Surry by the Bay

Surry Playhouse 1929-1938/1946-1953

Text by Kate Mrozicki
Images contributed by the Surry Historical Society

On July 5th, 1929, the Surry Theater Company first opened the barn doors of the Surry Playhouse to the summer theater-going public of coastal Hancock County. Just months before the start of the Great Depression, a group of actors, directors and producers from New York City pulled together a repertory theater and acting school in an old farmhouse and barn on Route 172.

Like hundreds of other summer stock theaters popping up in vacation locales of New England in the 1920s and '30s, the Surry Theater offered a different play every week during their summer seasons of nine or ten weeks. Shows were often recent hits from Broadway or revivals of older classics. The Importance of Being Earnest, As You Like It, and many others were put on in the early years. For 16 summers the Surry Theater thrilled audiences of 300 with a taste of Broadway on the coast of Maine.

Despite the Great Depression, the Surry Theater Company continued relying on well-heeled clientele who summered in grand cottages in places such as Mount Desert Island, Blue Hill and Castine. The Playhouse offered some elegance and culture in a charming rustic setting. On cool summer evenings guests lounged in leather chairs around the large fireplace in the lobby as chauffeurs lined up in the circular driveway to deposit their well dressed patrons. It wasn’t only for the well-to-do. Though many local folks regarded this as entertainment for those “from away,” some visited the theater regularly. After surviving the Depression with tight budgets, offering much appreciated distraction from hard times, it was the country’s entry into World War II that eventually forced the theater to close in 1939. It went dark for seven years until after the war when a new patron gave it new life under a new producer Charles O. Carrey who had himself just returned from three years of service in the military.

The new reincarnation of the theater advertised “air cooled” and “ample parking” along with the open fireplace. The Bangor Daily News called it “Maine’s most charming rustic theater.” It included a tea room and later a restaurant open everyday serving tea, lunch, dinner and after theater snacks. During those years they continued with Broadway hits such as Wuthering Heights, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Blithe Spirit. Actors included character actor Edward Everett Horton who was ubiquitous in Hollywood films of the 1930s and acclaimed stage actor Barnard Hughes. When shows called for young folks they drew from Surry and surrounding towns, bringing them in to fill the roles and giving them a taste of the stage.

Summer theater provided needed summer employment and allowed artists to focus on their craft away from the city in a more relaxed country setting. Henry Fonda, Sheppard Strudwick, Anne Revere, Dorothy Matthews, and Joseph Cotton all played at the Playhouse early in their careers. Young actors and actresses had the opportunity to hone their skills with a rigorous schedule: 8 am to midnight six days a week, performing sometimes eight shows a week. They were kept busy learning lines, building sets, sewing costumes and creating lighting. Many actors gained the performance experience they needed in this setting and went on to successful careers on Broadway and in Hollywood. Actress Mary Grace Canfield recalled coming to the Surry Theater as an apprentice in 1946, a relatively inexperienced young actress of 21, and leaving in 1953 with 60 shows under her belt, having met and married her husband, producer Charles O. Carrey. Her time in Surry was the launching point of her career and she went on to work on Broadway, in television and in movies. In 1985 she told the Ellsworth American that, "nothing will ever top the Surry Playhouse for having good fun...We were all from New York, and we all thought Surry was the best place on earth to be."

Resources

LoMonaco, Martha Schmoyer. Summer Stock!: An American Theatrical Phenomeon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Print.

"Mary Grace Canfield: "Nothing will ever top the Surry Playhouse for having good fun!" The Ellsworth American, Thursday December 19, 1985. Section 1, Page 8.

Woodward, Colin. The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.