[This text is machine generated and may contain errors.]

Rusty Mundell 0:06
But we encourage them to learn the pitch so that they can give it to the people on a personal basis. But this agent's on commission, and therefore, selling becomes a part time thing for them, particularly as the season goes on. When the spirit moves him or when the social calendar allows. And we've had a little bit of problem with our group sales agents, particularly in the far, their out cities, Toledo, Cleveland. 200 miles away, they forget. I think that one of the solutions would be a full time group sales representative who operates out of front office under strict control, some type of a base salary plus incentive agreement wedding, depending on the number of tickets he can sell. He'll begin in September when the service clubs and the social clubs and the schools and the churches and the university oriented clubs forget the frivolity of summer and begin to organize for the coming year. Every year, the Rotary men put on a big thing for the Rotarians, their wives, and they go someplace and they do something. They start planning that in September-October. This group sales man should use less from the state, from the State Associations of Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, League of Women Voters, AAUW, YMCA, and don't forget the inner city groups. There are a lot of federal funds available for disadvantaged children in your metropolitan areas whereby, if you strike up relations with these people, and they know that you have drama down there, and then it's a good thing, then they put in for their, their group to be able to come down to see your drum. This is a sale. They don't, it's, it comes from federal funding. Speeches with every club and golden age group. Try to fix the time and the date that they'll come to the drama and schedule them in, we schedule them in on weeknights, Monday through Thursday. Friday and Saturday, no. We have the TV commercial. We have radio spots from Louisville, Kentucky and Lexington, Kentucky through to Cleveland, Ohio, and from Indianapolis on our west through to Pittsburgh, about 200-250 mile range. We cover several states. We have these radio spots, usually during travel times when people are in cars moving someplace. We have posters in high density areas, and on every one of these posters, and on every one of these commercials now, we have a toll-free number that they can call. I would highly recommend that you establish a toll-free number at your box office. Don't get the 10-hour plus thing. When you go in for a toll-free number, they'll tell you well in one month, we'll give you this for $160 and you get 10 free hours and then there's a little surcharge beyond that. Get an unrestricted number, it's going to cost you six or $700 a month, you're talking about three months, and you're talking about not only sales, you're talking about promotion of your theatre. You can make individual group sales off of this toll-free number, doesn't cost them. If you want to work your group, your point-of-sales, call in to the box office for every ticket like some of you folks do. They can call in on the toll-free line if it's, if it's unrestricted. If it's unrestricted. We have made 70% of our toll-free calls with sales- were sales, 30% were information. They have a camper, they want to know where the campgrounds are. What other activities do you have done there, we acted like a little chamber of commerce sitting up on the mountain telling them why, what the other reasons were besides the drama that they should come to Chillicothe, Ohio. People want to talk to the main person. If they have to drive down Interstate 71 to the Ramada Inn, to pick up a ticket to make sure they can come to see "Tecumseh!" 45 miles south. That's a lot of leg work, and traffic, but they can pick up that phone and dial an 800 number and talk to the box office and be sure that there's a ticket held there until before the show. They'll do that instead, and you're establishing a good one-to-one rapport with people all over the state of Ohio. It's only toll-free within the state of Ohio. Other things that they call in: our weather conditions at the drama site. We lost a whale of a lot of people. It rained in Dayton, it rained in Columbus, and we had stars over Chillicothe. But dang it, the folks who had called for that night to reserve tickets, it's raining and at home, therefore, it's raining all over the world. It's raining in China, they're not going out. And we're sitting there on the clear skies, and if you have that toll-free number, they want to know; what's the weather like over there, Chillicothe. It's good. Come, come see us, come see us. This works and works very well for us. I did go on the 10 hours plus, and just about took the shirt right off my back. The first year I learned, if you go in for a set fee, you put it in the budget as a budget line item and have it appropriated or established at the beginning of the year, and that's okay. Then, you don't care if 50,000 people call you on that toll-free, you hope they do. But don't overlook the toll-free number, it's one of the most powerful instruments that we were ever able to get a hold of for outreach, and the box office manager makes a group sale sale. She's almost sour. We get it all. We don't have to cut 10% off of that for somebody else sticking around someplace in Ohio, or in Indiana, or in Kentucky. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 6:33
Rusty, what were the hours in your box office as long as shifts?

Rusty Mundell 6:37
Our box office runs nine in the morning till 10:30 at night.

Speaker 1 6:41
Were the provisions for that toll-free line over and above those other hours, between those hours? Did you have an extension of that phone anyplace, like someone called 11 o'clock at night?

Rusty Mundell 6:52
No, no, we did not.

Ray Raillard 6:55
That's where you can use an answering service.

Rusty Mundell 6:57
Yeah. Be a good place for an answering service.

Unknown Speaker 6:59
[unintelligible]

Rusty Mundell 7:00
We did not. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 7:02
How many point-of-sale areas, how many outside point-of-sale places do you have?

Rusty Mundell 7:09
Last year we had 15. We hope to have more. And if you if you go to these inns too, Holiday and Ramada Inn, they're good people. Ramada Inn- if a person showed up at Ramada Inn with a "Tecumseh!" ticket, he got a room with as many rolling beds as he wanted for $16 that night for the whole family. Little deal. There's "Tecumseh!" ticket. Okay, in exchange, [Remany] gets a little blurred with this information on it. In our "Playbill", we have a souvenir program, we don't put advertising in our souvenir program. That's something nice, they're going to buy it, they are entitled to all the pages in it. Talking about "Tecumseh!". But we have "Playbill" over here with advertising, and that everybody gets. And in that, we include the fact that if they want to hit Ramada south, $16, and if you've got a wife and seven kids, this is a pretty good deal.

