SHEA’S SHOW: After we listed some special dates in Bradford
history – including the last show at Shea’s Theater on March 29,
1956 – a reader dropped off a playbill from a 1950 performance of
“Finian’s Rainbow” at Shea’s.

The circular advertised “Finian’s Rainbow” which opened Aug. 28,
1950, a summer theater production directed by Ella Gerber with
music by Burton Lane.

We had thought the cast would be all professionals but we
detected some local names and figured many of the performers must
have been from Bradford.

Recognize any? Buzz Collins portrayed by Walter Riemer; sheriff,
Bill Baldwin; first sharecropper, Mark Eliot; second sharecropper,
William Keene; Susan Mahoney, Margaret McCallion; Henry, Fred
Allen;

Maude, Mary Wallace; Finian, Tom McElhany; Sharon, Renee Orin;
Woody Mahoney, John Ricci; Og (a leprechaun), Todd Pearce; Howard,
Kenneth Hibbert; Sen. Rawkins, Charles Peters;

Mr. Robust, Shearon Carroll; Mr. Shears, Arthur Wayne; Delores,
Elizabeth Cosby; Lyn, Lois Near; third sharecropper, Bruce
Olmstead; tourist, Jeannette Nordstrom;

First gospeleer, Kenneth Hibbert; second gospeleer, Carl Lee;
third gospeleer, Jack Dean; children, Bob Allen, Gene Barton
Anderson, Sherrill Cohen, Michael Graff, Charlotte Krieger, and
Freddie Sica;

Sharecroppers, Yvonne Taylor, Frank LeChiara, Shearon Carroll,
Johanna Cramer, Neida Flalich, Dick Mutzabaugh, Joan Wilson, Joanne
Lyon, Gloria Cosby, Barbara Shatura, Phillip Saba and Fay
Poulos.

At the piano was Ernest Warren; chorus coached by John
Ricci.

There was a note inside the playbill which explained that the
production was part of the “Straw Hat” Circuit of summer stock:

“A few of us have been fortunate enough to have vacationed in
places where a summer theatre was within driving distance … They’ve
seen plays under circumstances of dubious comfort in reconverted
barns, old mills etc.

“In Bradford, we’re fortunate that our new summer theatre can be
so conveniently located – that the plays are being directed and
acted by first-line professionals with none of the makeshift found
in some of the more rustic summer playhouses.

“Let’s support our summer theatre so that we can be sure it will
make Bradford a regular stop on the ‘straw hat’ circuit.”

An advertisement in the playbill for The Brook Club noted that
every Monday night after the show was “Celebrity Night” – “Our
guests, the stars of the current play at Shea’s summer
theatre.”

And, at the Hotel Emery, the cast was slated to present a “tea
time matinee” at 2:30 p.m. that Wednesday.