking archive, a living and breathing archive. Many institutions have oral histories. Rather than rely on memory, which is faulty, it was time to put it down in black and white, and this seemed like the perfect occasion."
   Mr. Lockwood has been head of programming at Lincoln Center, and today splits his time between McCarter and his programming duties at New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. At McCarter, he is responsible to a greater and lesser extent for the whole range of performances that appear at the theater. All main-stage offerings of the McCarter drama series, however, he was quick to point out, are solely the purview of Artistic Director Emily Mann and her staff.
   Mr. Lockwood said it is his eclecticism that makes him uniquely suited for the job he does. "I’m comfortable and knowledgeable in all the genres of performing arts — classical, jazz, dance, world music, even film," he said. "Synergy is our motto. Nothing pleases us more than for someone who comes for the play series to return for the jazz.
   "The more cross-fertilization you have in your audience the better," he continued. "Part of the goal is to educate the audience, to expose them to forms they’ve never encountered.
   "That’s part of our mission, and it’s working," Mr. Lockwood said. "Not to be satisfied with the status quo, or to be satisfied with big names that sell out. To combine the big names with new faces, the up and coming, the people who will be the new superstars of tomorrow." He added: "I go to almost every performance that I’m responsible for here in McCarter. If I bring it in, you bet I’m there."
   As Mr. Lockwood’s book explains, McCarter was built as a permanent home for the Triangle Club, and it remains so today. Over the decades, it has grown to become one of the leading regional performing arts centers in the nation.
   In 1929, Thomas N. McCarter, Princeton Class of 1888 and president and board chairman of what would become Public Service Electric & Gas Co., contributed $250,000 for the construction of the theater off University Place, with the club and university covering the balance of the $450,000 construction costs. Today, the theater would cost about $50 million to build, Mr. Lockwood notes in his book.
   Up until the 1960s, McCarter operated as a "booking house," a try-out venue where productions bound for Broadway were premiered before heading to New York, including landmark plays like Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town" and Moss Hart’s and George S. Kaufman’s "You Can’t Take It With You." During this period, Lucille Ball made her professional stage debut in "Hey Diddle Diddle."
   In the 1960s under the direction of Milton Lyon and Arthur Lithgow — father of actor John Lithgow — McCarter underwent something of a radical transformation in programming. It became a producing theater that mounted its own theatrical productions. During this time, future stars like Dustin Hoffman, Mr. Lithgow and Christopher Reeve appeared on McCarter’s stage.
   Since then, the impressive list of world-class performers that have walked the boards there has continued to grow. They include Sir John Gielgud; Martha Graham and her dance company; Bob Dylan; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Bill Cosby; Bette Davis; Victor Borge; John Belushi and Chevy Chase; Daniel Barenboim; Tony Bennett; Mikhail Baryshnikov; Miles Davis; Richard Gere; Tallulah Bankhead; Gregory Peck; Carol Burnett; Edward Asner; Mel Torme. …
   The list goes on. It’s too long to include in its entirety. In recognition of its long tradition of excellence, McCarter received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater in 1994.
   Mr. Lockwood will give a talk on McCarter’s history and his new book 7:30 p.m. April 28 at Princeton Public Library. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, call the library at (609) 924-9539.
   
For ticket information for the 8 p.m. performance Saturday evening at McCarter, call the ticket office at (609) 258-2787. For information on gala benefit tickets, call Christine Murray at (609) 258-6547.