Before local theatergoers of the 1930s could enjoy an opera or other performance in downtown Clarkston, they could check out local advertisements hand painted on the canvas curtain.
So can theater fans today, thanks to a donation by Clarkston Village Players to the Clarkston Community Historical Society and Heritage Museum.
“Now, the Clarkston opera curtain has a new home, where she can be given the attention and care she deserves,” said Sara Sanger, president of Clarkston Village Players.
The curtain, with advertisements promoting local businesses circa the 1930s, opened and closed the 40-foot-high stage on the opera house in the Maccabee Temple’s second story.
Residents Guy Walter and Ralph Jossman managed the opera house, bringing in plays and readings, hosting roller skating parties and recruiting bands from throughout Michigan to perform at community dances.
In the winter, the Redpath Lyceum Bureau of Chicago offered a series of shows ? vaudeville medicine shows, plays, and musicals ? with tickets $3 per person. Though many performances sold out, if they didn’t cover expenses, Walter and Jossman were known to make up the difference, helping to keep the opera house afloat.
When the opera house closed, and eventually dismantled in 1969 to make way for apartments, the curtain found a new home with the Clarkston Village Players, where for years it graced their own stage at the former Clarkston train station.
CVP, which was founded in 1961, acquired the curtain shortly after they moved into the former Clarkston train depot in 1962.
The Clarkston Village Players used the opera curtain for many years, mainly for their melodramas like Dirty Work at the Crossroads, Deadwood Dick and Love Rides the Rails, or Will the Mail-Train Run Tonight.
In the early days, the curtain was heralded as ‘the reigning queen of the entire building.? However, as years went by and fewer melodramas were performed, the opera curtain was relegated to storage.
CVP’s Board of Directors recently agreed to donate the curtain to the Clarkston Community Historical Society’s Heritage Museum.
The curtain was officially presented to CCHS on Nov. 9. The Heritage Museum has plans to display the curtain in early 2016.
For more information, visit ClarkstonVillagePlayers.org.