"Do you want to know what my grandpa's doing?  He's going all the way to Peru just to see an eclipse.  Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard of?"

The above comment, overheard during a rehearsal of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ten years ago, was spoken by a talented fifth grader, Dan LaGrange, who was about to appear in his first ACT I production.  And Grandpa?  That would be Bob LaGrange, one of the very important members of our community theatre group during its early years.  

Bob's 1994 trip to Peru -- to see a full solar eclipse, as well as the ruins of Machu Picchu -- prevented him from accepting the role of the Fire Chief in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever when it was offered to him.  (Which seemed a more than logical offer to make, considering Bob was a 36 year veteran of the Vinton Volunteer Fire Department, including 32 years as secretary.)  However, Grandfather and Grandson would have the chance to appear together later in an ACT I production, The Sound of Music, a year later.  And since both Bob LaGrange and Dan LaGrange last appeared with us in that first ACT I production of The Sound of Music, our issue announcing our second cast of that show seems like a good time to feature them in our Member of the Month article for July, 2004.

Bob LaGrange, 74, is well known in Vinton as the longtime owner of LaGrange Pharmacy.  But he, his wife Jane, and the rest of his family are known and respected in the community for far more than their business, for they have long been active in civic affairs.  So it wasn't surprising in 1983 when Bob, who had already been active from the very beginning as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Old Creamery Theatre company, that he would eventually become an active member of the fledgling community theatre that the professional company had helped to establish.

Bob's first role for ACT I was Ambassador Magee, a cold war era diplomat and Republican gubernatorial candidate in the Woody Allen cold war comedy, Don't Drink the Water, who leaves the stage in the first scene and doesn't return until the end, and Bob's character returns just in time to be shot by a caterer.  The play is set in an American embassy behind the iron curtain, and in the ambassador's absence everything that could possibly go wrong does.  Bob also recalled another anecdote about Don't Drink the Water.  His first piece of business in the role was to stroll to the window, look out, and say "Geez, look at all those communists!"  He told how when doing so, other cast members would gather by the window, unseen by the audience, and make faces at him as he looked out, just as the line was to be spoken.

Bob LaGrange as Ambassador Magee in Don't Drink the Water, 1983.

Bob said he "had more fun doing Don't Drink the Water.  Some casts were better than others," but the Don't Drink the Water cast meshed especially well.  "We had weekly pizza and beer parties.  We'd go over the the Hitchin' Post" (the only watering hole in Garrison) "and close it up!"  Bob enjoyed his first show so much that he was back for the next ACT I show, A Thurber Carnival ("I hated that show!") in which he played a variety of roles.  He recalls another anecdote about fellow actor Dan Campbell had difficulty remembering lines. Bob played a scene - "Casuals of the Keys" - with him, with Boy as a reporter and Dan as a a beach bum living on a remote island.  Bob had all of Dan's lines hidden in his reporter's notebook.  (We then shared together a few other memories of times and places where other actors had hidden difficult lines in discreet places.  Seems a certain witness box in a certain ACT I courtroom show had more than one actor's lines word for word pasted inside and a certain actor playing an attorney had more than a few lines concealed with in his notes on a legal pad...)

Bob LaGrange and Dan Campbell in the "Casuals of the Keys" segment of A Thurber Carnival, 1983.

Bob had high praise for the two Creamery staff directors who he worked with in those early years, Tom Cunliff and Steve Shaffer.  They were both really enjoyable directors.  "The Creamery people didn't make much money, so we paid them $300 for each show, which wasn't a lot of money for all that work, but they needed it."  Shaffer, who directed Don't Drink the Water and Thurber Carnival, "was one of the funniest people I've ever worked with."  Following Thurber Carnival, ACT I presented the comedy Never Too Late in 1984.  For that show, he was cast in the small role of Mr. Foley.  "Dorothy Bliss Albert just made that show," he commented, referring to Dorothy's assumption of the role of a middle age woman who is also an expectant mother.  "That was a great show."  For that show, Bob also did publicity and was on the set crew.

Back again in 1985, Bob was onstage in the role of Seargent Towers in See How They Run, a show for which he also did publicity, and for our next show, The Mouse Trap, Bob stayed off the stage entirely to work the publicity committee.  In 1986 he was off stage again for The Girls in 509, doing publicity, stage crew, and set crew.  "I got to drop the net!" he said, referring to the final scene in which that show's shifty lawyer character is ensnared in a booby trap net which drops from the ceiling.

