All The World’s A Stage-Part 2
Summer Theatre in the Field House
Completed in 1948, “the University of Idaho field house [was] the largest wood frame building in this part of the country” (Argonaut.) While created for athletics, other departments, made use of it and Theatre used it as a summer venue.
It was the first home of U of I Summer Theatre, created and produced by department head Jean Collette and faculty member Edmund Chavez. The stock company (which showed plays in succession instead of multiple plays on alternating days) staged popular shows and melodramas to the delight of the community and summer session students from 1954-1969.
Summer Theatre in the Kiva
The Kiva was a unique piece of architecture on the U of I campus. Perched atop a pedestal, it looked like a recently alighted spacecraft. The lecture hall was one of three buildings constructed for the College of Education. Everett Samuelson, the College’s dean, invited Summer Theatre to use the facility. Education benefited from the theatre productions which provided their summer students an entertainment outlet.
Summer Theatre performed there until 1974 when the Performing Arts Center was constructed.
The Theatre Department returned to the Kiva in 1999 after it was remodeled from a lecture hall into a permanent theatre space. The move was necessitated by the demolition of the U-Hut and the Jean Collette Theatre to make way for the Idaho Commons (now the I-SUB). The Kiva Theater ran until 2014 when it was removed as part of the renovation of the Education Building next to it.
Theatre in the Borah Theater
The Borah Theater within the Student Union Building (now the Bruce Pitman Center) was used for a variety of theatrical productions. They varied from the 1952 production of the The Doctor Inspite of Himself to Lincoln’s Shins an original play by David Harlan.
Theatre at the Burning Stake Coffeehouse
The Campus Christian Center’s Burning Stake Coffehouse hosted plays in the 1970s.
Theatre at the Shattuck
Students even went out to Shattuck Amphitheater to present work. The Collette Players, the student group which produced shows in the the Collette would bring plays there on occasion. Today, visitors to the amphitheater will discover it looks very different from when these productions were done.
