Welcome to Winters 2021 — Page 23
WTC delivers theater and community Express staff The Winters Theatre Company, which was founded in 1980, started with a phone call. Linda Glick was sitting on her living room floor, thinking. She had recently begun her career as an educator in a special education program, but was trying to find a way to bring her love of theater into her life. Glick had spent her childhood participating in community theater in Massachusetts, and had studied theater as an undergraduate. “I didn’t want to give that part of my soul up,” she says. Then, the idea came to her. “It was just sort of like this light bulb went off.” Glick called one of her Winters acquaintances, Shirley Rominger, to gauge interest in starting a community theater company in Winters. Rominger came up with a list of around a dozen people who might want to be involved, and Linda called each of them up. Jeannie Vaugnn was one of those people. Vaugnn says she remembers some people thinking that starting a theater company was a, “silly thing to do.” “But we went ahead and did it,” she says. Glick made another phone call to the home of Howard and Germaine Hupe. Germaine was already teaching at the high school in a position she would stay in for decades. “If they grew up in Winters they got stuck with me one way or another,” Germaine jokes. The group met to talk, and decided to host a benefit for the Yolo Family Service Agency. They would put on
Shahzana Ali, seated, won an Elly Award for her role in Winters Theatre Company's production of “SEVEN” in 2017. Also nominated for the same award were Carla Fleming, left, and Fran Wittman, second from left. Woody Fridae/ Courtesy Photo
two performances of three vignettes at the soon-to-becompleted Winters Community Center. Now they needed funding. Germaine remembers all of the people gathered at the planning session opening their wallets and purses and throwing what cash they had in the middle of the table. The total was $37 and change. That, Germaine quips, was not going to buy them a lot of flats. So they did what Germaine recalls everyone who needed to raise money in Winters in the 80s doing: They held a bake sale in the foyer of Greenwood’s Department Store on a Saturday morning. Vaugnn was locally renowned for her brownies, and Germaine says that she probably got Howard to make something, since she wasn’t much of a baker. It was at the bake sale where the group met the man who Germaine describes as their “early angel.” Germaine describes Dudley Ried as “a well-educat-
ed gentleman” who spoke with an English accent. He came up and asked her why they were raising money. She remembers that when she told him, he replied that, “actors and actresses do not sell brownies.” Ried recommended that they go to a meeting of the Rotary club and perform Shakespeare, an eventuality that Germaine believed to be unlikely. Two days later she got a check in the mail for $1000. It included a note telling her to, “go to the Rotary club and read Shakespeare. Love, Dudley.” Ried remained a supporter of the Winters Theatre Company from that point onward. With the seed money from Ried, the group was able to buy costumes and flats for backdrops. They put on their first show in December of 1980, in a nearly finished Community Center, where Germaine remembers gravel floors in the kitchen. “Then we were off and running,” says Germaine. The Winters Theatre Company’s next play was in the
spring of 1981, and was called “The Curious Savage,” which Germaine remembers because she got to play Mrs. Savage. Glick directed those first few productions, and Howard took over after her children were born. Howard would go on to direct over 100 plays for the company in his lifetime. Glick says that it was Howard, together with the theater’s technical wizard Gary Schroder, who took the company to the next level. The pair worked together to design and build elaborate sets. Over the years the company continued to thrive and grow into what it is today. When asked if that first group thought that Winters Theatre Company would still be operating 40 years later, Germaine says that they were perpetually optimistic, so yes, probably. People like Anita Ahuja joined the group. Ahuja also started her involvement with Winters Theatre Company with a call to Howard. She saw an audition notice for a play, and called the number listed to see how
she could get involved. She was worried that she would be expected to have some kind of theatrical background. When she asked him for the requirements to joining the theater, she remembers him pausing. “No prima donnas!” he said, in a stern voice that she would later learn was his way of teasing. That was nearly 20 years ago. Germaine backs up her late husband’s sentiment. “Somebody that’s running the kitchen is as important to us as the leading lady,” she says. The club finds ways to give back to the community through benefit performances. Each year the funds from one of their performances goes back to an organization selected by the board of the company. In the past they have held benefits for the local music boosters and Soroptimist club. In 2019, they raised money for the victims of the Camp Fire. They also give scholarships to local high school students who plan to go on to study some form of theater arts in college. Ahuja says that it’s important for a community to make sure that their youth are supported with enough artistic opportunities, and giving out scholarships is one way the theatre company does that. The board members understand that when money gets tight, the arts are often the first things cut from the school budget. They hope that the Winters Theatre Company can serve as a way to give younger people a chance to learn about theater.
