HARDING: SASKATCHEWAN’S ARTS AND THE LEGACY OF FLORENCE JAM
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 9:49 pmSASKATCHEWAN’S ARTS AND THE LEGACY OF FLORENCE JAMES
BY Jim Harding
For publication in R-Town News October 25, 2013
Though engaging people from all walks of life in theatre was her big passion, many in the arts today may not know much about Florence James. Florence retired in 1968 after fifteen splendid years with the Saskatchewan Arts Board (SAB). She had been steadily losing her sight and moved into the CNIB home in Regina until the time of her death in 1988 at the age of 95.
She had been working on her memoirs, including her ordeals with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which shut down the Seattle community theatre Florence and her husband formed after the depression. She had even lined up her past drama student Jimmy Cagney to write the introduction for these memoirs, but no publishers in the U.S. or Canada were interested.
The manuscript ended up in the care of Jean Freeman, another of Florence’s students who had also worked at the SAB. Then Rita Deverell, past actor with Regina’s Globe Theatre and founder of Vision TV, also got involved. Finally, 25 years after her death, we have University of Regina Press’s Fists Upon a Star: A Memoir of Love, Theatre and Escape from McCarthyism.
Freeman ensured that Florence’s passion and voice comes through. Deverell wrote an excellent epilogue which situates Florence in Saskatchewan and Mary Blackstone, Professor of Theatre at the U of R, wrote a well-researched introduction which locates Florence in the history of theatre. With all these worthy, loving embellishments, we should perhaps be thankful that the book took so long coming.
PIONEERING ARTS
Known for its pioneering role in healthcare, Saskatchewan should also be known for its role in the arts. The Arts Board was one of the CCF’s lasting initiatives. Formed in 1948, its mandate was to give “the people…the opportunity to participate in music, drama, the visual arts, handicrafts and the other arts…to help people enjoy a fuller, more satisfying community life.” This was nearly a decade before the Canada Council (1957) and Ontario’s Stratford Festival wasn’t yet in existence.
Tommy Douglas supported the program but its champion was Woodrow Lloyd, then Minister of Education and himself an educator. As Deverell points out, for him “arts were not frills”. He strongly supported hiring Florence on the recommendation of Arts Board Secretary Norah McCollough, a very convincing person in her own right.
COMING TO CANADA
The James’ earned a reputation in Canada well before Florence’s permanent move here in 1952. In 1950 she and husband-colleague Burton were at the Western Canadian Theatre Conference in Regina, representing Seattle’s Repertory Playhouse. The next year, they led the summer drama workshop at the Qu’Appelle Valley Centre in Fort Qu’Appelle, the precursor to the Summer School of the Arts. The couple was involved in theatre at the Banff School of the Arts just seven months before Burton died of “a broken heart” after the excruciating stress from the McCarthyist investigations.
The Arts Board hired Florence as their Drama Consultant in 1953; she never looked back. She was a major reason why the Dominion Drama Festival was held in Regina in 1955 for the province’s Golden Jubilee. Her extraordinary success in bringing community-building arts to grass-roots Saskatchewan led her to being elected to the board of the Canadian Theatre Centre in 1957. She brought Sue and Ken Kramer to Regina, launching the Globe Theatre in 1966. Florence joined the ranks of artists Glen Gould, Maureen Forrester and Oscar Peterson when she was awarded the Diplome d’ honneur in 1976.
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
I knew of Florence’s coming book from her grandson and my life-long friend Jim Kinzel. The stories had already started to flow when Jim, his sister Deb and her husband Geoff came to visit us the day before the book launch. We visited the gravesite of David Ross of Fort Qu’Appelle’s renowned Hanson-Ross pottery shop, where Jim had previously placed some of his grandmother’s ashes. Florence played a role in getting Ross to Saskatchewan and they became great friends before he predeceased her in a car accident in 1974.
This book resonates deeply because our families intersect on many intimate levels. Florence’s son-in-law, Jack Kinzel, made our kitchen cupboards. He luckily had carpentry to fall back on after being purged from his radio job in Seattle for helping undertake a recreation needs assessment (Recreation for All) and organizing a local concert for black singer Paul Robeson. Such community-building made you “a Communist sympathizer” during the crazy McCarthyist years.
Our fathers overlapped professionally; both were staff on The Royal Commission on Rural Life. My father was the first President of the Community Health Services Association (CHSA), which organized community clinics through Saskatchewan to ensure that medicare was implemented, while Jack Kinzel became the first secretary of the Medical Care Insurance Commission (MCIC). I greatly respected Jim’s mother, Florence’s daughter, Marijo Kinzel, and even taught her psychology as she, like her mother, embarked on another late-in-life career. Marijo predeceased Florence unexpectedly in 1977.