Unknown Speaker 8:04
What kind of commission do you pay?

Rusty Mundell 8:06
10%. Yes, sir.

Speaker 3 8:09
Several questions, what if you got to rely on a Holiday Inn here and there and everywhere? 15 hours, you said that each one is allowed on a row. So if you have much static from people saying that I don't want to sit in row M, I'd rather be in row C, or, how do you?

Rusty Mundell 8:24
No, they, they tell you that they have, they were able to work a deal with us and they have the best seats in the house. They don't argue with it. And they're all center section, because they, everybody wants a center section out there anyway. Okay, our, our seats are in the center section. Yes. Yes, sir. We can fix you right up, I'll get you, I'll even get you the center section. They got it all. Yes.

Speaker 3 8:49
How do you get payments back then? Given, how do you know what hasn't been sold at these outlets, so you can [unintelligible]

Rusty Mundell 8:55
No, you have to call before 6:30, they shut down at 6:30 at night, because we're talking about way out there. They're not going to get to Chillicothe in time for curtain time and overture and curtain time anyway. So at 6:30, they stop sales, they call in, may sell if we say, we sold X-X-X-X-X and they call in toll-free. And that box office manager pulls those tickets to check against who comes to the gate, the rest of the tickets for that role that they had go into the rack and go out to the, go out to the windows. Yes, Jerry.

Jerry Allen 9:31
We have 32- this past year, we had 32 extension box offices. And it doesn't take very long to find out which ones are really selling, you know, have the greatest potential, and they have a assigned seats. The other people do not have, and they do have to call him, but what I want to mention on, I wanted to ask, do you find that, do you get any status from a your extension box offices on this deposit thing, we don't have anything like that. We just build them when their tickets come in, they're validated with their bank deposit stamp, and eliminates that form, and I was wondering, what the advantage in doing that was?

Rusty Mundell 10:15
Then being able to get the money to sell tickets for "Tecumseh!". We have to do it this way, we've got a tough accountant, auditor, like Ray says some of the auditors insist that you do this. It's clean, it's neat, and it's what we've proposed to them in the first place. We don't tell them there's any other way to do it. This is the way we have to run it, in order to have, to satisfy our auditor and my board of trustees that we're running a clean account.

Speaker 4 10:46
Why would that satisfy your auditor more than billing? I don't understand [uninteligible]

Rusty Mundell 10:53
Because, because when that box office, when that baby box office sheet comes in, it's all done. The deposits made, it's, it's, it's viable material that can go into a book. We know from that how many people came, how many group sales, how many freebies were given out, how many [comms], what the house was, what the temperature was, what the daylight, the- what, was it rainy? Was it cloudy before and after 6:30pm? We have it complete, then we file that, then that day is done as of that night deposit, and the bookkeepers accounting for it the next morning, we forget about June the 30th 1974, and we're moving on.

Speaker 4 11:36
Well, of course ours works that way too, but we have accounts receivable. They, you know, we build them, [will do we.] You have the same ticket counters that [unintelligible] can return with this, why it's to your advantage to make your motel persons-

Rusty Mundell 11:57
I operate with a very small office staff and, but that girl is typing up and mailing out is putting, putting 10 cents on 33 outreach sales, that's $3.30 plus the envelope, plus the paper, plus the time it takes you to type, getting it back ripping the envelopes open, counting for it on the books. Instead of that, it's all done. It's done. It's done when she picks up that bank deposit and goes bing-bing-bing on the paper. Yes.

Speaker 1 12:27
One thing we did is very similar to what you're doing. When we instructed our outlets, and this year, we had somewhere in the area of 75 out that's when we sent our information through that we just said, when you're giving them out receives $100, it's payable to us. And they did that, it worked out fine. We had no problems. They've all balanced out beautifully in the summer.

Rusty Mundell 12:51
There's another way. Yes, Mark.

Mark Sumner 12:52
Rusty, I'm sitting here listening to this and, Jeff, several questions come to mind. How many? It seems to me this is an awfully complicated system. Are you sure you wouldn't sell just as many tickets if the motel picked up the phone calls and the reservation for those people?

Rusty Mundell 13:09
I'm thinking now with a toll-free number going unrestricted next year. I'm going to take a long look during the winter. But this is what we did this year past.

Speaker 5 13:19
It's so complicated, and sounds to me as though fighting the windmills. If that motel could just pick up the phone and say folks, I can get you the best seat available in the theatre, we pull the ticket, put it in an envelope, put their name on it, and it's done.

Rusty Mundell 13:33
We may be doing that this year. [unintelligible] They like to have something, you have to make up the airplane ticket form.

Speaker 5 13:40
But ours can be just as personal as yours, because a motel man can, can honestly tell this

Speaker 6 13:46
You got the 101 or 102. He's got a seat here [or two].

Mark Sumner 13:56
[Plain] purchases. I would think some of the tickets are sold where it started.

Rusty Mundell 14:00
Mark.

