Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for nearly four decades. He is the Senior Editor of the City Eagle and the Mayor of Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse.
The old synagogue at Crouse and Harrison may become condos, but no matter what renovations occur inside, any passing by of the majestic stone steps and columns will always be of Salt City. A drafty main theater, always a little dark, long in need of an enclosed orchestra space to balance volume for musicals. An intimate, questionably wired second theater with an atmosphere unmatched for its funk factor. Vast storage spaces and cramped dressing rooms. “It was my Southwest Center at the time,” Ken Jackson remembers of growing up on Harrison Street in the Seventies. “It was like Our Gang, ‘Let’s put on a show!’ And at that time, no one else was letting you do that.”
For Jackson and the gang who lived on the Eastside and down Fayette to Pioneer Homes, the shows evolved into 50 cent Theater, sparked by plays written by the late Tommy Grimes, including Ain’t No School Tomorrow, a commentary on racial issues in the city schools then still struggling with integration. “We had tin can lights,” Jackson recalls. “It was ironic at the time that those of us who were not allowed to take Regents English were writing our own plays. If it hadn’t been for that experience, I might not have finished high school.” He remembers John Heard as an early role model, inspiring many black youth to explore theater. Heard recalls a nomadic series of performance stops before Joe and Pat Lotito set up shop in an abandoned warehouse on Peat Street.
The show must go on, within reason
But the real deal was the synagogue, always in need of work, and probably eligible for condemnation from the very first rehearsal. But Joe kept the Codes people at bay, with a little help from Lee Alexander, who admired Joe’s style. It was a style that often grated on people, but one that made sure the task was accomplished, and the task was Herculean. It was mostly multi-task, as when Joe starred in the shows he produced, and often posed incredible choices, as the night, during Jesus Christ Superstar, when the ceiling fell. At the time, Joe was perched at the pinnacle of the set, passionately immersed in his monologue.
A large chunk of ceiling feel loudly landing between the stage and the front row, not hitting anyone, but showering a thick layer of plaster dust on those occupying the front row, most of them in wheelchairs. Joe paused in mid-sentence, the reality of Jesus on trial frozen in momentary silence. He surveyed the front row playing a very different role, and, seeing no hysteria nor apparent injury, finished the monologue and the first act. In the lobby during intermission, in costume, but only slightly breaking the mystique, he bowed to a consensus of his staff members that the audience should be sent home.
In one word: Tradition!
People grew up in the Salt City extended family, growing in ways, as Jackson recalls, that were not possible elsewhere at the time. Non-traditional casting, for instance, with Jacqui Tara Washington, an African-American, playing Mary in Jesus Christ Superstar, or a run of A Streetcar Named Desire with cast members all of color. But if Joe consciously broke new ground in the realm of community theater, it quickly became what it is at the Salt City Center for the Performing Arts. As Tevye, the role he will be best remembered for in Fiddler on the Roof, he personified the survival of the institution he birthed: “You may ask, ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because it is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!”
Joe’s gone now. The tradition remains.
CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: John Heard, Ken Jackson,theater,Joe and Pat Lotito,Walt Shepperd,synagogue at Crouse and Harrison, condos,Salt City Playhouse
