Our Laurel Little Theatre was organized back in August 1961 when four local theatre lovers first got together at the old bowling alley that used to be next door to the Leader-Call newspaper. Marda Kaiser Burton, Mary Anne Sumrall, Ernest Graves and Gene Gandrau hashed out their ideas and quickly called for an official organizational meeting at the old Pinehurst Hotel Coffee Shop. Some of the folks that joined in with them at the Pinehurst were well known Laurel names like Jim Gibbon, Annie Ruth Grim, Page Jones Harris, Billy Howard Jr, Billy Lightsey, Ruth Tomlinson, Dot Traweek and Granville Walters.
Their goal was to present Laurel citizens with entertainment and to give would-be thespians a chance to get up on a stage and ham it up for their friends and family. Now six decades later, that's still our main goal at the theatre. Little did those founders know in 1961 that one day that very group they organized would be performing in the old Arabian movie house just right next door to the Pinehurst Coffee Shop where they were meeting to form the group.
From 1961–1966 each play of the season presented two performances at either the Wisner Building, Mason Elementary or Watkins High School. In 1967, LLT leased a 'real' space for ourselves in the old Downtown Armory Building and built a stage and a small front lobby. We were such a small operation that when we raised enough funds to buy a chilled-water fountain, it made the front page of the daily Laurel Leader-Call! Most seasons included three productions, and we had moved up to presenting three performances of each of those shows, occasionally performing at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art as part of a 'Sunday at the Museum' Series.
Laurel's Downtown Urban Renewal forced us out of that building in 1976 and put us out on the streets once again. We performed at various city schools for almost two years while we envisioned big dreams of having our very own space again someday.
Local businessmen and LLT favorites Bill Clinton, Bobby Hynson, Bill Mullins, Gardiner Green Jr and Clayton Corley headed up a building committee that began searching for a space and for the funds to acquire it. In 1976 several buildings were strongly considered, including two of downtown Laurel's famous movie palaces. We looked at both the Strand and the Arabian Theatres, both of which were out of business. The Arabian had shut down more recently than the Strand and was in better shape, so it became our pick, and local architect John Hunt guided the group through the renovations. The original 1927 paint colors and the Arabic, Persian and Egyptian features were restored before we reopened the building in our 1977–78 season with a production of Our Town.
That building committee worked hard with a three year plan from local businesses and individual patrons to pay off both the purchase and renovation costs which totaled just under $100,000, and our building was debt-free in an unbelievable three years!
Since moving into the Arabian, each season usually has four productions, and most of those run four performances, although our big musicals are often held over for extra showings and have folks seated in the aisles just to get everyone in. The biggest hit of our history has been the popular Always...Patsy Cline which has returned several times over the last decade and always sells out 8 or 9 performances. Over 5000 folks have now seen that production over the years.
Part of the sad history of the south is the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws, and Laurel and the Arabian Theatre were no different. It is important to remember the problems of the past, so we all learn and continue to move forward. The stairwell we currently use to access the balcony was originally the 'colored' entrance to the balcony, and the 'white' stairwell used to exist where our kitchen is now situated. African-American Laurel movie-goers had to enter the building from a side door and go up separate stairs. They not only didn't sit with the white patrons, but they couldn't even use the same restrooms or stairwells.
My, how things have changed for the better. LLT has had many great black actors and actresses over the years, and we've presented several shows with all-black casts or subject matter. Our theatre has always existed to entertain, but we're often able to enlighten and advance a modern thought process as well. Women's issues, racism, gay characters, McCarthyism, the Nazi era and religion and politics on both sides of the aisle have all raised the occasional discussion in the community. We're proud to be a part of that and present some of those subjects along with our popular comedies and light hearted musicals.
From our stage to the big time
Over the years many well known local folks have graced our LLT stages and a few have gone on to professional performing careers:
- Tom Lester (who played 'Eb' on TV's Green Acres) was in our very first production of Born Yesterday back in 1961.
- Rufus Smith directed All The Way Home for us in 1964 just a few years after starring on Broadway with Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun. Rufus was married to Laurel's Evelyn Taylor whose dad Sank was the owner of both the Arabian and Strand Theatres. Evelyn had moved from Laurel to NYC and was a dancer with Agnes DeMille's company and appeared in the Broadway productions of Carousel, Brigadoon, Camelot and Paint Your Wagon and was in the movie version of Oklahoma.
- Talmadge Harper and Dennis Bailey directed several of our productions in the 60s and 70s and both were featured singers for NYC's Metropolitan Opera.
- Tom Elias sang in several of our 60s shows and went on to make his Broadway debut in the musical Cleavage.
- Both Michael Howard and Wess Hughes have many LLT credits over the decades and went on to produce, direct and act in professional shows in New Orleans.
- Patrick Weathers was 'Stanley Kowalski' in our 1978 A Streetcar Named Desire just a few years before becoming a cast member of NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live.
- Parker Posey went on to become known as the 'Queen of the Indies' and also starred in movies like Party Girl, You've Got Mail, Superman Returns and Waiting for Guffman years after appearing in our production of Harvey in 1981.
- Mary Elizabeth Ellis was in shows in the 90s before she moved to L.A. and became a cast member of FX-TV's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- Erin Napier is the co-host of HGTV's home renovation series, Home Town. Back in 2003, she was one of the infamous 'Cell-Block Tango' jailbirds in our production of Chicago.
Under the guidance of 2008–09 Board President Amanda Robertson, theatre expert Bill Hooper and committee chairmen George Jackson and Robbie Robinson, we've recently completed a major renovation of the old theatre to spiffy the place up with lush all-new seating and carpeting, an interior paint job and upgraded wiring, uncovering some of the original 1927 artwork and the restoration of the locally famous Arabian neon sign to shine brightly over downtown Laurel.
Our 2020–2021 'Covid Survival' Season was our 60th Anniversary Season, and it ended with our 241st production! It's taken thousands and thousands of volunteer hours to fill out our casts and crews over the decades. LLT is a proud part of the Pine Belt and welcomes anyone interested to come on down and join in the fun.