Bill Hardy 14:01
Yup, of course.

Speaker 1 14:02
Everybody's situation doesn't interchange with everybody elses, it's, one of the reasons this grew up, was the desire to save the load on the box office. So that if the actual ticket, which in this case is like the airplane ticket. If this is sold in the motel, the person comes straight into the house. That's the way- John, Ruby, you here? So they never go by the box office, it's all done before they ever get to the theatre.

Rusty Mundell 14:30
Also, that box office is so busy.

Speaker 7 14:33
If say, the box office times, [unintelligible]

Speaker 5 14:36
A good 50% of our sales, I'd say the middle of the season, are done in advance on the telephone. That evening they simply stopped by, giving them any ticket the ticket paid for. It works very well in our case, and two people at box offices do the whole job. Night after night.

Rusty Mundell 14:53
We've got three, three people on during the crunch plus we throw off a staff and to answer the phones. Three people are working the windows, and

Unknown Speaker 15:03
How many seats do you sell every night on the average?

Rusty Mundell 15:07
On the average, we're running eight-nine hundred. Lot less than you.

Speaker 5 15:12
We're selling about double the number of seats with about half the staff. I'd say. Alright.

Unknown Speaker 15:19
Get the name of his box office staff, Rusty.

Unknown Speaker 15:23
Try and change those women.

Speaker 2 15:25
I want to give a testimonial for March we, we call it up there and made reservations at the motel, all just before we got confirmation of reservations on the phone. The motel operator said, now, may I go ahead and make your reservations for the flight to. She didn't know we were going to fly. But, she took initiative and sold the [Playbill]. We picked up the tickets, but she also said to us and I thought this is this is a real good side gimmick. So now, you go a little early to pick up your tickets. You'll have plenty of time to eat there. He's got a, he's got a nice restaurant. Ear-shot, gives you plenty of time.

Speaker 6 16:04
Was that the Trimble motel?

Rusty Mundell 16:08
"Trumpet in the Land" has, has just about the same thing. You go into just about any place in Tuscarawas county that's worth anything, and they've got information there and they asked you if you're going to, you're going to hit "Trumpet". I haven't been able to brainwash my folks quite that bad yet. But, it's beautiful, what "Trumpet" [unintelligible]

Ray Raillard 16:27
Time wounds all heals, Rusty, it's okay.

Rusty Mundell 16:29
Right.

Speaker 8 16:30
Sir, let me say one thing. If you're near a city, if you're near a city that has a municipal transit approach, and what we have done with Amarillo, and ask them is they would consider driving by motels that won't call in reservations. They sell, they sell a reserved seat, and transportation: 60 mile round trip. And they'll stop at any address in town or any mote- or any motel. Last summer, they in sent that Buster thing, they, I think it brought seventeen hundred people, a 132 buses, and in addition to that they booked charter six for more buses. But anyhow, it's a good business. All you have to do see your city transit is see how far they'll drive, they'll find transportation tickets.

Rusty Mundell 17:17
Folks. Yeah. All right, we're 10 minutes over.

Mark Sumner 17:21
I don't mean shooting down your system of doing it, my question was, do you think you sell more tickets for that means having [unintelligible]?

Rusty Mundell 17:28
Having, having what?

Mark Sumner 17:29
Do you think you actually sell more tickets out there at those points in person? That's really my question. You might have a better way. You may sell a large quantity by handing them out there. That's what I'm wondering.

Rusty Mundell 17:41
We're selling them convenience, too. Yes, we're selling them convenience because they bypass that box office when there's a mob there and go right through the ticket takers.

Unknown Speaker 17:50
You might have a valid point, I don't know.

Rusty Mundell 17:56
There's a sense of security there, it's-

Unknown Speaker 17:58
Is [unintelligible] good for them?

Rusty Mundell 18:07
Okay, we're we're 11 o'clock, we ran over mark. I apologize for that, but the I think it was good session. Thank you very much.

Speaker 9 18:20
Tim and I want to ask Bill Hardy, if we may show a film before we get into his [talk].

Mark Sumner 18:36
One question that I'm afraid was terribly answered was about how do you sell that? [unintelligible] One way I found if [Mark] was to do that, is

Our geolocation, not only for a potential audience, but also because of the respite quality of the theatre plans itself. So, this is one of the paramount attractions out there. This is one of the agents from that. I don't know whether there are other agents working with, with that.

Speaker 10 19:08
Where are they out of?

Mark Sumner 19:09
Chicago, Illinois. In addition to the country western shows that we scheduled for this next year, we have a Hank Snow and Kitty Well scheduled for this next season, and there are a variety of different costs, groups available and attractions. But in addition to that we've also scheduled it again, keeping the area where we're located in mind. We scheduled an autumn gospel song fest which was quite successful, bringing in local groups from across northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. Activity is-

Bill Hardy 19:45
Mark, I think you have-.

Mark Sumner 19:46
Well, I've got to follow the same schedule, we've done the same thing because the past year we've not had a show on Sunday, until this year. We finally started scheduling seven nights, and we ran gospel shows on Sunday. But, the problem is simply this: when you got something with a guarantee of a thousand, two to three thousand dollars? Well, it's cost you three thousand I'd say. What?

Unknown Speaker 20:10
I wonder if you're going to do the []?

