StageCenter is Bryan/College Station’s first community theatre. Throughout its existence StageCenter has led a nomadic life. In StageCenter’s 5-decade history, hundreds of dramas, comedies, farces, musicals, and melodramas have come to life on stage.
It began in 1964 with a group of people who spent much of the first year just reading plays together and performing some public readings. Vic Wiening, a professor of English at Texas A & M University, and William Andrew, a local lawyer and pathologist, were the founders. They were joined in their efforts by Louise Rotsch, Sol Kline, David & Valerie Woodcock,Wanda Daisa, Rebecca & Wendell Landmann, and Brookes & Annaliese Cofer.
StageCenter’s first production was The Hollow Crown by John Barton and was presented in the MSC Ballroom on campus. In the early years, plays were also performed in the old Woolworth building on Main Street in downtown Bryan, as well as in local churches and schools.
From 1968 to 1984, StageCenter occupied the second floor of the old Bryan Country Club on the Municipal Golf Course. Soon thereafter, StageCenter’s members were very pleased when they were offered the Palace Theater on Main Street.
A production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma was about to open when the roof of the theater fell in during the middle of the night and the group had to move. The organization relocated to a very small space in a strip center on Wellborn Rd and later on to a space in a strip center, this time on 29th Street. Much of the theatre’s equipment, props, and lights were destroyed when the Palace collapsed so the company began to replenish this equipment as they could afford to.
