The Year Summer Place Theatre Was Born

Naperville was a vibrant place in 1966 and we've been looking back at some other great beginnings from that year:  The Barn teen hang-out was built, George Pradel joined the police force, the Naperville Park District was founded, the Feldott family took over The Lantern Grill. But most important to us:  Summer Place Theatre was founded.

North Central College boasted a particularly talented group of drama students that year. Fresh off an award, these enthusiastic young people appealed to professor Don Shanower for opportunities to produce plays and hone their craft after the school year ended. Shanower enlisted the help of part-time faculty member Don Jamison and together they launched Summer Place Theatre. 

Jamison’s career was actually spent at Western Electric Co. but he had always been an actor at heart. Throughout his years at Western Electric, he also founded and acted in amateur drama clubs and appeared professionally in live WMAQ-TV productions.

Shanower earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in theatre from Kent State University and was part of a professional acting troupe on an Ohio River showboat. He joined the North Central College faculty in 1955 as a speech and drama teacher. Like many colleges at the time, NCC's student body swelled in the 1960s and Shanower expanded the theatre curriculum in consequence. 

Agreeing to his students' pleas, Shanower got permission to use an empty storefront on Washington Street and Porter Avenue that once housed a Chevy dealer. They installed 350 seats and Summer Place Theatre was born. The group performed five shows that first season. Some nights only a few of those seats were filled, but the group was encouraged enough to launch a second season.

For the next several years, productions were held under tents that were erected on the North Central College campus. Torrential rainstorms in 1969 and again in 1973 destroyed the tents and around the same time, the barn where SPT stored props was burned to the ground, but nothing could destroy the troupe's commitment. 

In 1978, a metal-roofed pavilion was built to replace the tents. Unfortunately, it was crushed by the Great Blizzard of 1979, but a second pavilion lasted for a decade. Summer Place alums and Naperville theatre-goers recall several performances that were impossible to hear because of rain drumming on that metal roof! For many years, SPT hoped to raise enough money to erect a permanent home, but that dream was never realized. Instead, Naperville Central High School has for years graciously hosted performances with NCC and Center Stage Theatre filliing in while the high school was being renovated.

Like any fifty-year-old, Summer Place Theatre has had its good times and bad times. Did you know that John Belushi was in the cast of a SPT production? Teacher Shanower worked with the Wheaton native John in a college production and encouraged him to audition for "A Thousand Clowns" over the summer. But Belushi was "fired" almost immediately for absenteeism.

Of course that first enthusiastic troupe of thespians graduated and moved away and while many community members continued to participate, interest waxed and waned over the years. Naperville continued to grow exponentially and with it, the number of options for a person's leisure. This city and the surrounding ones offer an amazing variety of theatre venues and it's often hard to find enough volunteers to both prepare the shows and watch them. It's almost an embarassment of riches! 

That also means an amazing variety of ways anyone and everyone can get involved in community theatre. People of all ages and from all walks of life can take part in the thrill of live productions. There's room for tailors, marketers, sound technicians, accountants, make-up artists, volunteer coordinators, dancers, directors and go-fers of all descriptions. 

While Summer Place is looking forward to the next 50 years of great community theatre, we simply have to stop and thank all the folks who made the past 50 years possible, starting with Donald "Doc" Shanower, Donald Jamison and many others who we will talk about in future posts. Thank you all!