In the beginning there were high points (such as attendance by President and Mrs. Truman), and there were lows: the leaky tarpaper roof that required umbrellas to be held over actress Helen Hayes, a stray dog wandering on stage and staring out at the audience, a coiled snake falling from an opening curtain. Even the community itself was ambivalent: "Let us hope," opined the Annals, that the theater "is not the entering wedge to end our serene and rural character." But theater people live daily with rave reviews and flops, and Olney Theatre has moved forward unfazed.

It began in the mid-'30s as an open-air pavilion built for summer stock and dances--an idea of Washington's Steven Cochrane. In 1941, C. Y. Stephens, owner of the High's Dairy chain, joined Cochrane, and they expanded the theater--only to be closed by World War II gas rationing. After the war a New York summer touring group brought big names to the stage, but the productions weren't equal to the luster of the stars. Changing direction, Stephens invited the involvement of Father Gilbert V. Hartke of Catholic University's Drama Department. Olney became a nonprofit training ground for student writers, actors, designers, and technicians, and its steady climb began.

A "box-shaped white frame stage house... old wooden buckets hang from the walls, the song of the crickets is not too distant and the fragrance of the wild flowers--well, it's wonderful if you don't suffer from hay fever." Thus a Washington Post critic described Olney Theatre, shown with the actors' residence at right. The critic overlooked the large oak tree that once graced the middle of the theater and the stone barn foundation entombed beneath it.