According to the legend, the Flying Dutchman appeared once ever seven years.  Cicadas appear once every 17 years.  Julie Zimmer, however, tops them both with the rarity of her appearances.  Julie comes to the ACT I Stage every 25 years.  Julie, who appeared in our very first production, You Can't Take it with You, 25 years ago, has been active with ACT I and the Palace Theatre during much of that time, but she has not appeared on stage with us again since she first played Essie in the first ACT I show, until this season, when she and her sister Carolyn appeared as the Corken Sisters in Live at the Palace, playing a lip synching comic tour de force, and then her triumphant return to acting as Gay Wellington in the You Can't Take it with You in our anniversary revival.  In addition to the 25th anniversary of ACT I, we honor this year five years at the Palace Theatre, for which Julie was so instrumental in helping to establish, and so we honor Julie Zimmer and her daughter Emily, also an ACT I veteran, as our members of the month for March.

Julie Zimmer as Gay Wellington in our current production of You Can't Take it with You.

Julie and her husband, Van Zimmer, an appeals court judge for the State of Iowa, have lived in Vinton for twenty-seven years.  (Van is originally from Garrison, where his father was a master butter maker at the Garrison Creamery, making the Zimmers perhaps the only ACT I family to have a connection to the Old Creamery Theatre building which goes back further than the theatre company that began there over 30 years ago.)

Following Julie's first performances for ACT I, she did publicity for our second show, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and then took a 13 year break from the organization, returning in 1993 to be on the stage crew for The Odd Couple, Female Version.  She later did publicity for the first production of The Sound of Music in 1995 and Life with Father in 1997, and created the program for Oliver!, also in 1997.  It was at this time that Julie began her stint as an ACT I board member, during the time that the organization was searching for a permanent home.  Julie and longtime friend Lu Karr helped spearhead the campaign that eventually led us to the reality of the Palace Theatre.  While the campaign for the Palace was going on, Julie found time to do publicity for Bye Bye Birdie as well as be a production assistant for Marvin's Room.  

After the theatre was opened, Julie became one of the managers, devoting herself to promotion.  She continues to write a weekly column in the Times on behalf of the theatre.  She created the program and ticket design for our first production in the Palace, I'll Be Home for  Christmas, and did publicity work for Life with Mother that first season as well.  She also served as a house manager for Charlotte's Web, and did publicity for My Fair Lady, Noises Off, as well as promoting all the ACT I palace shows through her column.  In January, she did program and publicity for our recent Live at the Palace, the show in which she finally returned to our stage in a mute but lively performance that preceded her performances in the revival currently on our stage.

Carolyn Corken and Julie Corken (Zimmer) performed a comic performance to the song "Sisters" during Live at the Palace in January.

Julie describes her transition to Vinton:  “I spent the summer after my junior year in high school as part of the Silver Dollar Players, a melodrama troupe in Silverton, Colorado. We performed in the evenings at a hotel in Ouray, and during the day we met the narrow-gauge tourist trains in Silverton in our costumes and served lunch while we sang and danced. As
the junior member of the troupe and a mediocre singer and dancer, I excelled at serving lunch. The pinnacle of my acting career was being named Best Actress (as Laura in Glass Menagerie) and our one-act was Best Play of the Day at the state speech contest in Cherokee, 1967. I served on the Old Creamery Theatre board for five years and the proximity of live theater was one of the things, in addition to family, that enticed us to move from Iowa City to Vinton about 27 years ago.”  Julie’s work experience has been quite varied.  She has taught elementary school, coordinated a Big Brother/Big Sister program, coordinated work experience at the Braille School, taught journalism at Kirkwood, and coordinated marketing for the Palace.  She resigned at Kirkwood last spring and resumed her freelance business, primarily writing grants and promotional copy for non-profits and businesses.

Julie refers to herself as stage-mom emeritus to their two children; Emily, 26, Emily is a veteran of three past ACT I productions.  She fondly remembers the thrill as a child of her first role as Starry, one of the cherubs in Lovingly Yours by Skeet Powers in 1986.
In 1995 she appeared with ACT I as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker and the following year she was seen as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music.  Emily is also a veteran of acting and technical assignments for WHS and the Old Creamery Theatre.  While at WHS, one of her onstage roles was as Essie in You Can't Take it with You, the same role her mother played in the original ACT I production.  Emily is now a professional actor in the Twin Cities, where she has had two or three major roles a year with The Children’s Theatre of Minnesota, Frank Theater Co, Theatre de la Jeune Lune and the Minnesota History Center, among others.  Recently she workshopped an unfinished play for the Guthrie and last summer she went to Lucarno, Switzerland to study clowning.  She does some voice work for radio advertising and works steadily for the Bridges Program, a theater-based literacy project in the public elementary schools. In between she waits tables and does temp work.  Emily is a member of AFTRA and Lip Service, an actors' guild in the Twin Cities.

Emily Zimmer and Jessica Coulter as Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker for ACT I in May, 1995.

Brian, like Van, would rather be in the audience than on the stage. He graduated from UNI in metal casting (industrial technology), works at his craft in Cedar Falls, and is interviewing with manufacturing and art foundries (this week it is Indianapolis and St. Louis). 

Julie recalls the efforts to create the Palace Theatre:  “All we expected, when we incorporated ACT I so many years ago, was to have some fun performing plays. That goal has certainly been realized over the years.

“When the new goal of having a safe, comfortable, accessible performance space arose, we went to the community and learned that, although there has always been a lot of good will for ACT I, we could not raise enough money to build a facility, even with a donation of land from one of our members.

“Then we worked with the recreation department on a plan for a new theater space with the city, which also died for a lack of support from city voters.

“Finally, the  information we had gathered from focus groups helped us think broader. I think it was Becky and Keith Mossman who suggested that Vinton needed a movie theater, and over 500 people and businesses got behind the idea to provide something for the entire
community. Besides offering the performance space we sought initially, the Palace is a public trust for a wider audience. It is an incredible win-win situation for ACT I patrons and the entire community. And, 25 years later, ACT I can still have fun performing plays.”

Our thanks to Julie and her daughter Emily for their support of and participation with ACT I through the years.  The organization will always appreciate your hard work in making the Palace Theatre happen for us; and we hope it isn't another 25 years before Julie comes back on our stage again!

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