Mark Sumner 20:13
Well, we have a facility where we can get undercover.

Unknown Speaker 20:16
Well, we did too, but still it [unintelligible] out of the audience.

Mark Sumner 20:19
It will.

Speaker 5 20:19
There's some other possibilities we've kind of thought about. Easter sunrise service, and anything else that anybody in the community wants us [to do the seats] for. It's good public relations.

Speaker 11 20:32
What about using the [unintelligible] and you'll be able to pay for it and maintain it, and just allow someone to come in for free, or?

Mark Sumner 20:43
Quite a few times we've done it, yes. Because we seem to- if they draw a crowd, we seem to get part of the crowd the next night. What's to expose to it?

Speaker 5 20:52
For your [house], but it kind of attracts- you're talking about do you actually book? Do your organization books, these attractions? Any profit or loss is absorbed by, no, you don't lease it to a?

Speaker 8 21:05
No.

Unknown Speaker 21:05
To some other?

Mark Sumner 21:07
Right. I think we'll listen to Ray here. He had more experience with that and anybody out there.

Ray Raillard 21:12
No, I haven't.

Mark Sumner 21:16
We have, yes, we we're crying out for a sound and light show that will extend the season, that will come in during the time we're rehearsing after public schools are out, it takes us three weeks to get ready. Or a month. So from that time, and from the time public schools are out until we open in Texas, we hope to have a sound and light show. After the show closes, which in our area, their colleges and public schools can get together. So we close next August the 23rd. From then until after Labor Day, and maybe on into September, if we have prettier weather than we've had this year, we could run the sound and light show and maybe have some additional income. We, we have had symphony orchestras out there on our off night, Sunday night. And they were drawing around eight, nine-hundred, twelve-hundred people. We gave them everything. They just paid our sound operators.

Unknown Speaker 22:18
How about your house staff?

Mark Sumner 22:19
They paid our house staff.

Speaker 5 22:21
We gave them- we gave them everything except bad grades. Yeah.

Speaker 4 22:27
For a number of years out there, it's been unused in the offseason, the financial picture this year has made us become inventive again. And so far, we have scheduled the boxing match, bluegrass music show, we have the Little Theatre, presenting, the local theatre presenting a play on the stage. We do charge a rental fee, it's $300 a night for the theatre plus $50 for any technician, lighting man, or sound man is required. We retain the concession rights, and we are going- Well so far, we had $2,500 worth of rental fees in the month of November, and we anticipate expanding on this by promoting things ourselves and money we get from this, we're going to put in a fund to start booking our own shows too, because you know, why Iet everybody [unintelligible] the money, but right now we don't have any gambling when we can guarantee somebody $3 and spin $3,000 and then spend $3,000 more advertising the event, and then a loan comes up. And you're out $6,000 bucks, and we just don't have that kind of gambling money, but our theatre lends itself to a lot of international wrestling matches also. Yes.

Speaker 12 24:04
The majority of the country western [] we're getting from [] They will do two shows for the same price. And we're scheduling like two in the afternoon, five in the afternoon, and hopefully if it were to rain, it wouldn't rain the whole time. So, you figure the budget on one show and then anything to get through the second one is this that much more?

Speaker 5 24:30
I would surmise, of course this depends a good deal. This kind of activity depends on good deal on your location and the nature of- nature of things. There are areas I know for example in- in Cherokee law, that there might be some rationale for something going on through the color season. The difficulty of leaving equipment out and not really not buttoning up the operation at the end of the season, will be quite strange. Push back to the nights, and a lot of places begin to get very cool. And the use of the theatre is really restricted almost a certain [?]

Mark Sumner 25:09
I might inject yours. You want to kind of watch what you'd like to get your out to the state of Missouri, ready to bury ground for Rock Festival. $20,000 this last year, and it cost $45,000 to get back [unintelligible]

Unknown Speaker 25:26
Yeah, right.

Mark Sumner 25:27
During the operating season, when we were using the Amarillo Symphony out there, which was, which was very good. You always have people come in and say, Oh, this is Texas. They're never quite sure exactly what, you know what schedule, they know what was both in there. So sometimes it's really good to remain dark, and then have this before and after I

Speaker 5 25:52
There is- there is also I think something about the identity of a theatre with a production, which which can be diluted, perhaps if it becomes too much to [jester].

Speaker 4 26:05
Well, our idea on that is that the more people that we can get in there and find out where we're- where we are, there's no trouble identifying the theatre when they get there, and we're exposing our location to a lot of people that wouldn't come and then they get they see our storyboard that's up there and see the pictures and, we figure we'll get more people to our show as a result of anything. As far as damage is concerned, I forgot to mention that we do require whoever rented the theatre to carry damage insurance, so that if we have any damage will be covered by that.

Bert Ballard 26:46
We have done the last five-six years during season again, it's allowed our kids to work on and off nights here and there. And we let them put on Broadway productions such as the St. Jude music manual for the First Lady and for darling back. And, if there are any profits derived from the thing, well then they share- I mean they, they just split the profits from the thing. They should've did it the first three Mondays and all those. And it also helps to alleviate some of the boredom that was brought up yesterday, because it gives kids a new way to express themselves. A new thing to do.

