Plays Help Community Understand Masons

American-Statesman Staff By Andrea Ball, Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Seven-year-old Victoria Osborne sits on the floor near the stage, yelling at the "Sleeping Beauty" actors without an ounce of hesitation. "Wake up, Pete!" she howls at a sleeping character. "WAKE UP! No one blinks. Nor should they.

This is the Scottish Rite Children's Theatre, a place where the controlled chaos of squirming, chatty children is not only tolerated, it's encouraged. Each year, thousands of children come to this relatively new Scottish Rite program, a two-year-old extension of the fraternity's charitable works in Austin. But this theater is more than that. It is a public relations push for a fraternity struggling to rebuild itself after decades of falling membership. And the Austin Scottish Rite says it's working.

Over the past 18 months, the children's theater program has attracted about a dozen new members, said Gordon Kelso, general secretary of the Austin Scottish Rite and executive director of the theater program. To outsiders, 12 might not be an impressive number, but the influx is getting attention in Scottish Rite circles. The theater program is this month's cover story in the fraternity's magazine, Scottish Rite Journal, in part because this is the only Scottish Rite chapter in the country to launch such an effort. Now the local fraternity is encouraging other chapters to try it, too."Our membership has fallen horribly, but there is a fresh breeze flowing through," Kelso said. "We've got men in their 20s coming through here now."

The Scottish Rite is one branch in the family tree of Freemasons, a fraternal organization devoted to brotherhood and community service. Some of its centuries-old activities include performing short plays rich with moral lessons. After the Civil War, Scottish Rites began constructing hundreds of buildings across the country with theaters for their plays. But the boom times are over. In the past three decades, Scottish Rite's national membership has gone from a 1978 high of almost 1.2 million to about 679,000 in 2000, a decrease of more than 40 percent, said S. Brent Morris, editor of the Scottish Rite Journal. The Austin chapter has seen a similar decline. In 1981, the group had 3,600 members. Today, that number hovers around 2,400.

Participation in local activities has been dropping for three decades, according to "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," published in 2000 by Harvard professor Robert Putnam. In the mid-1970s, the average American attended some club meeting every month, the book states. By 1998, that participation had dropped nearly 60 percent. Putnam theorized that television, two-career families, suburban sprawl and generational changes in values contributed to the decline.

Over the past decade, Scottish Rites have been renting out their buildings for weddings, parties or meetings, as does the Austin chapter. A few have allowed community theater groups to use the fraternity's old theaters and historic sets.

In 1995, Austin Scottish Rite started hosting family-oriented productions staged by community theater groups. Then Kelso, a former television director and sound engineer for the Walt Disney Co., decided to take it a step further. "Since we had this primo space, there was no reason we shouldn't just go out and launch our own children's theater program," he said. The Scottish Rite Children's Theatre was started in 2004. It has done "Charlotte's Web," "Treasure Island" and "Sleeping Beauty." A production of "Rumpelstiltskin" is in the works.

Scottish Rite's program isn't the only children's theater in town. The Zachary Scott Theatre brings productions to schools, and Second Youth does its own child-friendly productions. "Nationally, there's a trend toward family theater," said Ann Ciccolella, managing director for Zachary Scott Theatre. "Kids want to be in the theater with their families."

Scottish Rite's mission is never pushed on parents or children, Kelso said, but the organization does provide informational materials to those who request it. "The kind of people we want in our fraternity are the people who care enough to take their children to good quality wholesome theater," he said. Scottish Rite leaders hope other local fraternities will be inspired by and try to replicate Austin's success.

But Kelso was uniquely qualified to launch such a program, said former Texas Supreme Court Justice Jack Hightower, who is the highest-ranking Scottish Rite mason in Texas. Kelso's wife, Rita, the theater manager, was a professional wardrobe designer and a former skater with the Ice Follies. His daughter Gwendolyn, the theater's company manager, is an actress and a playwright.

The kids don't care anything about membership issues. They just love the theater. On a Saturday morning this spring, dozens of youngsters gathered in the 300-seat 1869 theater at West 18th and Lavaca streets to watch "Sleeping Beauty." The 45-minute show included colorful costumes and plenty of audience participation. After the show, Victoria Osborne and her friend Mary Hamlet lined up outside the theater to have the actors sign their programs.

"Did you have fun?" asked actor Nathan Jerkins, who played Sleepy Pete. "Yes," Mary answered. "Who was your favorite character?" he asked. "You!" Mary proclaimed. The 6-year-old walked away, beaming at her autographed program. "I love it," she said. "I'm going to go home and color this and put it on my wall."