By John Clayton, At Large
The Union Leader, Saturday, July 20, 2002
Marie Wallace & Bob Stockbridge, June 20, 1981
John Clayton, At Large
THE name has changed. So has the venue, but one constant — the one enduring link to Hampton’s long, long tradition of live summer theater — remains.
It’s Bob Stockbridge.
Back in 1948, he was walking down Main Street in his home town of Exeter when he noticed a playbill stuck in a storefront window. A relatively new theater group in Hampton was putting on one of his favorite plays — “The Glass Menagerie” — in a big old barn on Winnacunnet Road.
Bob went.
Essentially, he’s never left.
He’s out lasted the 200- year-old barn that was the Hampton Playhouse. Same goes for the organization that called it home, but, thanks to a Performing troupe called Act One’s Hampton Summer Theatre, Bob — and thousands like him — can still stoke their passion for summer stock on the Seacoast.
“I had cut my eyeteeth on the back of a theater seat,” he said, “and once I saw that first show in that barn — real, live New York actors performing in this small town? — I went a second time and then a third time. After that, I made such a pest of myself they finally gave me work as a ‘gofer.’
At that precise moment in his reminiscence, Bob had to stop and “gofer” the phone.
It was noon on Wednesday. We were in the lobby of the gorgeous performing arts center at Winnacunnet High School, and people were calling for tickets to the matinee performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” When you stop and consider the opening number of that musical — it’s called “Tradition” — well, tradition demanded that Bob get back to work.
Stephanie Voss Nugent was working, too.
She’s the executive director of Act One’s Hampton Summer Theatre, so she was helping Bob handle some last-minute ticket sales even while she was preparing to take the stage for her role as the female lead — Golde — in “Fiddler.”
She doesn’t fiddle around regarding her admiration for Bob Stockbridge.
In December of 1999, the real estate-types who had taken ownership of the Hampton Playhouse abruptly announced that there would be no 2000 summer season. Three months later, Stephanie — who had been running a touring troupe out of her home in Hampstead — was asked if she could pick up the slack.
Within eight days, she put together an abbreviated summer season with two comedies, a musical cabaret and three concerts. The number of shows — like the audience — has grown steadily ever since, and Stephanie is eager to share the credit.
“I would never have undertaken this wonderful challenge if I hadn’t known Bob would be here,” she said. “We didn’t want to miss a single season because if you do, you can lose your audience, and live theater is an endangered species as it is.
“You have to take care of your audience,” she added, “and with Bob in the box office, someone will call about tickets, simply say their name and he’s off. He’s asking if they’re still wintering in Arizona or if their sun graduated from college. I’m in awe year after year. He’s such a rich human investment.”
In many ways, Bob has been vested with the institutional memory of the Hampton theater scene. That’s why — when it came time to chronicle those memories — Bob took a leading role in the production of a book called “Behind The Stage Door.” The subtitle: “An inside look at 50 years of the Hampton Playhouse.”
The book was dedicated to Hampton Playhouse founders Alfred Christie and John Vari, and for show-biz buffs, it’s a name dropper’s delight.
Down through the years, the stock company has included TV fixtures such as Katherine Helmond (“Soap”), Marcia Wallace (“The Bob Newhart Show”), David Doyle (“Charlie’s Angels”), Larry Storch (“F-Troop”), Rue McClanahan (“The Golden Girls”) and “All My Children” star David Canary.
Film stars have included two- time Oscar nominee Vincent Gardenia (for “Bang the Drum Slowly” and “Moonstruck”) plus JoBeth Williams (“Poltergeist”), Blythe Danner “Prince of Tides”) and Tony LoBianco (“The French Connection”).
In 1973, when the Hampton Playhouse Theatre Arts Workshop was established, teenage acting prodigies from all over America came to New Hampshire for the eight-week program in residence, and that too proved to be a well-spring of talent. Among the graduates were Debra Messing of “Will & Grace,” Ken Olin from “thirtysomething” and Kyra Sedgwick — perhaps better known as Mrs. Kevin Bacon — who co-starred with Julia Roberts in “Something to Talk About.”
When you get to spend half a century rubbing shoulders with the great and near-great, it’s something you come to savor.
“It gave me the chance to meet a great many people over the years,” Bob said. “You met the good actors, the mediocre actors and the actors who should try another line of work, but it was never boring.”
It was never boring because Bob did it all.
“In the beginning,” he said, “I did everything but clean the toilets. I figured I had to draw the line somewhere, but they let me do a little publicity, I sold soda during intermission, then did some ushering, and when we started the workshop for teenagers, we’d have to go grocery shopping three times a week just to feed them all.”
In the final analysis, his ticket to continuity was in the ticket booth, where he apprenticed under the grand dame of the Hampton Playhouse. That was Alfred Christie’s mother, the sainted Sarah Christie.
“Mr. Christie was a school teacher in New York, so during the off-season, he’d come up on weekends, then go back to the city. When he was away, his mother was the backbone of the theater. We’d spend our time doing season-ticket renewals, and back then, we wrote out most of the tickets by hand.”
And why not?
After all, Sarah and Bob could recognize their own handwriting, and they could just as easily recognize the regular patrons, who were almost like family. And the family feeling that prevailed at the Hampton Playhouse?
It’s something Stephanie Nugent strives for, barn or no barn.
“Just look at the way we were welcomed at Winnacunnet,” she said. “I went over to (Assistant Principal) Dick Ray and asked what was available, and he said, ‘What do you want?’ The performing arts center was sitting empty all summer long, so we signed a lease, and our lease helped the school district pay off the bond a little early.
“They’re happy to have us, and we’re happy to be here, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to tell callers that we have air conditioning now.”
They have air conditioning and computer-generated tickets, and unlike the American Stage Festival in Nashua — which announced Wednesday that it will cancel the balance of its summer schedule — they have a steadily growing audience to go with growing corporate support.
But you can’t blame Bob for looking back a bit wistfully.
“They tried to find a place to move the barn,” he said, “but it wouldn’t have withstood the move. They would have had to take it apart board by board. It was hard when the wrecking ball came down. I couldn’t bring myself to watch.”
Fortunately, people are coming to watch the current offering of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Sales are picking up for the upcoming narrative comedy “Ida: Woman Who Runs With the Moose.” Then there’s a drama in store called “On This Night” and a comedy called “The Complete History of America (Abridged)” followed by the season finale, the ever-popular “Bye, Bye Birdie.”
The ambitious schedule for Act One’s Hampton Summer Theatre helps prove that old show biz adage that — barn or no barn — the show must go on. For tickets to those upcoming shows, call 926-2281.
Ask for Bob Stockbridge.
He’s a hot ticket.
(John Clayton’s newest book is a collection of veterans-related stories titled “New Hampshire: War and Peace.” His Web site is www.johnclayton.net).