I had a very happy day today, largely spent in the back room of the Woodson quietly doing research. No emergencies whatsoever. Then, when I ran across something I enjoyed, I had enough time to go run it down just for fun. It was great.
Do I have your attention?
I was looking through a scrapbook from the late 1940s and found a series of pictures of some sort of theatrical production. I couldn’t tell what it was but I was pretty confident from context that the images were made in 1947.
So I figured, what the heck–I’ll just go look at 1947 Threshers and see if I can figure it out. I realize that this might sound like a waste of time, but I’ve found over the years that it’s never a waste of time to read old newspapers. Something good always comes from it. You’ll just have to trust me on this.
So the story has a happy ending: I found an article in the December 4, 1947 Thresher about an Elizabeth Baldwin Literary Society production of a Tempe Howze, ’48, original work called “Purity Pursued.” Zoom in and take a look at the description and you’ll see that the photos match it exactly.
I was particularly interested to note the venue–the College Inn on Main Street. I didn’t know that this sort of thing went on there, although I guess I’m not especially surprised. The other thing I got a kick out of was this picture of the curtain. Lots of hijinks.
Bonus: I was alerted this morning that there was a discussion underway on the Rice sports message board about something that really gets under my skin. There’s not much that really aggravates me, but this “Rice Fight. Never Die.” business sure does. As the writer correctly points out, it was from the beginning “Rice Fight Never Dies.”
