Looking back: Early days of the Playhouse

Preface: This collection of vignettes is a chapter from my childhood memoir that spans the period from 1950 to 1964 when my parents, Bill and Anne Haug, owned a bar on Bigfork’s Electric Avenue.

IOOF Hall

This building served as Bigfork’s community hall, with events like the annual Halloween Party for kids, Cribbage Tournament Playoffs, and the Fireman’s New Years Eve Ball. It also served as the home for several fraternal organizations. For many years, Joe Nelson (who was also fire chief and superintendent at the power plant) and his wife Flo showed movies there.

One day in the late 1950s, Mom and Dad got a visit from Bo Brown, a theatre professor at the University in Missoula. He had an idea he wanted to pitch to the chamber of commerce as well as the community; he figured Mom would be the best person to make the introductions and support his project. Bigfork Summer Playhouse opened in 1960 in the hall, featuring three non-musical plays in repertory throughout the summer: Blythe Spirit, Papa Is All, and Sabrina Fair. The first musical, Annie Get Your Gun, opened at the theatre in 1962. The theatre created a lot of buzz, putting Bigfork on the map for something other than fishing. 

Seating was arranged in three sections around the three front sides of the stage; the back of the stage was against a side wall. Actors walked on-stage from the aisles between the seating sections; they changed costumes and stored stage sets across the street, above the Mountain Lake Tavern. Even non-theater goers could get glimpses of the characters as they ran back and forth across the street. 

Tourist Guide Map

Between the hall and River Street was a vacant lot where we kids often had our big fight-outs between cowboys and Indians. 

Elmer Sprunger was commissioned by the Chamber to paint a large Tourist Guide Map. It included Bigfork, the upper East Shore of Flathead Lake, and the upper Swan Valley. Erected on the vacant lot next to the sidewalk, it mostly blocked view of the vacant lot.

Robinson’s Bar and Cafe

This family business was kitty-cornered across the street from our bar, next to the Texaco and across from the Koffee Kup. Bud Robinson took over the running of the bar when his Dad, John, retired, so most people just called it “Bud’s.” 

His mother ran the attached café that was only open during the day. She made popular pies proudly displayed in a tall cylindrical glass case right on the counter, one delicious pie on each shelf. Sometimes in the afternoons (when I was old enough to cross the street), Dad gave me a quarter to buy a piece, but if they were all gone, I’d go into Bud’s bar and buy an Orange Crush. He called me his best customer.

In character, Bud’s was about halfway between our bar (a respectable middle class bar frequented by families, retired couples and a few young people) and the Mountain Lake (the rowdy bar). 

It was a long narrow room with the bar to the right when you walked in. Farther back, on the left, was a door to the cafe. The lights hanging from the ceiling cast a dim glow around the room, and you could see the dust motes in the air. There were a few stools at the bar, but people usually stood up.  

This is where Mom and Dad liked to go drinking on a week night. Bud always set two bottles of Great Falls Select and my Orange Crush on the bar when he saw us walk in. Conversation was lively; it was hard for me to escape into my own world, so I tried hard to listen to the adults.  

One night when I was only three, I had Lonny, my stuffed lion toy, with me.  I set him on the bar, picked up my orange crush and poured it over his head. It made a sticky mess on the bar, which I tried to mop up with my blanket.  

Mom had been talking to someone on the other side of her, but those eyes in the back of her head saw that I was up to something. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. 

“I’m giving Lonny a shampoo, just like Mary Murphy does for you, Mom.”  

Well, that tickled her and she didn’t get mad. Instead she asked Bud to rinse Lonny off under the faucet behind the bar; she took me, and my sopping blanket, back to the Ladies’ room to clean up. 

Poor Lonny; he looked so bedraggled when we got back to the bar. Ever after, the fur on the top of his head and one side of his body was darker orange and more stiff, than elsewhere. But I still loved him dearly.

To be continued.