FLORENCE’S PRESENCE
Florence’s presence loomed the largest. As I opened the beautifully designed cover of Fists Upon a Star, sitting in the dining room of our Regina family home, I recalled the sound of her footsteps above our heads in the upstairs apartment. I mostly remember Florence because she lived in our family home throughout my teenage years. Florence was a speech coach; she was always demanding that you “speak up!” When she coached me to compete for the Baker Speaker’s Cup, she insisted, “speak from your belly”. I was a huge benefactor of Florence’s gentle “bullying”. She prodded me to enter an Arts Board writer’s contest which took me to a week-long workshop in the Qu’Appelle Valley with W.O. Mitchell, from whom I learned more about the joys of sailing than the techniques of writing. My awe for Florence grew when she coaxed my father into taking on the role of Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
My last encounter with Florence was on the street by her new apartment, on her return to Regina from a short stint in Ottawa. I asked her about her colourful scarf and she told me she’d gotten if from her meditation teacher. She informed me frankly, which was always her way, that since she’d retired and was going blind, she’d had trouble “controlling her mind”. I added this to a long list of insights I associate with my mentor elder Florence James.
FLORENCE’S LEGACY
Deverell writes of how the James’ “pushed and shaped U.S. theatre from their outpost in Seattle.” The same can be said of Florence’s impact on the arts in Canada from her outpost in Regina. Seattle theatre is belatedly coming to terms with its destructive McCarthyist legacy. In 1998 the University of Washington acknowledged that the James’s had established “the largest theatre education program in the U.S.” They played a pioneering role in black theatre. Sixty years after their purging, the Seattle theatre finally installed a plaque honouring their work.
Deverell says we are “less adventurous now” than when Florence had her hands on the wheel. There is less commitment to blending emerging talent with opportunity and less touring theatre. We are less participatory and inclusive than when Florence was here.
But something much more consequential for the practice of the arts has happened. The ultimate form of disrespect is invisibility. Florence’s greatest legacy was probably the expansion of the Summer School of the Arts which was located at Fort San after 1967. Upon Florence’s retirement the performing hall was renamed James Hall in her honour. Then in 2005 the NDP government shut down and privatized the San property. In 2012, three years after the Seattle theatre acknowledged Florence’s legacy, the new San owners had James Hall demolished.
We are lucky to have this important book as a reminder of who we can be.
- - -
Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com
BY Jim Harding
For publication in R-Town News October 25, 2013
Though engaging people from all walks of life in theatre was her big passion, many in the arts today may not know much about Florence James. Florence retired in 1968 after fifteen splendid years with the Saskatchewan Arts Board (SAB). She had been steadily losing her sight and moved into the CNIB home in Regina until the time of her death in 1988 at the age of 95.
She had been working on her memoirs, including her ordeals with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which shut down the Seattle community theatre Florence and her husband formed after the depression. She had even lined up her past drama student Jimmy Cagney to write the introduction for these memoirs, but no publishers in the U.S. or Canada were interested.
The manuscript ended up in the care of Jean Freeman, another of Florence’s students who had also worked at the SAB. Then Rita Deverell, past actor with Regina’s Globe Theatre and founder of Vision TV, also got involved. Finally, 25 years after her death, we have University of Regina Press’s Fists Upon a Star: A Memoir of Love, Theatre and Escape from McCarthyism.
Freeman ensured that Florence’s passion and voice comes through. Deverell wrote an excellent epilogue which situates Florence in Saskatchewan and Mary Blackstone, Professor of Theatre at the U of R, wrote a well-researched introduction which locates Florence in the history of theatre. With all these worthy, loving embellishments, we should perhaps be thankful that the book took so long coming.
PIONEERING ARTS
Known for its pioneering role in healthcare, Saskatchewan should also be known for its role in the arts. The Arts Board was one of the CCF’s lasting initiatives. Formed in 1948, its mandate was to give “the people…the opportunity to participate in music, drama, the visual arts, handicrafts and the other arts…to help people enjoy a fuller, more satisfying community life.” This was nearly a decade before the Canada Council (1957) and Ontario’s Stratford Festival wasn’t yet in existence.
Tommy Douglas supported the program but its champion was Woodrow Lloyd, then Minister of Education and himself an educator. As Deverell points out, for him “arts were not frills”. He strongly supported hiring Florence on the recommendation of Arts Board Secretary Norah McCollough, a very convincing person in her own right.