Attorney Aubrey McKittridge, played by Ron Baldwin, is caught in the net of the booby trapped apartment of The Girls in 509.  Bob LaGrange, who dropped the net from offstage as a member of the crew, attests to how much fun back stage assignments can be.

In 1987, Bob went back onstage for the role of Sheriff Thomas in The Rainmaker.  He praised that show's cast and script.  "I really enjoyed Rainmaker.  Lots of good lines."  But Bob added a special complement for the show's leading lady.  "Nancy Beckman is one of the finest actresses I have ever worked with," he declared. 

Bob LaGrange (right) played Sheriff Thomas in The Rainmaker, pictured here in a scene with Bob Fischer, Jim Hilliard, Tony Bopp, and Brian Beresford.

The Rainmaker was followed by The Cat and the Canary in 1987, which found Bob on the prop crew.  In 1988 Bob went back onstage to play the role of Justice Dunn in Klondike Kalamity, in addition working on the prop and costume crews.  Klondike Kalamity, a melodrama with corny musical numbers interspersed into the action, offered Bob his one and only chance to sing in an ACT I production.  He described doing a duet with Brenda Hackbarth, claiming that neither of them could sing the number well at all.  He recalled how the number was announced as "being in the key of Z."

Bob then took a five year sabbatical from ACT I before returning in Night of January 16 for the role of private investigator Homer Van Fleet and work on the set construction crew.  Two years later Bob gave us two cameo roles which rounded out his ACT I involvement.  First he appeared as the doctor in The Miracle Worker -- a role which was finished during the first two pages of the script -- and Admiral von Schriber in The Sound of Music.  "One time during The Miracle Worker we had some people over, so I left right after my scene, saying 'I won't be back for curtain call!'"  He had high praise for the young actresses in that show (Emily Zimmer and Jessica Coulter) for their roles as Annie and Helen.  

In The Miracle Worker (1995) Bob appeared in only the first five minutes of the show, playing the doctor to young Helen Keller as her parents, played by Darran Sellers and Le Cox, discover that an illness has left her blind and deaf.

In 1994, the year before Bob's two final roles, he retired from the Pharmacy, which had been founded by his father, Arthur LaGrange, in 1922.  Bob had begun working in the business in 1944 as a soda jerk, and in 1954 took over the store's management.  In 1989, his son Mike took over the Pharmacy.  Bob continued to work filling in around the area in various pharmacies until 1994, when he earned his certificate for being a practicing Iowa pharmacist for fifty years.  The certificate was received on the couple's 50th wedding anniversary.

The year of Bob's retirement, another LaGrange made his debut with ACT I.  Bob's grandson Dan, then in fifth grade, was cast in the role of Charlie Bradley in our hit production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  The role of the fire chief was offered to Bob, but with the Peruvian trip in the works, the travel plans took precedence.  As it ended up, Mike LaGrange instead of Bob who went onstage in the fireman's uniform, (Mike's one and only appearance on our stage) thus making three generations of the family performing for us.  And the Peruvian trip, complete with a trip up the mountain to see Machu Picchu and a spectacular solar eclipse, was something Bob and Jane enjoyed very much.

Carrying on the family tradition, Bob's fifth grade grandson Dan LaGrange made his ACT I debut in 1994 playing the major role of Charlie Bradley in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  He is pictured with Beckie Stravers, who played his sister Beth.

In 1995 Dan was back, this time along with his grandfather, playing another major role, that of Kurt von Trapp in The Sound of Music on the stage of the Old Creamery Theatre.  Dan and Bob appeared together in one scene, the party scene in which the von Trapp children sing "So Long, Farewell," to their father's party guests.  "So Long, Farewell" would prove to have a great deal of irony for that show, since four of the titans of ACT I's early years were saying "so long, farewell" to our stage with that production -- besides Bob, Becky and Keith Mossman and Dottie Anthony all gave farewell performances to ACT I in The Sound of Music. Dan LaGrange graduated from Washington High School in Vinton in 2002, where he was active on the swimming and golf teams.  Currently, he is a student at Kirkwood Community College.

Pictured during his dance solo with Annette Williams as Maria, Dan LaGrange had the role of Kurt in our 1995 production of The Sound of Music, performed at the Old Creamery Theatre, a production in which his grandfather Bob LaGrange had the role of Admiral von Schreiber.  This was the last time that a member of the LaGrange family appeared on our stage.