Speaker 5 27:31
I think a lot of the groups, I think have some some vehicle for the cast members doing extra things. We- I know "Horn in the West" has the Powder Horn Theatre, whatever they call it. We have our actors canteen shows, where we do nine full length plays a summer, just for ourselves. That's not for the general public.

Bert Ballard 27:53
So this is what they've done? Well, when you really put it down for our rehearsal, if you figured it down on a per hour basis, it'd be very minimal, but this year, they got 120-some dollars a piece or something like that, which really was good for them right at the end of the season there. They averaged about 1,200 people a show, which was good.

Samuel Seldon 28:19
Somewhere in here, can you give me five minutes, sir? Right now! I don't want to put an end to the very important practical questions that have to be answered, but as I was looking at this motion picture just a moment ago, I found myself wanting to ask the people who are planning these performances and have gone to a great deal of trouble to organize them and make them go on year after year; and they're very happy when the audiences are happy. How many of them have stopped for a little period of time to ask themselves, what do these people want? Who are coming here? And products that we can supply them that they can't get so easily or so effectively or so broadly at home? And particularly, what they cannot get out of television and films and radio that they can get in this live show up in the hill. I have tried to tell students in directing, for instance, that it seems to me that we're- each of us I'm sure has a lot of different things he tries to provide for his audience. But it seems to me that perhaps there's three, at least three elements that are as important as anything else are the basic. First of all, a person who wants to live a whole life, the full life, wants to have an opportunity to exercise his- his physical being thoroughly, and more than he has been doing it recently or around his home. He wants second to exercise his mind, not necessarily to study more mathematics or philosophy or, anything very intellectual, and third, to exercise his spirit. While I watched the show, I thought you had something to each of these in there. And, I'm not trying to put anything into your mind, but I'd like to ask you afterwards what you had in mind in putting on the show, and then recording what you put on in the show in most pictures. Well first of all, those of us who are healthy and don't lie in bed, want to have the feeling of moving muscles, and of active senses. You can look at a very lively television show, but it's still somewhat distant from yourself, you can't smell anything, you can't hear anything except the mechanical stuff that has been provided through the film. As far as your mind is concerned, you don't learn anything more about geometry, or anything like that, but you do find yourself having pleasure in remembering an old story that most of us have read. And it comes back, and the our minds become active. When it's all over, we feel some more of life, not at the moment, but of the past, that indicates to us something that we could recapture if we went up into the mountains ourselves and lived some of the life that was led by these interesting characters. And then as far as spirit is concerned, it's interesting to remind ourselves that people live different kinds of lives, and they'll put each individual- his life is very important. And it helps us to broaden our own imagination, to those of us who live in cities, to be reminded how exciting and how pleasant it is, or how tragic it is. It doesn't depend, doesn't matter on how you look at it, is the life of people who live under different circumstances from those we have. So that our whole span of life is, is stretched out for us. As we go to a show, it seems to me that's true. Certainly indoor shows, and especially of the outdoor shows. We feel stretched, we're enlarged, our imaginations are, are stimulated. Well, I was wondering how many people have thought of that, and how many people have tried to plan the shows to fit whatever points they have in mind in the way of enlarging the life of the people who come there. Seems to be if they did, if you can give yourself three or four principal objectives, that it shouldn't be so very difficult to decide what you can do in the spare times, what you can do on Sunday. Well, something that these people who want that they haven't been able to get through the week, and after thinking about that a little bit, it seems to me that they'll be very natural things. Maybe they haven't been over the mountains as much as they could. Maybe their trails that they can walk over may be there. Some people would like to have a naturalist there who tell them something about the trees, and the flowers, and so on. Well, in one way, you provided it in the swimming pools. So, maybe the boys and girls who wanted to get into the pool, they haven't had a chance to do it before? Well, I don't want to answer those questions, but I was wondering, Mr. Elbow, if you had sat down on a piece of paper, the things that you wanted to have fulfilled in the way of satisfying the desires of the people that you want to have come to see your show.

Mr. Elbow 35:34
Well, in the making of this particular bailment, we've made for our new employees, to- as a part of the training program. And we did have a definite script. The film was shot, promise grip, but the point of it was to show them how they fit in the tourist business, make them more interested, make them want to see the place and learn more about it so that they could help publish more.

Bill Hardy 36:01
Yeah, but the only thing I would add to that, why? I mean, why, what is there about tourism that you would like to promote? Besides, guess, the name?

Mr. Elbow 36:13
Of the the farm itself? The place? You, you haven't been to the Shepherd of the Hills, but I'm curious in saying this, now, if you've been an employee that you'd want- found out more about it, so that when more about what was in the area, so if you're going to meet the public, then you could do a better job with meeting the public and giving them a good time. That's what it's all about, it's not a [horror] film at all.

Speaker 5 36:40
I wanna say one of the points of this film is to convince the new- the new employee that he'll never do any better in the Branson area until they're more tourists, because the tourist is where his income comes from. We can build all kinds of things, but they'll never do any more business if no more people want to come. And to get the people to want to come, they've got to be treated right. That's what it boils down to.

Bill Hardy 37:04
Well is it just treatment, or if it's something that they sense as being a little bit hungry for a new experience on the part of the people who

Mark Sumner 37:14
Well, we're trying to help convice them, and the tourists wants to be treated the same way. So it's an attempt to be more hospitable for the traveling public, in the hope that we'll have more people come back and thereby increase our own personal income. Ultimately. That's the way we're looking at it from an employee standpoint.