COMING TO CANADA
The James’ earned a reputation in Canada well before Florence’s permanent move here in 1952. In 1950 she and husband-colleague Burton were at the Western Canadian Theatre Conference in Regina, representing Seattle’s Repertory Playhouse. The next year, they led the summer drama workshop at the Qu’Appelle Valley Centre in Fort Qu’Appelle, the precursor to the Summer School of the Arts. The couple was involved in theatre at the Banff School of the Arts just seven months before Burton died of “a broken heart” after the excruciating stress from the McCarthyist investigations.
The Arts Board hired Florence as their Drama Consultant in 1953; she never looked back. She was a major reason why the Dominion Drama Festival was held in Regina in 1955 for the province’s Golden Jubilee. Her extraordinary success in bringing community-building arts to grass-roots Saskatchewan led her to being elected to the board of the Canadian Theatre Centre in 1957. She brought Sue and Ken Kramer to Regina, launching the Globe Theatre in 1966. Florence joined the ranks of artists Glen Gould, Maureen Forrester and Oscar Peterson when she was awarded the Diplome d’ honneur in 1976.
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
I knew of Florence’s coming book from her grandson and my life-long friend Jim Kinzel. The stories had already started to flow when Jim, his sister Deb and her husband Geoff came to visit us the day before the book launch. We visited the gravesite of David Ross of Fort Qu’Appelle’s renowned Hanson-Ross pottery shop, where Jim had previously placed some of his grandmother’s ashes. Florence played a role in getting Ross to Saskatchewan and they became great friends before he predeceased her in a car accident in 1974.
This book resonates deeply because our families intersect on many intimate levels. Florence’s son-in-law, Jack Kinzel, made our kitchen cupboards. He luckily had carpentry to fall back on after being purged from his radio job in Seattle for helping undertake a recreation needs assessment (Recreation for All) and organizing a local concert for black singer Paul Robeson. Such community-building made you “a Communist sympathizer” during the crazy McCarthyist years.
Our fathers overlapped professionally; both were staff on The Royal Commission on Rural Life. My father was the first President of the Community Health Services Association (CHSA), which organized community clinics through Saskatchewan to ensure that medicare was implemented, while Jack Kinzel became the first secretary of the Medical Care Insurance Commission (MCIC). I greatly respected Jim’s mother, Florence’s daughter, Marijo Kinzel, and even taught her psychology as she, like her mother, embarked on another late-in-life career. Marijo predeceased Florence unexpectedly in 1977.
FLORENCE’S PRESENCE
Florence’s presence loomed the largest. As I opened the beautifully designed cover of Fists Upon a Star, sitting in the dining room of our Regina family home, I recalled the sound of her footsteps above our heads in the upstairs apartment. I mostly remember Florence because she lived in our family home throughout my teenage years. Florence was a speech coach; she was always demanding that you “speak up!” When she coached me to compete for the Baker Speaker’s Cup, she insisted, “speak from your belly”. I was a huge benefactor of Florence’s gentle “bullying”. She prodded me to enter an Arts Board writer’s contest which took me to a week-long workshop in the Qu’Appelle Valley with W.O. Mitchell, from whom I learned more about the joys of sailing than the techniques of writing. My awe for Florence grew when she coaxed my father into taking on the role of Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
My last encounter with Florence was on the street by her new apartment, on her return to Regina from a short stint in Ottawa. I asked her about her colourful scarf and she told me she’d gotten if from her meditation teacher. She informed me frankly, which was always her way, that since she’d retired and was going blind, she’d had trouble “controlling her mind”. I added this to a long list of insights I associate with my mentor elder Florence James.
FLORENCE’S LEGACY
Deverell writes of how the James’ “pushed and shaped U.S. theatre from their outpost in Seattle.” The same can be said of Florence’s impact on the arts in Canada from her outpost in Regina. Seattle theatre is belatedly coming to terms with its destructive McCarthyist legacy. In 1998 the University of Washington acknowledged that the James’s had established “the largest theatre education program in the U.S.” They played a pioneering role in black theatre. Sixty years after their purging, the Seattle theatre finally installed a plaque honouring their work.
Deverell says we are “less adventurous now” than when Florence had her hands on the wheel. There is less commitment to blending emerging talent with opportunity and less touring theatre. We are less participatory and inclusive than when Florence was here.
But something much more consequential for the practice of the arts has happened. The ultimate form of disrespect is invisibility. Florence’s greatest legacy was probably the expansion of the Summer School of the Arts which was located at Fort San after 1967. Upon Florence’s retirement the performing hall was renamed James Hall in her honour. Then in 2005 the NDP government shut down and privatized the San property. In 2012, three years after the Seattle theatre acknowledged Florence’s legacy, the new San owners had James Hall demolished.
We are lucky to have this important book as a reminder of who we can be.
- - -
Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com