1956 Senior Play

March 15 & 16, 1956

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The cast and set of the Senior Play, Lost Horizon

l - r:  Alan Hyde, Ann Shook, Elise Hastings, Johnny Neyman, Jimmy Kirsch, Don Roper, Robert Scogin, Lindsay Nathan, Austin Wood, Nancy Snyder, Patricia Leath, Carol Cahoon and Johnny Williams

Mr. Ruby and the cast

Elise Hastings (Tashi) and Carol Cahoon (Lo Tsen)

Johnny Neyman (Mallison), Austin Wood (a Tibetan),

Don Roper (Chang), Robert Scogin, I think (Conway) and

Nancy Snyder, I guess (Miss Brinklow)

Prologue & epilogue characters:  Alan Hyde (Rutherford) is the only

one I recognize.  Others could be Joann Marsh or Ann Shook (Myra),

Linda Methvin or June Holmes (Elizabeth), and Harold Fell or

Johnny Williams (Wyland)

The High Lama, Sam Malone and Conway, Robert Scogin

Rehearsal:  Jimmy Kirsch, Don Roper, Lindsay Nathan

Makeup:  Nancy Snyder, Johnny Williams, Lindsay Nathan

You've gotta see these new hi res pictures from Farley:                                        

BEFORE:  The expectant audience

AFTER:  The satisfied audience, leaving the auditorium

Take a look at the BEFORE picture at maximum magnification. If you have a broadband Internet connection and want even higher resolution versions of these photos, contact Louis for 2218 x 2213 pixels, 1.245 MB files.

Ron Newborn gave me this narrative legend for the picture.  Why don't you add the names of others that you recognize who were not identified by Ron?  It's worth an RC Cola and a Moon Pie at the reunion!

Harold Fell is very obvious down front and I see Edna Harrison on the same row. Behind Harold (2nd person) is I think Ann White, (some unknown that I thought was Lindsey Nathan until I noticed she was in the play) and then Kitty Stribling.  Center of the next row I think I see Nancy Bolton and downnear the end of the row is one of the Horton girls (Joyce's cousin).  Behind her is Sam Malone's Mon and Dad and possibly his grandmother.  Three rows behind Mr. Malone and over against the wall is, I'm almost positive, the notorious Tommy Arthur who awaits his fate on death row at Atmore.  Above the one I'm calling Sam's grandmother is a boy named Mike Reeves, his dad Bill Reeves was at one time manager of WLAY Radio Station.  Two rows behind Mike and next to the aisle is Charles Grainger.  Three rows behind Charles, I can see Crimon King.  

Back to our right hand aisle I see Joann Marsh, Barbara Bundy and further over Mike Jackson.  To his right and down a row is Mary Ann Byers.  On the end of the row may be Paul Wood.  Behind Joann is Wiley Montana, Barbara Laughlin and Rosa Lee Waldrep.  Evelyn Caudill and of course Sara and yourself.  Again back to the right, I think that is Fireball Elliott in front of Miss Hammond, almost to the center is Ralph Milam with the stripped tie, and Johnny Box to his right two people and one row back.  The third person straight above your head (the bald headed man) is "Pig-iron" Leath, Patricia and Robert's Dad and probably Mom.  Next to Miss Hammond is Joe Frazier and Judy Shockley.  Right above Miss Hammond is Earnest Bishop.  I think I see Peggy Wynne over Ralph Milam's right shoulder and Travis Borden peeping over Evelyn Caudill.  

This took my breath away, it came as a complete but pleasant shock.  The third person at a 45 degree angle over your right shoulder is my Mother and next to her looking down reading his program is my Dad.  They look so young to me, Dad would have been 48 and Mom 42 at the time.  I have one sister 4 years older than me.  We lost Dad in '92 at age 84 and Mom in '95 at 81.  I have children 44, 41 and 36.  My twin grandchildren will graduate high school Friday night before our reunion.  In the words of Sonny and Cher "....and the beat goes on....".

The Senior Play was always the highlight of the otherwise dreary period between the festive Christmas/New Year's Day holidays and the glorious days of spring.  Tryouts, memorizing and practice on our parts, creating the stage sets, and, finally, the performances provided the student body and the cast & crew of the play something exciting to do during the late winter, making the days leading up to March 15 more than bearable.  This activity brought a wide range of student types together and taught us that, by cooperating and hard work, we could enjoy the praise of the audience and the self-satisfaction of a job well-done.

