It was a wonderful premiere for “The Wonderful Wadsworth,” according to organizers.
The documentary by local filmmaking team Jonathan and Maggie Boudreaux Hickman telling some of the long history of Newnan’s city auditorium premiered in a free screening Nov. 12 at the Wadsworth. It was seen by a roomful of project participants, friends and supporters along with community members who have attended many a dramatic or musical show at the building on Jefferson Street.
The film, which runs about 38 minutes, was funded by the city’s Newnan Cultural Arts Commission which is working to expand cultural programming for the community.
The Hickmans spent months researching the 1939-era building’s history and doing filmed interviews. Sharing their stories in the film are more than a dozen people who have had a part either with entertainment productions through the years or with the efforts to restore the Art Deco-style hall and bring back its sparkle after years of wear and tear.
Among those interviewed is auditorium namesake Charles Wadsworth himself, who came to Newnan as a young child and grew up in a home on Jefferson Street next door to the Newnan Municipal Building. He recalled the importance to him of early piano recitals on the auditorium stage. His music career eventually took him to New York City and Lincoln Center where he headed the chamber music program and around the world with top names in classical music.
“If you’ve continued to be a performing artist, you focus very much on how it all started and how you felt at that time,” Wadsworth said.
Charles Wadsworth never lost his love of home and shares in the film interview his pride in being able to bring top classical artists back to his hometown to perform on the auditorium stage. For some two decades he created the spring “Wadsworth and Friends” concerts that raised funds toward the hall’s restoration efforts. In recognition of his help city officials named the auditorium for him.
That love of home is echoed by others interviewed, among them theatrical director Dale Lyles who studied at the University of Georgia and could have headed for a career in the Broadway lights but chose to come back and share his talents in his hometown, soprano Courtenay Budd who performed as a child with her sister in one of Lyles’ productions of “A Christmas Carol” on the auditorium stage, and former Coweta County Commissioner Robert Wood who left Newnan to serve in the military and returned to a community forever changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
“I wanted to share what I saw as a positive narrative of a place that has deeply impacted the lives of so many of us including myself,” Jonathan Hickman says of the film. Now a practicing attorney in Newnan, Hickman recalls as a small child playing Tiny Tim in the community production of “A Christmas Carol” on the Wadsworth stage.
Budd shares happy memories of the days of the Newnan Junior Service League’s “Follies” in which her parents and their friends performed. Along with Budd’s parents, among those in the song and dance numbers was Carol Harless. She is seen in a film clip from a “Follies” performance tap dancing for the audience. Ms. Harless, a sculptor, created a bust of Charles Wadsworth that is displayed at the hall’s entrance, as well as a statue of violinist Chee-Yun who has returned year after year to Newnan to perform with her friend Charles Wadsworth. Martha White, another of the Junior League volunteers of the day, is seen in another clip with her late husband John performing a number from musical “Annie.”
Poignant moments in the documentary include Newnan resident Brenda Martin telling of going to a nearby doctor’s office that was in the shadow of the auditorium. Martin remembers sitting on a bench in the segregated back waiting room with her mother and thinking that the Newnan Municipal Building was the biggest building she had ever seen. Her mother gently tells her that black girls like her are not allowed in the auditorium. After leaving Newnan, getting her master’s degree and working for the government, Martin eventually moved home. She was able to schedule the auditorium for youth programs for local black children who in years past would not have been allowed to set foot inside.
Robert Wood likewise felt the emotions of seeing a changed community after his military career and moving back home. He recalls in his filmed interview the initiation of the local annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade and memorial program. For one of the early Dr. King programs held in the city auditorium Wood was tapped to recite King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
The Hickmans include stories of how the community voted to construct the 1939 building, with the bond issue passing by only 43 votes. It was the era of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs and the city had to chip in about a 50/50 share of the $80,000 needed to build the municipal building.
Years later, after efforts of the Lively Arts Series headed by Shirley Church that started the Charles Wadsworth chamber music concerts and the continuing “Friends of Wadsworth” benefits for the auditorium’s restoration, the Newnan City Council voted to go ahead and fund the remainder needed to make the restoration a reality. Chrles Wadsworth was honored for his efforts with the hall being named for him.
Interspersed with the interviews are tours of the hall’s backstage workings by Steve Hill who oversees the auditorium’s operations. And there are filmed performances by Candler Budd reciting Shakespeare, local musician Lance Mapp performing one of his own bluesy numbers, and Kaitlin Fenninger performing a ballet piece used in the title credits.
Mapp was on hand to perform as the audience gathered for the film’s premiere screening.
Introducing the film on behalf of the cultural arts commission was John Thrasher. Newnan Cultural Arts Commission is a standing committee established by the Newnan City Council in 2006. The commission is charged with planning and coordinating cultural events for the local community. Chairperson is Dave Dorrell, with Vice-Chairperson Phyllis Graham, Treasurer John Thrasher, and members Bette Hickman, Evette Jones, Sarah LaMance, Bob McKoon, Martha Ann Parks, Pamela Prange, Craig Ruby, Gina Weathersby, Ann Lynn Whiteside, Ellen Wood and Kim Wright. City of Newnan liaison is Information Officer Gina Snider.