One more member of the LaGrange family has been a part of ACT I productions, though strictly in an off stage capacity.  Diane LaGrange -- Mike's wife, Dan's mother, has made costumes for The Sound of Music, The Velveteen Rabbit, Life with Mother, and Charlotte's Web.

ACT I has not been the LaGrange family's only contribution to our community.  Complimenting Bob's involvement with the Vinton Volunteer Fire Department, ACT I, and the Old Creamery Theatre, his wife Jane served for twelve years as a member of the Vinton City Council.  And in 1994, the year of his retirement, Bob and Jane were part of a small group of Vinton residents who eyed an abandoned railroad corridor running from Vinton to Dysart, and asked themselves "why not?"  Money was raised and the following year the land was purchased for development of the line into a bicycle trail.  As the former railroad ran directly past the former Old Creamery Theatre building in Garrison, the trail was named in honor of the professional theatre company which had helped ACT I into existence.  Over the next ten years the committee, which also includes ACT I members Ron and Nancy Baldwin, Lois Banse, and Eric Upmeyer, has steadily, on a shoestring budget with no tax dollars whatsoever, turned the trail into a great recreational asset to the community.  Bob says the trail is currently in the tenth year of his five year plan for completion, and although the trail has been rideable for about three years, a grand opening has yet to take place.   He said that a grand opening will be happening soon, now that the completion of the trail is within sight.  He hopes that a major event will help raise money for the work which remains to be done on the trail.  

Bob has many pleasant and interesting reminiscences about the Old Creamery Theatre, both as a board member of the professional company and as a member of ACT I.  "It was always interesting to go into the Creamery for the spring show," he said.  "You never knew what you'd find."  (The theatre was not used during winter months.  Poor insulation made proper heating during the coldest months impossible.  ACT I would therefore use the theatre after the professional company was done in the fall and again in the spring before the company began it's season.)  "The old stage was fun."  Recalling how the roof leaked badly, Bob described coming into the theatre to find "a big pile of ice on the stage, as big as my dog."   Bob served on the Old Creamery Board through many financial crises, during times when the company failed to make pay role on a regular basis.  "Often, we'd hope we could have enough money to make payroll after just one more performance!"

It's not like that, by the way, anymore.  Today the Creamery is in the best financial situation ever.

Bob also recalled a time in the distant past when he, as a board member, got up on a ladder to assist in the repair of a roof beam that had cracked.  Then, quite recently, he was riding t he bike trail, going past the theatre which is now a partially demolished ruin.  "I looked up at the building and saw that same beam hanging out in the open, and I said, 'there's that beam I worked on all those years ago!"

Sally Ludden as a sultry secretary entices her leering boss, Bob LaGrange, in the "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife" segment of A Thurber Carnival, 1983.

Bob and Jane have three children.  Daughter Connie Schuelka, the oldest, lives with her husband and two children, Matt and Amada, in Rochester Minnesota.  Matt, he says, really enjoyed theatre in school.  Middle son Mike, of course, lives in Vinton and is the third generation owner of the pharmacy, and besides Dan has a daughter, Sarah, who lives in Denver with her husband, a police officer.  Younger son Ted lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he is the Director of Wetlands for the Nebraska Game and Parks, the Nebraska equivelent of the Iowa DNR.  Ted and his wife have two children, Ben and Jill.  Ben has been active in children's theatre productions and Jill is in pre-med at the University of Nebraska.

Bob and Jane now winter in Orange Beach, Alabama, staying in Vinton during good weather.  He speculates that he might again become involved in theatre with a retired group in their vacation community that get their scripts in the spring, have their parts to learn through the summer, and perform the show after everyone returns for the winter.  They'll be a lucky group if they pick up Bob's involvement!

We wish Bob and Jane continued happiness in their retirement and hope they  can make it back for at least some of our anniversary year performances!  Thank you, Bob, for your years of dedication to ACT I (and the bike trail, and the fire department . . . ) and we hope the day will come when once again the LaGrange name appears in our program! 

Home
Grease Paint Online    Current Season    Scrapbook
Palace Theatre Virtual Tour    ACT I STAGE!   Gems
E-Box Office    Auditions and Calendar   All About Us    Links