Santa Barbara, California (1919-1930): Community Arts Players; Community Arts Association, Drama Branch; and the Lobero Theatre

Santa Barbara played a key role in the great movement for community theater that took place throughout the United States in the 1910s and 1920s. CAMA’s predecessor, the Community Arts Association (CAA) in Santa Barbara, California, was named by Samuel Hume who, together with Irving Pichel, had directed the production of two large-scale community pageants, “La Primavera” and “The Quest.” These open-air spectacles occurred in the spring and late summer of 1919, and were forerunners of Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta.1 These community plays formed the basis for the subsequent organization of the Community Arts Association in 1920.

One of the first organizational meetings of the CAA took place in the winter of 1920 at the home of Mrs. Michel A. Levy. The first official meeting was held at the home of Mrs. Otto Hansen, who became one of its first chairmen.2 At this meeting the Community Arts Players were formed. The Players employed a director and produced successful plays at Santa Barbara’s (now defunct) Potter Theater at the corner of West Montecito Street and State Street for two years.3

Verne Linderman writes: “First, three one-act plays were given with such success that a series followed and the season was finished with several longer plays climaxed by ‘Pelleas and Melisande’ for which Albert Herter painted the scenery. In all the history of community drama no production has exceeded the beauty of the Maeterlinck work as done by the Santa Barbara players.”4

Mrs. Michel A. Levy recalled: “In the second season, eight successful plays were given under the brilliant direction of Nina Moise and with the assistance of hundreds of workers on scenery, costumes and acting.”5

After two years at the Potter Theater, the Community Arts Players launched a campaign to build their own theater. Among the supporters of this initiative were Mrs. Michel A. Levy, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hyde, Harry Brainard, Mrs. George Washington Smith, Mrs. Hilmar O. Koefod, William Ashworth, Mrs. Charles B. Raymond, Mrs. Kirk B. Johnson, William North Duane, David Imboden, Dwight Bridge, Mrs. James R. H. Wagner and Ingerson and Dennison, designers of the Samarkand Hotel. Many of this original group carried on in the subsequent Lobero Theater Foundation.6

By the early 1920s the Community Arts Association had incorporated with four branches: the Drama Branch, School of the Arts, Music Branch (today Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc.) and Plans and Planting Branch. The Carnegie Foundation contributed $25,000 annually in support.7

It was in this context, in the autumn of 1921, that talk began of restoring the old Lobero Theatre. In February 1922, a group of investors purchased the property for $25,000 and created the Lobero Theatre Company.8 The investors pledged to give the property to the CAA, in exchange for its equivalent value in stock of the Theatre Company, if $75,000 of stock could be sold within six months. $101,000 was sold in less than three weeks, in addition to the $25,000 purchase price.9 Verne Linderman reports slightly different figures, stating that in three weeks a sum of $125,000 was raised from more than 300 individual contributors, and with an additional mortgage the fund totaled $185,000.10

The CAA purchased the Lobero, and a structural engineer examined the adobe, frame and brick landmark. The verdict of the engineering evaluation was that it would be impossible to render the building safe in the event of earthquakes.11

Distinguished architects George Washington Smith and Lutah Maria Riggs were engaged to design and build the new Lobero, and the theater was constructed during the winter and spring of 1923-1924.12 In celebration of the theater’s completion, the new playhouse opened on August 4, 1924 with a production of “The Beggar on Horseback” by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, directed by Nina Moise, which ran for several weeks with capacity houses.13

This event was celebrated by a Fiesta with a costume pageant and several parades. This celebration continues annually in Santa Barbara as Old Spanish Days Fiesta.14,15

Mrs. Levy wrote: “At the end of the third season of plays, out of a population of 25,000, 2000 to 3000 people saw the plays and shared in the ideal and understanding of the art and recreation of the theater.”16

At the time of the new Lobero’s opening, the Board of Directors of the Community Arts Association comprised: Bernhard Hoffmann, president; Mrs. Michel A. Levy, vice president; Pearl Chase, secretary; Robert C. Smitheram, treasurer; William North Duane, Miriam B. Edwards, Harold S. Gladwin, T. Mitchell Hastings, Mrs. Albert Herter, Mrs. John A. Jameson, Fernand Lungren, Hamilton MacFadden, executive director; Mrs. O. L. (“Anne”) Hathaway, business secretary and Edward Sajous, publicity director.17

On the Drama Branch’s committee were: Samuel M. Ilsley, chairman; Margaret Whittemore, vice chairman; Marion Cate, Mrs. Robert W. Hyde, Mrs. Michel A. Levy, Mrs. Marie Burroughs Livingston, J. William MacLennan, Mrs. Frederick Forrest Peabody (now Mrs. Girard Van B. Hale), the late Mrs. George Washington Smith and Mrs. James H. Wagner.18