Ray Raillard 37:34
We've talked to the employees. We've come in from Six Flags over Texas. As much as we feel that they're the whole, this is your responsibility, it's your show, darn good show. But you can- you can talk to him on the telephone, you can give him a harsh play, you can plug them in a seat, you can do almost anything and upset a good show. They've, they've got a darn good show going, you can just ruffle them the wrong way, and they're not going to enjoy the rest of the evening. It's your response though [Dean], and it's your chance to continue. So we are paying you a little bit, but in addition to that, you can be the- you get the applause. Go in there and enjoy your summer, if you don't like it, people don't come work for us. If you do, if you love people while you get out there and get [working], and our kids enjoy working, I think half my kids work for them.

Samuel Seldon 38:34
Well, I'm not going to press this any farther, but I was just wondering if anybody has ever stopped to say all right, now I'll put myself in the place of potential tourists. And I'll ask myself the whole history of my own experience that I want to have. Why this summer, do I want to leave home by the summer? Do I want to become a tourist, and if I become a tourist, what will I want to look for? And then, turn around on the other side, and say all right, that's what the tourist wants, what can I as a producer, as a director, as a writer, as an actor, do to satisfy these- that the person who had that desire in the first place to be a tourist?

Bill Hardy 39:33
I think this question, and I quite agree with Sam, really comes up almost either before that the kinds of problems we've been discussing here actually in the selection of a script and finding a production. I think perhaps we've started from the point here, that the show which is on stage, provides something that once the person gets there will satisfy these needs. It's certainly a place where a lot of plays you have failed because they haven't gotten over that very important first step that no matter how nice you are to people, or how attractive things are, or how much people smile at you, if you go in and sit down for two hours and see a terrible production, it which doesn't satisfy these things, then even, you might as well, you know, stood in bed. But it's a little- we have almost in terms of time, and plus the fact of keeping that quality of production up, which is a thing which we don't touch on much of these meetings, primarily, I guess, because we are mostly managers and promoters instead of directors. Yes.

John Hruby 40:45
Well, going back to Sam's point, when I- quite often I stand out at the box office and talk to the people in the lines, and I'm not talking about play, but I'm talking about the history that the play is about. And I'm talking about the ideals of those people, and perhaps what the kind of thing that is thought of too much- When I- when I go out in public, I talk about the show, yes, but I'm also talking about it as an example of the best of the idealism of America, and I think that's maybe what Sam was talking about. Do we consider that in our public relations? I tried to with it like that, for the show is part of it.

Samuel Seldon 41:29
All right, let me just put in one last thing. When I directed "The Lost Colony", what I'd like to do, I did morning after morning was to go out, back to the theatre on a Sunday morning, at about 8:30 or nine o'clock. And look at the people. Usually quite a crowd of people who had been there the night before, who stood at the top of the theatre and looked down over the theatre, and then beyond to the sound, and beyond that to the ocean. And sometimes I talk to them, mostly I did because I didn't want to disturb them, but I felt that they were re-living then the life of the pioneers who came and got in little boats and finally struck the sand, and face the big problem of starting a new life. And I couldn't help but feel that the folks who had seen the show and then were impelled the next morning to come and look at the spot where the original pioneers came, and what they look forward to, they couldn't see in America today. But there was something about the idea of taking root and growing that impel these people who come to see the show, to re-live it the next morning, and I thought that if the show could do that, it had fulfilled something in not only in matter of history, but in a way of thinking.

Jerry Allen 43:22
We started doing something this year, saying that we talked about for years and years, and we didn't do it because we thought it would be very unprofessional, and all of that. At the conclusion of the show, an announcement is made to be a fact that the audience is invited to go onto the stage and visit the actor. Gary has to do this because the actors have worked hard and they're tired, they want to go home for God's sake. But it had the exact opposite effects. The actor has gotten more into it, because these people were coming up on the stage and saying, gosh, I just wanted to touch you, I wanted to talk with you, and this opportunity to communicate with these people, even though they're still in costume and everything was something that they couldn't get from television. To them, the most of a lot of these people, you know, they spoke with an actor and my 14 year old daughter was asked for a autograph about 10 to 12 times. So this made her life big, and it was- it had the effect that we will do it now forever. We were concerned [unintelligible] being missing and all of these dead souvenirs and events and problems with a cast, and it was- it was just beautiful and people loved it. So that's one of the things that we're doing to get the people out of their seats and onto the stage, and getting something more from the show by being able to be on the set, talk with the people and all that jazz.

Samuel Seldon 44:50
Talk to them, and you can touch them, you can-

Unknown Speaker 44:53
Jerry, can I ask of you, does your shot have curtain call?

Jerry Allen 44:56
We have one curtain call.

Unknown Speaker 44:58
You do have a curtain?

Jerry Allen 44:58
Well yeah, if you're interested-

Speaker 4 45:00
In blackout, everybody comes on stage, and then the lights come up, and then they go down, and then the announcement is made. The lights go back up, and the show is over and people walk up on the stage.

