My first time attending a play, Noel Cowards' Blithe Spirit, was in December 1964 at the Greenville Little Theater. Julia, my very best friend (still to this very day) invited me to go with her. As well as I can remember, her father dropped us off & picked us back up afterwards. I am grateful to her for that experience because it opened up a whole new world for me.
Back in 1964, the "Little Theater", as every one called it, was located a building that was previously an old Air Force Glider Base movie theatre on Lowndes Hill Road in Greenville, SC. The old movie theater had been vacant since the end of the war and was purchased in 1946 for the purpose of a permanent and larger location for the Greenville Little Theater, which had previously staged plays in the auditorium at Greenville Senior High School. Below is a photo of how the Greenville Little Theater looked in the 1950s and in 1964, it didn't look much different. As a 15 year old at her first "real" stage play, this was a grand theater.
Blithe Spirit was not only my first "real" stage play, it boasted a star, Murray Matheson! This was especially exciting to me as I was going to see someone I had seen on TV! Oh, he had been in stage plays in London, Paris and Berlin, but I wasn't familiar with all that. He had been in TV shows I had watched, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Omnibus, Peter Gunn, Adventures in Paradise, and he was coming directly to Greenville from Hollywood where he had been filming for the TV show A Man From U.N.C.L.E.!!! And he was so handsome too, for an old guy...remember, I was 15 and he was all of 52!
I really cannot say that I remember much about Blithe Spirit as a play, but I know I enjoyed it and treasure the experience. I also am still thrilled that I got to see Murray Matheson! I remember being fascinated with watching a professional actor. I still think he was a handsome man, too.
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