Springfield Little Theatre

The Crown Jewel of The Ozarks

Menu

Our Story

Home About Our Story

Springfield Little Theatre began with eight high school graduates, a teacher who believed in them, a borrowed stage, and $56. More than 90 seasons later, that small summer production has grown into The Crown Jewel of the Ozarks ® — a thriving, year-round performing arts organization rooted in community, committed to artistic excellence, and dedicated to creating opportunities for people to perform, learn, create, and belong.

Today, Springfield Little Theatre produces work across multiple stages, leads an expansive performing arts education program, employs more than 85 people, manages historic facilities and production spaces, presents special events throughout the community, and sends its costumes to theatres across the country. The scale has changed considerably since 1934. What has not changed is the idea at the heart of it all: community coming together to create something remarkable.

1934: One Play, Fifty-Six Dollars

In the summer of 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression, eight graduates of Springfield Senior High School decided to put on a play. With the guidance of their drama teacher, Helen Johnson, and 17-year-old director Kirk Denmark, the group raised its production budget by asking 56 Springfield businessmen to contribute one dollar each. On July 24, 1934, they presented Oscar Wilde’s THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at Clara Thompson Hall on the Drury College campus. Tickets cost 25 cents, the temperature inside reached 106 degrees, and Springfield Little Theatre was born.

It was a modest beginning for an organization that would become part of the cultural fabric of Springfield. In many ways, that first production established the pattern that still defines SLT today: young people given an opportunity, a community willing to support them, and artists working together to make something happen.

Finding Our Place

For its first 36 years, Springfield Little Theatre had no permanent stage to call its own. Productions moved throughout the community—from the Senior High studio theatre to the Springfield Art Museum, Mercy Hospital, the YWCA, Drury College, and beyond. In some cases, portable stages had to be hauled from basements and assembled for performances. World War II brought the only interruption in the organization’s history. Springfield Little Theatre returned in 1946, incorporated in 1947, and offered its first season tickets in 1948: four plays for three dollars. As audiences grew, so did the organization’s ambitions.

In 1964, SLT presented its first musical, PAINT YOUR WAGON, filling Central High School’s 1,440-seat auditorium for three performances. Broadway guest artists followed, and by 1967, annual attendance had reached 12,000. Springfield Little Theatre was growing and it was ready for a permanent home.

A Home of Our Own

In 1970, Springfield Little Theatre purchased the historic Landers Theatre for $100,000. The community rallied once again, raising an additional $150,000 to purchase and restore the building. Fittingly, the first Springfield Little Theatre production presented in its new home was THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, the same play that had begun the organization 36 years earlier. In 1978, the mortgage was paid in full and ceremonially burned onstage.

The acquisition of The Landers gave Springfield Little Theatre a permanent stage, but more importantly, it gave the organization room to imagine what might come next. Over the decades that followed, SLT invested millions of dollars in preserving and improving the historic theatre while continuing to expand its productions, programs, and reach.

EXPLORE THE LANDERS THEATRE’S HISTORY

Growing Together

Springfield Little Theatre’s growth has never simply been about producing more shows. It has been about strengthening the organization behind them. Under Managing & Artistic Director Mick Denniston, who led SLT from 1982 to 2000, annual attendance grew from approximately 20,000 to 47,000, while the organization undertook more than $2 million in fundraising and facility improvements. When Springfield Little Theatre faced significant financial challenges in the early 2000s, then-Education Director Beth Domann and Chief of Staff Chris Volkmer helped lead a turnaround within a single year. Domann later became Executive Director and is now the longest-serving executive in Springfield Little Theatre’s history.

In 2005, SLT made another significant investment in its artistic future by building a complete production of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. The production set ticket-sales records, raised the standard for what the organization could create, and eventually led to a national costume rental program that now serves theatres across the country. With each chapter, Springfield Little Theatre has continued to grow, not by leaving its community roots behind, but by building upon them.

Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 2005

Education Has Always Been Part of the Story

Springfield Little Theatre was founded by students and a teacher. Education was there from the beginning.

Just one year after moving into The Landers, SLT presented its first children’s production, WINNIE THE POOH, in 1971 and launched its Youth Players program. The education program expanded significantly under Beth Domann after she became Education Director in 1996 and continued to grow under her successor, Lorianne Dunn. Today, Springfield Little Theatre’s Education Department reaches more than 30,000 young people each year through performances, classes, workshops, camps, youth companies, school partnerships, and other programming.

By 2018, that work had grown beyond the space available at The Landers. Springfield Little Theatre leased the historic McDaniel School and purchased the property the following year with the support of individual donors and a $1 million gift from the C.W. Titus Foundation. Today, The Judith Enyeart Reynolds School of the Performing Arts — The Judy — is Springfield Little Theatre’s home for education, providing classrooms, studios, rehearsal rooms, performance spaces, and room for young artists to learn, create, and belong.

SLT’s education work extends far beyond its own buildings as well. Since 2009, Springfield Little Theatre has participated in the Kennedy Center’s Any Given Child initiative, helping ensure that every first-grade student in Springfield Public Schools has the opportunity to attend a live theatrical performance.

EXPLORE OUR EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Springfield Little Theatre Today

The organization that those eight students created in 1934 has become something they could scarcely have imagined. Springfield Little Theatre is now a year-round operation with more than 85 employees working across artistic, education, production, and administrative teams. It owns and operates the historic Landers Theatre and The Judith Enyeart Reynolds School of the Performing Arts, maintains a 35,000-square-foot warehouse property supporting production and operations, and utilizes additional space at The Creamery Arts Center. Productions are presented on three primary stages: The Landers Theatre, The Reynolds Auditorium, and The Studio Theatre, both at The Judy, with additional programming through the Late Night Series and special events throughout the community. SLT’s costume rental program extends the organization’s work beyond Springfield, providing production resources to theatres across the country.

Our Mission

For more than 90 seasons, Springfield Little Theatre has grown far beyond a single stage or a single kind of programming. But the purpose at the heart of the organization remains remarkably consistent: to bring people together through the performing arts, create opportunities to learn and participate, and care for the places and traditions entrusted to us.

Springfield Little Theatre is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization, energized by the highest artistic ideals, that strives to ENTERTAIN, EDUCATE, and INVOLVE the community through live theatrical productions, and in the PRESERVATION of the historic Landers Theatre.

Those words have guided Springfield Little Theatre for decades. As the organization continues to grow, they remain a reminder that our work is not only about what happens onstage. It is about the artists who create it, the students who discover something new, the volunteers who make it possible, the audiences who gather together, and the community that has sustained Springfield Little Theatre since 1934.

Built By Our Community

For more than 90 years, thousands of people have given their time, talent, resources, and belief to Springfield Little Theatre. They have performed onstage and played in orchestras. They have built scenery, stitched costumes, ushered audiences, taught students, served on boards and committees, raised funds, volunteered backstage, brought their children to rehearsal, and returned season after season.

Longtime volunteer Frances Vandivort embodied that spirit of service so completely that Springfield Little Theatre’s annual Frannie Awards bear her name, recognizing individuals whose contributions help keep the organization moving forward. That spirit remains fundamental to who Springfield Little Theatre is. Professional leadership and remarkable artistry have allowed the organization to grow, but community participation remains at its heart. Springfield Little Theatre belongs to the generations who built it, the artists and audiences who fill its spaces today, and those who will discover their place here next.

Created by our community. Sustained by our community. Here for our community.

For more than 90 seasons, Springfield Little Theatre has grown, changed, and reached farther than its founders could have imagined. And through it all, The Crown Jewel of the Ozarks ® has remained unmistakably ours.

Ticket sales cover only 44% of our costs.

Your support keeps the curtain rising.

Donate
MENU