Valley Players - Summer Stock on Mt. Tom

Summer stock sometimes provides the audience a chance to see young actors and actresses rising in their profession before they become famous. Sometimes it provides a chance to see veteran actors and actresses whose career high points are long past. They may be guest actors that week, or part of the stock company.

Summer stock is probably the most egalitarian environment for theatre there is.

About a year ago, we took a look at the Valley Players of Mountain Park, whose theater perched atop Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In its day, from 1941 to about 1962, it was considered the largest summer theater in New England.

Here we have a look at another play produced by this company, the comedy “Three on a Horse.” It was August, 1942, World War II not a year old and many summer theaters were adversely affected by gas rationing since they were out in the country, for the most part beyond the reach of trains and trolleys.

Joseph Foley starred, and founders of the Valley Players Lauren Gilbert, his wife Jackson Perkins, and Jean Guild were also in the cast. Directed by Dorothy M. Crane, another colleague made this an almost entirely home-grown production, where administrative staff doubled as actors.

We can look at the cast for a good example of some actors on the rise (though who never became household names), and veterans whose career peaks were behind them.

Alfred Paschall played a supporting role. I think he was the same actor who played a handful of minor Shakeapearean roles, usually in the ensemble, on Broadway from the late 1930s to early 1940s.

Willard Dashiell, an older actor in another supporting role, had a handful of minor Hollywood movie credits in silent films, his last film role as a “businessman” in the 1934 film “War is a Racket”. He appeared on Broadway throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Evidently at the time, Mr. Dashiell was living in the area. The program notes of him, “We consider ourselves very fortunate that an actor of such wide experience and fine reputation lives here in this community and can take part from time to time in our plays.”

Frank Rollinger, in another supporting role, played summer stock and regional theater, including in the company of the famed Pasadena Playhouse. He also did some radio shows, including appearing on “Suspense”

John McQuade, who plays the role of “Patsy”, was beginning his career, which would soon involve a number of television roles in TV’s Golden Age, including “Studio One”, “The Philco Television Playhouse” and “Robert Montgomery Presents.”

He had a handful of roles on Broadway through the 1940s, including a couple of stints at what may have been the same Shakespearean productions the above-mentioned Alfred Dashiell appeared. His final Broadway appearance was in 1963, though his TV career lasted longer. He also toured with Maurice Evans and Dame Judith Anderson in “Macbeth”

The Valley Players played an important role in the formative years in the careers of many actors, but like most summer theaters, flew by the seat of its pants. You could buy reserved seats tickets in downtown Holyoke at the Park Pharmacy on Dwight Street, or in the Highlands section of town at Martin’s Pharmacy on Hampden Street. You could also call Dickinson’s Drug store in Northampton at telephone Northampton 3466 for reservations. Probably the reason why drug stores filled in for the box office is that most people did not own a phone at this time to call for reservations, and getting up the mountain, in wartime with gas rationing, was not always convenient. The neighborhood drug store served as a command post for all things vital, prescriptions, news from the front, casualty lists, and theater tickets.

Attendance was heavier on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, “and the call for tickets has become so great on Wednesdays and Saturdays that you will be wise to reserve your seats for those nights at least two or three days in advance.”

It was an 8:30 curtain on weeknights, 2:30 on the Wednesday matinee. You could purchase autographed pictures of the company in costume at 65 cents each.

For more on lead actor in this production Joseph Foley and the Valley Players, have a look at this earlier post.


Note: Program and vintage postcards are from the author’s collection, special thanks to Gail Watson.

The Valley Players - Holyoke, Mass.

A fondly remembered summer theater company produced plays and musicals on the top of Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. An idyllic spot of picnic groves, restaurant, ballroom, dance pavilion, amusement park, and zoo, Mountain Park also featured a theater called the Casino. At one time, it was the home of what was reputed to be the largest summer theater in New England.

From 1941 through 1962, the Casino was home to The Valley Players, a theatre company which helped nurture, or even launch the careers of many young actors, Hal Holbrook among them, who first performed his famous one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight” here. Future Tony nominee and native of nearby Westfield Anne Pitoniak appeared here as well.

Mountain Park was created in the late 19th century when the first train and trolley and mountain tram cars made their way up Mt. Tom. An early vaudeville theater was built here, later replaced by the Casino. In 1911 the Casino Stock Company produced stage plays here, but folded after one season. Vaudeville acts and silent movies shown at the Casino drew in the crowds. Stage plays were attemped again in 1924, and a 1935 renovation of the Casino led to more plays here showcased by the Works Progress Administration (more on the WPA theatre project another time). One Depression-era member of the company was future film star Wendell Corey.

Carlton and Jean Guild created the Valley Players here in 1941. They had been involved in other New England summer theaters, and along with collegues Dorothy Crane, Lauren Gilbert and his wife Jackson Perkins, Walter Coy, Louise Mudgett and Joseph Foley, were looking for a site for a new company. All would function on the administrative staff or perform in many of the plays produced by the Valley Players, or both. Joseph Foley went on to do some live television, was Gabriel Gurney the principal for the first season of “Mr. Peepers”, until his untimely death in the summer of 1955 in Holyoke.

The Valley Players was an Equity stock company. During 1943 Mountain Park was closed due to the wartime gas rationing. The heyday for the Valley Players was throughout the 1950s (coinciding with what is generally perceived as the golden age of summer theatre in New England), but the dawn of the 1960s brought rising production costs, lower attendance, and the curtain was brought down in 1962 with Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.”

Mountain Park closed in 1987.


Here are a few programs from The Valley Players. “Bell, Book & Candle” with Hal Holbrook was the final production of 1953. “Holiday” from July 1954 featured Si, (later billed as Simon) Oakland, later seen in many future film and TV productions. Hal Holbrook also appeared in “The Velvet Glove” July 1953, one of his earliest appearances with The Valley Players. The following month he had a part in “The Happiest Days of Your Life”.


Ralph Edwards, who at the time was the host of the “Truth or Consequences” gameshow on radio, and would also be the host when this show eventually moved to television, appeared in “Nothing But the Truth” in August 1942.


I’d love to hear from anyone who attended a show by The Valley Players, or was involved in any way in their productions.

Note: the postcards of the Casino Theater are from the Imagine Museum website. These programs for The Valley Players came to me by way of an old family friend (and collectibles & antiques dealer) Gail Watson. My dearest thanks to her.