The volunteer generation: a theatre in a high school, 1927

1927 - 1940

The Civic Theatre: Fort Wayne's organised culture begins with amateurs in borrowed rooms. The Fort Wayne Community Theatre Guild formed in 1927 and produced two shows that year, one in a local high school and one in a neighbourhood church. In 1931 the company took the name Old Fort Players and kept moving from venue to venue until, on 21 August 1933, it leased the 800-seat Majestic Theatre on East Berry Street, a professional house opened in 1904 whose stage was so large that a 1930s Ben Hur used live horses on a treadmill for the chariot race. In 1940 the company bought the building, took tax-exempt status, and became the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre. It mounted 231 productions at the Majestic before the city condemned the building and demolished it in 1957. The company's own full record, its moves to the Palace and then to the Arts Campus in 1973, stands in THEATRES; what belongs here is the pattern it set: Fort Wayne culture was built by volunteers first and institutions second.

The children: In 1934 the Old Fort Players spun off a Children's Theatre, the seed of Fort Wayne Youtheatre. Its first class held 40 students paying one dollar for eight weeks of lessons, and its first show, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, put 75 young actors on the Majestic stage. Youtheatre stands in its own accounts as the fifth oldest active children's theatre in the nation, became independent in 1984, and gave the first performance in the new Arts United Center in 1973. The company, like the Civic, is carried in THEATRES; the cultural fact is the date: seven years after founding a theatre for themselves, the volunteers founded one for the city's children. Fort Wayne's cultural identity was educational from the start.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, A Brief Historic Overview (the company's own history: the 1927 Guild, the 1931 Old Fort Players, the 1933 Majestic lease, the 1940 purchase and name, the 231 productions, the 1957 demolition).
2. The History Center, post of 24 October 2023 (the Majestic's opening of 24 October 1904; the Old Fort Players' lease of 21 August 1933).
3. Fort Wayne Youtheatre, Peter Pan programme and history (established 1934 as an offshoot of the Old Fort Players; the first class of 40 students at one dollar for eight weeks; The Steadfast Tin Soldier; fifth oldest children's theatre in the country; independent in 1984).
4. Input Fort Wayne, Meet 7 OGs of Fort Wayne's arts and culture scene (7 December 2022: Youtheatre established 1934; the Civic Theatre's volunteer founding).