San Jose Players, 1928-1932

An Illustrated History of the San Jose Players, 1928-1932

By Mari Aranoff Duncan, TRFT Office Administrator

During an excavation in the depths of the TRFT publicity office in early 2005, a relic was unearthed which bore the name "Historian's Book of the San Jose Players, Volume II." It was later restored by our department historian, Professor Emeritus Ken Dorst. The relic (aka "scrapbook") from what was then San Jose Teachers College contains many newspaper articles, photos, and programs from the fall of 1928 through the spring semester of 1932 and reflects early campus theatre and the beginnings of film and radio.

Below is a small sample of this book

The "department" in those days was Speech Arts (an offshoot of the English department, founded in 1927), which offered a special secondary certificate in oral and dramatic expression for aspiring high school teachers, plus an A.B. degree. The San Jose Players were a large (sometimes over 200 members) dramatic organization within the department. The members of the Players were selected by audition and then underwent a fraternity-like process of pledging and initiation (in this case, improvisational drama). Dr. Virginia Soames Sanderson was faculty advisor and coach, succeeded by set design professor, future chair, and inspiration for the name of our building, Dr. Hugh W. Gillis, in 1930. The year 1930 also marked the arrival of Dorothy Kaucher, Oral Interpretation pioneer, who later taught Radio Speaking.

Hugh Gillis Hall and the University Theatre did not exist; productions were held mostly in the Morris Dailey Auditorium and sometimes in the San Jose High School theatre or elsewhere "on the road." Season tickets -- for all six plays -- could be purchased for $3. In 1931, productions moved to the newly-built, 309-seat "Little Theatre" on campus (initiated by then-President MacQuarrie). The actual location, not mentioned in the scrapbook, has been identified by Ken Dorst as being in what is now Dwight Bentel Hall. Prof. Dorst says: "The building was originally attached by a covered arcade to the Tower Hall building and you could travel in the attic of Morris Daly Auditorium to the stage house of the Little Theatre. The Speech and Drama Department workshops and costume department as well as faculty offices were in quonset huts on the lawn area just north of the Building and behind Morris Dailey Auditorium..."

KSJS's birth was still far in the future, but the department had an arrangement with local radio station KQW, who provided the facilities for student programs. On New Year's Eve of 1928, "A Comedy of Danger" by Richard Hughes was presented by the Players on KQW. This was the first in a series of one-act radio plays produced and mostly written, cast, and directed by the San Jose Players.

By 1929, San Jose Teachers College was being referred to as San Jose State College (according to the SJSU web site, the name did not officially change until 1935). In the spring of 1929, the "Times News," possibly the first collegiate newsreel, was completely written, directed, photographed, and acted by students and shown at a student body assembly. That summer, several of the Players joined campus photographer John Waterhouse, owner of a 75-acre ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the production of a 16-millimeter, four-reel, silent film called "Galleon Gold," perhaps one of the first college movies ever. They spent three weeks "on location," which included fighting a forest fire in Felton. The film premiered at the Morris Dailey Auditorium in November and was also shown at a local theatre and did quite well financially.

Unfortunately missing in the scrapbook was any account of "Jazzmania," the first integrated musical show, written and directed by Hugh Gillis in 1930 (mentioned in The History of the Department by Dr. Gillis and Dr. Jenkins.

In October of 1929, the Players, some in blackface, opened the season with Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," using real bloodhounds to "lend color." Additionally, the first performance lasted four hours, shortened by the Players the next night to "only" three hours...

We have come a long way since this 1929 event. In 2001 the department produced the antitheses to the Stowe relic, "I Ain't Yo Uncle," written collectively by the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

The summer of 1929 saw female Players learning stage makeup from a Max Factor representative. This was quite a modern move for the times and followed the "progressive" sanction of smoking for female educators by the Superintendent of Schools.

Footnote: A major source of help for this story was "The History of the Department" by former department professors Hugh Gillis and Robert Jenkins.

Contact Mari Duncan for more information on this and other department history. Our department historian is Ken Dorst.