Evening star., 1952-03-16
The Posing Show

q
foresaw him as an aristocratic
New England banker and q
Philadelphian whose life seemed
bent exclusively toward popular
music will be dominant figures
in the theater of Washington
during the next decade.
They are Richard Stoddard
Aldrich and Richard Myers.
Last Friday. they affixed their
signatures to q 10-year lease
on the National Theater, q kind
Of non-aggression pact which
restores harmony between Wash
ington's oldest playhouse and
Broadway's playmakers.
The theater, which closed July
81. 1948. will reopen May 5 on
a non-segregated. or integrated,
policy, the reverse Of the prac-
tice which resulted in its closing.
The new leSsees Of the Ma
tional are men of distinction.
affability. excellent taste, and
great enthusiasm for a piece Of
real estate whose cultural po-
tential is as high as the Ma
tional's. AS q firm of play
producers, they have been as.
sociated for Is profitable and
entirely praiseworthy years. The
feeling Of their fellow profess
sionals, including those who
competed with them for the
Nationals lease, is that the
theater could not have fallen
into more able and gracious
hands.
Mr.. Aldrich, whose name
comes first on the firms door,
is perhaps the more widely
known of the two. He is a
towering type, 6 feet 4 inches
tall. Had he followed his par
ents' plans for him, he would
have made q remarkably genial
looking banker, not unlike the
one Henry Fonda plays in
Point Of No Return"
Mr.. Aldrich found his life
work at the age Of 10. This was
in 1912 when be was taken by
his banker minded elders to see
a performance of "The Old
Homestead" starring Denman
Thompson (whose son was
sports editor Of The Star for
many years..
An "Anger' Shows Up.
Thereafter at the Noble and
Greenough School in Boston
and later at Harvard, the young
Aldrich found commerce and
finance courses less interesting
than dramatic. Blessedly shar-
ing his enthusiasm for the lat
ter was a fellow Harvardman,
Bushnell Cheney. heir to fab
ulous silk fortune and just the
man to "angel" Aldrich theatre
cal enterprises.
Together they founded a IA
nous gypsy drama group, the
Jitney Players. composed of
Harvard thespians and Junior
League girls. Travelling in light
cars and trucks, which gave the
company its name, the Jitney
Players toured New England in
q repertory Of light comedies
and musicals.
It was during the Jitney days
and while he was still at Har-
ward that Aldrich's taste in
drama was questioned for the,
first and last times The qleS-
toner was Boston's Mayor
James J. Curley who saw the
Sanctity Of the American home
jeopardized by an Aldrich pro-
duction, Sophie" a play by
Philip Moeller. When young
Aldrich raised an eyebrow at
the source of the criticism. the
Mayor issued a statement to the
effect that the Curley culture
antedated that of the Aldrich's
by thousands of years.
Aldrich merely raised the
other eyebrow. leaving the
Mayor dangling from a lower
limb Of the Curley family tree.
From Harvard, cum laude,
class of 1925, Aldrich went to
Richard Boleslavsky's American
Laboratory Theater in New
York. Two years later, he had
been associated with the pro-
duction Of a number Of plays. in
one Of which. in 1928, he intro
duced promising young ac-
tress," Claudette Colbert.
The family's faith in banking
intruded into his consciousness
for the first time in 1929, when
he took a fling at finding greater
security than the theater