Darryl Maximilian Robinson Shares Thoughts And Memories Of Summer Stock!

Happy Summer, Theatre Lovers and Supporters. This is the time of year that many young and veteran stage actors and actresses pack up their bags to travel and perform in Summer Stock theatre productions in rural and urban venues all around the country.This is a professional ritual many artists in The Chicago Acting Community take part in and it was truly one of the happiest and most needed developmental and artistic experiences of your humble servant. Sadly, due to the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic many summer stock houses are closed and shuttered hoping for happier, healthier and safer times to present their usual fare of established plays and well-known musical classics! To those performing artists who are blessed to find gainful employment this summer season, I say to them huzzah and much success. And to those brave producers and venue operators willing to take up the challenge and risk of presenting a season of summer stock during Covid-19, I say bravo! Below is a photo blast from the past of my second season of professional summer stock at Enchanted Hills Playhouse of Syracuse, Indiana ( a summer stock house that at the time was only a few hours drive east of Chicago ). It is from an article found on page nine of the local paper The Nappanee Advance-News dated July 11, 1984, 38 years ago this summer.
It features your humble servant in The Theatre, Chicago-born Darryl Maximilian Robinson as The King and highly-talented, then Chicago-based, actress-singer Elizabeth Lee Taylor as Mrs. Anna in a revival staging of Rodgers' and Hammerstein's 'The King and I' produced by the late Mrs. Jill Stover and directed by Indiana University at South Bend's Communications Dept. Chairman, Dr. Jeffrey Koep.
I share this photo with any and all Chicago Area Alumni ( performers, musicians, technical crew, production and house staff ) of The Enchanted Hills Playhouse who worked with Producer Jill Stover and Director Jeffrey Koep throughout the 1980s. Having been the proud receipient of the 1981 Fort Wayne News-Sentinel Reviewer's Recognition Award for Outstanding Thespian of the Season for a gallery of summer stock roles, including, most particularly, Fagin in EHP's revival staging of Lionel Bart's Tony Award-winning musical hit 'Oliver!', this theatre artist can state without reservation that those summers bring back many fond memories.

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