FSLT’s founding mother’s legacy takes center stage in seventy-fifth anniversary celebration
Fort Smith Little Theatre, now celebrating its seventy-fifth year, can trace its existence back to a single date that went extraordinarily well for one new resident from Shreveport.
In the mid-1940s Florabell Kinnebrew came to Fort Smith to stay with her sister. While visiting, she was set up by her sister, whose husband was stationed at Fort Chaffee, on a date with another soldier, James Pattee, Jr.
If Flo and James had not hit it off, wed, and started their married life in Fort Smith, it’s unlikely a community theatre would have started in 1947, or have gotten off to such a solid beginning.
Flo, as she was known, was not a typical mid-century housewife. In 1947 she was a new mother to her only child, Penny, and like her peers, actively volunteered. The difference was in her background; Flo came to Fort Smith with New York stage experience and a theatre degree from the prestigious drama school at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois.
And what she really wanted to do was direct.
Strong direction from the start
Nancy Blochberger, a long-time volunteer at FSLT, is on its seventy-fifth anniversary committee. The committee’s research brought to light the important role Flo Pattee had in the theatre’s inception. Nancy says it was a “stroke of good fortune” for Fort Smith that a woman with time, energy and an advanced theatre education had become a resident.
The concept of Little Theatres (community-based alternatives to Broadway productions or traveling repertory troupes) had become popular, though none had formed in Arkansas. At a 1947 meeting of Young Ladies Guild of Sparks Hospital Flo suggested forming a Little Theatre as a hospital fundraiser. It was a novel concept for the area and the guild jumped on the idea.
According to a commemorative booklet produced by the anniversary committee, Flo wrote about the concept of an all-volunteer theatre in a newspaper article, “Well, What Is A Little Theatre Anyway?”
Little Theatre really means that the community is growing up–that it is striving for cultural attainment–and there is no class distinction in the Little Theatre. There is a place for everyone. A grocer can paint scenery, and a girl who works at her typewriter by day can act at night.
Nancy says that while Flo’s background was the spark, it was never a one-woman show. “Even with Flo’s energy and leadership, it never would have survived,” she says. “The Little Theatre did and has always required lots of people to step in and participate.”
She says volunteers, whether they had any dramatic talent or not, kept the new project going and growing. They were energetic and enthusiastic about giving their city a new form of cultural entertainment. “The women of the hospital guild really nurtured those first years,” she continues. “They sold tickets, they worked hospitality, they managed the business end, and many were involved on stage and backstage as well. They were a smart and dedicated group.”
The guild used the stage at Fort Smith Junior High for their first production, Mr. and Mrs. North, a murder mystery starring Flo’s husband, James Pattee, Jr., and Mrs. Porter Gammill. Occupying the role she would hold for the next five years of productions, Flo directed the show.
But in 1952, the Pattees’ involvement with the young theatre would end; they moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Nancy calls 1952 “pivotal.” FSLT had finally bought its first building and had achieved fiscal autonomy; the community would support the FSLT directly. “They’d made it, and then—BAM—the rug gets pulled out from under them as they lose their founding mother. Luckily, people stepped up to the plate. And they’ve been stepping up ever since.”
The Pattee family’s 2022 return
The anniversary committee began planning for their seventy-fifth celebration during the eighteen frightening pandemic months when the theatre had to be dark. Finally, the 200-seat theatre’s stage lights came back on last September.
When the committee became aware in its research of the Pattees’ key roles in its earliest years, the question was raised: Could any of the family be located?
Using Ancestry.com and some deep internet research, they found one possible phone number for a descendant. “I called and left a long-winded message as to who I was and why I was trying to reach Penny Pattee. The outgoing voicemail didn’t have a name, so I didn’t even know if I was reaching the right person,” Nancy explains. “A few days later, I got a call back. This person said, ‘I am Penny’s daughter and the granddaughter of Flo; how in the heck did you find me?’ She was pretty bewildered!”
Through Flo’s grandchildren, Wyman Marshall and Meredith Alexander, Nancy reached Penny Pattee, now Robertson, who left Fort Smith when she was five years old.
Penny said that her father had died of a heart attack at age sixty-one in 1969, but that Flo had lived to age ninety-two, passing in 1998. Flo had a career in real estate but had remained active in community theatre in Louisville and in its suburb, Anchorage.
In an email Penny writes, “Mother did direct Little Theatre in Louisville after we moved here. She and another friend directed a children’s theatre in Anchorage. I acted in one or two as a child, and Mother directed a number of plays.” The children’s theatre, coincidentally also celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary, and the Louisville community theatre Flo was involved with are still going strong today.
James, Flo, and Penny returned to Fort Smith as honored guests for FSLT’s twentieth anniversary celebration (and a new production of Mr. and Mrs. North) in 1968. Now, the Pattee descendants are planning a visit.
Penny, her grandchildren, and other family members will be in Fort Smith this June for recognition of Flo’s contributions and a seventy-fifth anniversary production of Moon Over Buffalo. The popular 1995 comedy is (appropriately enough) about actors and live theatre during the golden age of Hollywood.
“When I heard the excitement in Penny’s voice, and when I spoke to Flo’s granddaughter on the phone, it really brought home to me that we don’t really know the lasting effects the decisions we make may have on a person or an organization or a city. Flo’s proposal to the Young Ladies Guild, her energy, and leadership made a lasting mark on our community,” Nancy says.
“We don’t have the pool of people available to do things during the daytime that they did in the fifties, when most women did not work. But we still have loads of people who show up to volunteer. Some want to be a part of live theatre; others just want to make new friends. But with that combination of interests and talents, we are still able to operate as all-volunteer, just as it was in 1947.”
Nancy said Fort Smithians have celebrated the theatre’s reopening. “We’ve had so many people say, ‘Oh, it’s so good to get out after Covid, to be here and to hear people laugh and go out to dinner first and visit with friends!’ And that’s why do it. An old newspaper article we found puts it another way, ‘The Little Theatre has but two purposes: To provide entertainment to Fort Smith and to have a good time doing it.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Check fslt.org for info on upcoming productions, auditions, and volunteer opportunities.
