History:
StageCenter, Inc. is Bryan/College Station’s first community theatre. It began in 1964 with a small group of people who spent much of the first year just reading plays together and performing some public readings. Vic Wiening, a professor of English at Texas A&M University and William Andrew, a local lawyer and pathologist, were the founders. These two were joined by Louise Rotsch, Sol Kline, Wanda Daisa, Rebecca & Wendell Landmann and Brookes and Annaliese Cofer.
In StageCenter’s 40 year history over 500 various plays, musicals and melodramas have come to life on stage. Plays were preformed in the old Woolworth building on Main Street in downtown Bryan, in churches and in schools. StageCenter’s first play was “The Hollow Crown” and was presented in the MSC ballroom on the campus of Texas A&M University. From 1968 to 1984, StageCenter occupied the second floor of the old Bryan Country Club on the Municipal Golf Course (that building was condemned).
We traveled to a very small space in a strip center on Welborn Road so we were very pleased when we were offered the Place Theatre on Main Street. This was generously donated by Shulman Theatres.We were just about to open with “Oklahoma” when after almost 2 weeks of heavy rain, the roof fell in and we were forced to move again to a strip center on 29 Street. (We couldn’t afford a move, so we did two shows in the Presbyterian Church and one at the old Allen Academy that financed the moving expenses.) Much of our equipment, props and lights were destroyed when the Palace collapsed so we begin to replenish this equipment as it could be afforded.