Bill Hardy 45:13
And like that, I think this works in varying- with varying degrees of success, depending on the really the size of the theatre, the type of play and the mechanism for clearing the audience out. For example, you know, at Cherokee we would have to provide buses to take people to the bottom of the hill; a delay in clearing the theatre Creek, probably. One thing that happened this summer, which I saw at the new drama in [snow camp], and this was as an observer. Not disinterested, but I had nothing to do with this. Last night, they did have a policy there of- some of the cast would come out and talk to the audience or read them, when it came out. On the last night of the season, which I attended, it rained in the middle of the show and eventually it stopped raining and they were able to finish the show. And a lot of the actors were, of course being there last night, we're packing up to leave, and I think the word had been put out that since it had been a long night, and it had been raining, that the actors would not be required or expected to to come out to you know, to do their thing. And I overheard one boy and he picked up several volunteers. He said, by golly, so those people were nice enough to stay, I want to go out and talk to them. And he did, and they did, and they were out there at the end of the show, and I found that a very- really a very impressive and a very moving attitude, which I think reflects the kind of attitude that these people had towards their audience. Yes sir.

Speaker 8 46:52
Our actors at the end of the show, two thirds of them will- maybe 60 of them, will be out in front. When you leave, they're there, are in a line- make them if you want to slow down traffic. I mean, it slows people taking off the parking lot. They love to meet those actors and get the autographs. Then the actors got into- we have a party older with live validation rocks, and they got into farming a wax museum, a living wax museum, and it's very real. People walk out- "Oh, I missed this" [unintelligible] they came in during the show. Anyhow, that slows them down and gives them some fun and good times. The audience, all the good ones, they are showing too long. Five after 11 when it's over, the audience will be out there at 12 or 12:30. They're too long for me, but anyhow [unintelligible], is accurate many out there, are the same there for the wax barns, and they can also budget.

Unknown Speaker 47:58
What do you want people to [unintelligible]?

Speaker 8 48:01
We have a problem now again, because the [?] is up the hill.

Mr. Elbow 48:12
One of the things is getting the people out of theatre, and this is one of the reasons that we have been hesitant about it. But since all the actors are on the stage and the people are up there, after about 10 minutes, you know, it's not an internal thing. The light man brings the lights down, and the house lights go out. The people realize that it's time to go home.

Bill Hardy 48:38
Right, yes, right.

Speaker 1 48:39
I think that these are important considerations. I appreciate Mr. Seldon's comments about this primary question of why. I think first of all, it's- it occurs to me that it's symptomatic of our society in general, but particularly with people in the arts, we don't answer this primary question, why? Why are we doing this? And we better answer it, especially with people in theater or else we're not going to be around when we're in such fierce competition with the other audiovisual arts. And I think this is where the next point comes in, this thing about interacting with the audience after the theater. Let's consider who our potential audience is. Basically, the bulk of people that we play to aren't theater-goers, or at least we're playing to a large percentage of people who aren't consistent indoor theater-goers. And if we're interested in sustaining theater as an art form, we'd better be darn well concerned about how we treat these people granted, and what can we do in outdoor drama? To these people who are- who are indoor theater-goers consistently, we can offer them this interaction with life-blood actors and show them that the difference between sitting and clinically, mechanically separated from what's going on on a screen, what that difference is between actual feeling and hearing and sensing, as Mr. Seldon says, that life-blood actor right there across the board strokes. And I think these are important considerations. We need our cast to meet this task.

Samuel Seldon 48:58
One thing that I think we can often do tend to forget when we're outside is that these spectators who- many of whom have never seen a live show before in the presence of live figures forget to some extent, that these are performers and have a feeling right after the show that to some extent, these are the people, the live individuals that they saw in the story. Oh, Tom, very few people ask old Tom, where he got his experience or what art school he went to, or if it's difficult to put that makeup on. They think of him as this lovable old fool that we're singing to them and cracking jokes a little while before, and they like to feel that they know him. I think that that's an important thing that we need to remind our actors about, that they are representing life that the spectator likes to touch and feel. Excuse me, I know that takes a lot.

Speaker 5 51:38
Alright, I think we've got- we'll take about one or two more questions or comments, and then I think probably getting on to the time.

Bill Hardy 51:43
Yes. In the back, raise your hand, yes.

Laura Parsons 51:46
We've found, at least with "The Legend of Daniel Boone" in the past few years, that with a large variety of age groups, that it was very necessary too to have not an acquired curtain call type thing, but we require that we wanted too the accuracy [] for that, shaking hands with the audience because they had died during the show. And children especially, were very interested to know that Jamie Boone was not killed every night, we didn't have a different kid out there. As things simple as that can make a big impression on your public, and again, the first time that they've seen live theatre, and for that reason, I need to know that it really is that.

Bill Hardy 52:30
Yes.

Laura Parsons 52:31
Bill, maybe mine should be one of the last questions because it's relative to next year's meeting. They'll work on new pathways for Georgia this morning. Made a suggestion that he said he'd made in the past, but perhaps it's worth tossing up to this group. As a Chapel Hillian, I'm very delighted that you all will come here year after year, visit us and let us post you. On the other hand, I served with three different outdoor theaters before I became assistant to Paul Green and traveled out with him and I saw the same. Not only kids ate but there's a number of other. Film suggestion was, is there merit in rotating the meetings different years so that [Mark Trimble]'s still in operation, his last performance is tonight. Suppose our meeting had been at "Shepherd of the Hills", and we could see his operation participate in and see a show. Perhaps the next year, we could go to Powder, or Canyon, or Bardstown, Kentucky or Cherokee, or Manville, all of whom have facilities certainly adequate to match this room and the banquet room, and then have something else in which we could show we all just came. To me, I got a great deal out of the hearing, you talked about the "Tecumseh!" [unintelligible] and all the others, but I wonder how many of you share with Ray Raillard in that he's not seen any of his own and [Mark Trimble]'s, shows, because he's so busy with his own season. Perhaps in expression of this, could you pass them on?