Mr. Ruby did a great job of directing.  First of all, he cast two of us in half of the 15 roles, save for Robert Scogin's role as Conway, the main character, and seven other central characters (Don Roper as Chang, Nancy Snyder as Miss Brinklow, Jimmy Kirsch as Mr. Henry Barnard, Johnny Neyman as Mallison, Lindsay Nathan as Helen, and Sam Malone as the High Lama).  Since there were to be two performances, more of us had a chance to participate, and each of the two performances were really unique because of the different casts.  

For many of us, dramatics, with its requirement to posture, speak loudly and deliberately and  learn foreign accents, was a new thing, but the persistence of our director and student directors and helpers created skilled actors out of us all (at least, as I recall it).  

The play went off without hitches that plague amateur productions, and we were accorded great accolades by our parents, friends and teachers.  Our Senior Play was, of course, the best one yet.

About the play. . . .

Born in Lancashire, England in 1900, James Hilton was both a best-selling novelist and a much sought-after Hollywood scriptwriter. His father, John, was a schoolmaster (on whom the hero of Hilton's Goodbye Mr. Chips is partly based) and moved the family to London where Hilton attended the prestigious Leys School. Hilton went to on to study at Christ's College, Cambridge where, at the age of seventeen, he placed an article in the Manchester Guardian, and later published his first novel, Catherine Herself, in 1920. After a stint at the Dublin newspaper, The Irish Independent, and the publication of several more novels, Hilton achieved immediate and lasting fame with Lost Horizon (1933) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934). Hilton moved to Hollywood in 1935 and enjoyed great success as a scriptwriter, winning a Best Screenplay Oscar for Mrs. Miniver (1942). He died in Long Beach, California, in 1954.

Though most often remembered for its depiction of the mythical paradise of Shangra-La, Lost Horizon can perhaps most fruitfully be read as a probing character study and a fascinating contrast of eastern and western cultures. The novel tells the story of Hugh Conway, a brilliant, talented, and immensely complex man. Often misunderstood, even by those who most admire him, Conway is seen variously as a hero, a coward, a slacker, a wise man, and a madman. As the novel opens, an unnamed narrator is having drinks with a novelist, Rutherford, and an embassy secretary, Wyland. Conversation moves to the hijacking of a British military plane in India and the disappearance of a mutual acquaintance, "Glory" Conway. Rutherford later reveals he has encountered Conway in China and received from him an unforgettable tale, which he has written down and passes on in manuscript form to the narrator. It is this text, with its extraordinary account of Conway and his experiences at a mysterious Tibetan Lamasery, Shangra-La, which forms the center of Lost Horizon.

Once Conway and his companions are taken, against their will, to the Lamasery at Shangra-La, the differences between western and eastern attitudes-and between the curious Conway and the headstrong Mallinson-become immediately and sharply apparent. Mallinson feels he has been yanked beyond the bounds of civilization and wants nothing more than to be returned to it as quickly as possible. Conway, on the other hand, is intrigued by the Lamasery and its urbane but mysterious host, Chang. He responds deeply to the life of quiet contemplation, the slow pace, and otherworldly beauty of the mountains of Tibet. Where Mallinson is anxious and aggressive, consumed with what action they should take, Conway is supremely calm and quite content to remain at Shangra-La indefinitely. This contrast between assertive action and passive acceptance, which Mallinson and Conway embody, highlights the differences between Britain, with its worldwide colonial ambitions, its confidence in its own cultural superiority, its outward focus, and the inward-turned world of Tibetan Buddhism, with its emphasis on meditation, moderation, and long life.

Indeed, it is the concern with extending human life-spans, and with finding a successor to the High Lama, someone who will preserve Shangra-La's treasures of wisdom and culture from "the coming storm," that lies behind the plot to bring the "recruits" to Shangra-La. Conway, because of his remarkable passionlessness, is felt to be ideally suited to the task. But Mallinson is able, at the very last moment, to convince Conway to help him escape from what he perceives as a nightmare of subterfuge and sham piety.

Readers and those who attend the play will likely have strong opinions about whose view of Shangra-La-Mallinson's or Conway's-is more true, and the novel as a whole can serve as an excellent springboard for getting them to examine their own ideas about western and eastern cultures, the active vs. the contemplative life, passion vs. detachment. The novel can also offer a way to discuss such issues as colonialism, storytelling, character, the brevity of life and the many ways humans have dreamt of-and struggled to find-immortality.