Mrs. Levy recalled: “The reason we did not build a larger theater was that the Potter, a good commercial theater, was still standing, and we had every reason to believe that it would be there indefinitely. We built the new Lobero as a community theater. Its original capacity has been increased to 670-odd seats; also the shop and rehearsal hall were added.”19 And indeed, the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake destroyed many of the city’s historic buildings and old adobes, including the Potter Theater, while the new Lobero Theatre came through unscathed.20,21

Verne Linderman, having access to old programmes and Community Arts Association reports, found that the Community Arts Players/Dama Branch of CAA had staged an average of ten to sixteen plays a year, with actors drawn from the Santa Barbara community.22

Linderman reports: “Society leaders sometimes played beside their butlers and maids and industrial tycoons from the East beside local fish merchants. The list of plays included works of Shaw, Shakespeare, Barrie, Ibsen, O’Neill, Milne, Galsworthy, Dunsany, Sheridan, Pirandello – to name a few. Among outstanding directors who succeeded Miss Moise were Colin C. Clements, Charles Meredith and Irving Pichel.”23

In time the Lobero, which had hosted the Artist Series concerts of the Community Arts Association’s Music Branch (now Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc.) and the Master Courses of Mrs. C. E. Herbert, began to rent its stage to road shows as well.24

In 1930, as the Great Depression had a devastating effect on organizations throughout the United States, the Community Arts Association "found itself in financial difficulty and it was necessary for the Drama Branch to withdraw in order to save its property."25 As large financial obligations accrued, and with the withdrawal of the Carnegie Foundation Grant at the onset of the Great Depression, the group of arts patrons long interested in the theater contemplated a new plan to finance the Lobero Theatre. The present Lobero Theater Foundation was inaugurated and theater’s stock was turned over to the Foundation free from debt, with the commitment that the stock be held by a civic group for perpetual support of a community theater (the Lobero). Thus the theater was turned over to the County of Santa Barbara and leased back to the Lobero Theatre Foundation, which managed its upkeep and operation.26,27

In the 1930 season alone, the Drama Branch had mounted 13 plays in 50 performances, involving 300 actors, 100 assistants and attracting a total audience of 23,000, with a gross turnover of $43,500.28 "Everyone turned out to help produce a play. Actors were chosen from every walk of life. Santa Barbara artists volunteered to design sets and paint scenery. Business houses and private homes loaned properties."29

Dr. Henry Smith Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation (then living in Santa Barbara) summed up this period of community theater in Santa Barbara to the Rosenwald Foundation in 1932: “The notion of the Carnegie Corporation in undertaking cooperation with the Community Arts Association of this small city {the population then was c. 25,000} was based on the assumption that if all the people of a community could be interested in a common effort for its improvement, the outcome would be not only an integration of the community, but also, in the long run, a satisfactory support for the various activities connected with the movement. That there has resulted a real development of community spirit cannot be doubted. This was admirably illustrated at the time of the earthquake in Santa Barbara nearly seven years ago. The quickness with which, within two hours after this staggering catastrophe, the citizens of Santa Barbara, rich and poor, had come together for common protection and help was very wonderful … With remarkable unanimity the community came together and much of this spirit was due to the fact that rich and poor had been working together in the service of the Community Arts {Association}.”30

Lobero Theatre, 33 East Canon Perdido Street, Tuesday, February 2, 2010, with flags flying for CAMA and signage for Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra's Galileo Project, presented by CAMA's Masterseries that evening. CAMA's predecessor, the Community Arts Association, acquired the original Lobero (opera house) and built the present Lobero Theatre on site for its Drama Branch, opening in 1924.

Endnotes [1] Verne Linderman, Santa Barbara News-Press, January 12, 1947, Part II of a seven-part series on the history of the Community Arts Association [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Linderman, op. cit., January 19, 1947, Part III [5] Quoted in Linderman, loc. cit. [6] Linderman, op. cit., Part II [7] Verne Linderman, op. cit., Part III [8] A Tradition of Excellence: CAMA’s History Book, 2013, Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., p. 7 [9] 1922 CAA document, Archives of Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., 2060 Alameda Padre Serra, Suite 201, Santa Barbara, CA [10] Verne Linderman, loc. cit. [11] Ibid. [12] Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., loc. cit. [13] Verne Linderman, loc. cit. [14] Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., loc. cit. [15] Linderman, loc. cit. [16] Quoted in Linderman, loc. cit. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid. [19] Quoted in Ibid. [20] Ibid. [21] Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., loc. cit. [22] Linderman, loc. cit. [23] Ibid. [24] Ibid. [25] Linderman, op. cit., February 2, 1947, Part V [26] Linderman, op. cit., Part III [27] Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., op. cit., p. 11 [28] 1930 CAA document, Archives of Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, Inc., 2060 Alameda Padre Serra, Suite 201, Santa Barbara, CA [29] Linderman, loc. cit. [30] Quoted in Ibid. (end)