Mark Sumner 54:07
Yes.

Speaker 5 54:07
Oh, well I would question Mark Sumner on this before, and understand of course that this is funded by the University of North Carolina and I understand the reluctance. But, we'd like to extend an invitation for the "Shepherd of the Hills" to host this organization in Springfield, Missouri. Any year that you'd like to come.

Speaker 1 54:26
Mark has offered that as a standing offer, but he presented the problem that we have had in that the meeting will have to be financed in detail some other way; may be possible. So that's the suggestion that's come from several sources but Mark Trimble has made us a standing offer.

Laura Parsons 54:50
How many would like to move it about? Perhaps the mechanics could be worked out? That's something the Board of Directors of the Institute to discuss the plan.

Speaker 13 55:02
I being young and based, I think it's a wonderful idea, I think I have only seen two shows, and I was very delighted with both of them. And what attracted me to get into this business was the fact that we went to South Dakota, we saw the "Passion Play". And then this summer, we brought the children and the children might have one thing, and it goes all the way to the other side, and they really enjoyed "Unto These Hills". So those are the only two that I've seen.

Bill Hardy 55:37
Certainly, obviously, perhaps in the cases-

Speaker 14 55:39
are back to the camera in the front, they don't look very natural, very frankly, those permanent waves, I don't think it's quite natural, wavy hair. Next. This is the famous christening or baptismal scene of the baby. This was actually from the play of year before last. It- the actual baptismal rights, and Ananais Dare, the father, on the extreme left. John White, the grandfather next, and then the midwife, and the Reverend, Mr. Martin, and other characters, and on the right there is John Borden, he hero, I guess you would call it of "The Lost Colony". Next. This is a restage version, and I think it will be changed again this year of what we used to call the cream chamber scene. It was performed on a set, which had some flaps and so forth put up to make a chamber scene and they still call it that, but Mr. Layton last year decorated it up with a lot of banners and did it on as a garden scene. And, but I think he's going back to the chamber scene. This "E.R.", by the way, was Elizabeth Rex, people always ask me what in the world is that? Well, that was Queen Elizabeth. And Sir Walter John like pleading with Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the colony in Virginia, on Roanoke Island. Next. This, of course, is the two leading players of the show, Eleanor there, and John Borden. I put it in here because I think some of you might not know that Marjaline Thomas who plays the part of Eleanor Dare started in "The Lost Colony". Sam Selden was talking about it last night. In 1938, the second year, is a little flower girl. She has been in the show continuously. Since that time, except for the full war years when the show was suspended, she is now the leading lady, she had a nine year old son in the show last year. And Marjaline is still as pretty as ever, and doing a beautiful job in the part of Eleanor there, and we hope she'll just keep on forever, almost. Next. This is the rebellious scene where the colonists were rebelling and trying to make up their mind what to do. Eleanor Dare and John Borden have taken over the leadership of the colony, Ananais Dare is dead with an Indian arrow in his back in a very gory scene. And John White has returned to England, and so forth. This was actually taken a scene from the year before. 1963 production, next. And this of course, is the final scene of the show: the march off into the wilderness. This is a scene that very frankly, we're not too happy about in recent years, Sam, something has happened to this scene. Everybody says they used to go out of there, there wasn't a dry eye in the place when the final march in the wilderness and they finding their flag in there. Paul says he hopes to goodness we can use a little bit different terminology that we can get a spotlight that can iris in on that flag in the final scene, but we're all concerned about the fact that today if something has happened to the final march scene, people- maybe it's people, they don't weep anymore. They try to march off out of the theater, and we're hoping maybe that this scene can be in some way made more dramatic or go back to something that Sam Selden put in it that apparently somebody has lost along the way. One of the reviewers last year, a large drama said "many directors are quite a number of directors, at least eight, have finally put their stamp on 'The Lost Colony'." And I know that Sam Selden's stamp must have been one of the finest in this final march off in the wilderness, but Joe Layton's stamp, they said is one for the stamp collectors as far as making it a beautiful show, and we hope that those of you who haven't seen it will come back, and Mrs. Sumner, that you will make up your mind like your husband that you want to come back and see it again. And I believe that's my last slide, I sent him two more but let's see if that's not the last slide that series. Thank you very much.

Speaker 15 59:54
I'm so organized today, you know. I have here lists of some of the other slides for some of the people who have not had an opportunity to see them, so that they have a slight chance to know- even though they may know the show, what's coming up before you do. But, the man I'm going to call on next to report up on the next steps in our history that are recorded in outdoor drama now, he's going to have to work from his memory until the list comes down from upstairs because apparently I misplaced it and don't have it. But I would like to call now on Dr. Paul Green to survey with us some slides from the founders, from their 1957 production in the cold theatre, and tell us about that, and follow that with some slides of the common glory which is also played in Williamsburg, Virginia.