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Li'l Abner

1975 · Triopia High School gym (Concord, Illinois)

In 1975 Ken Bradbury directed Triopia High School in Li'l Abner, the musical comedy with music by Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, based on Al Capp's long-running comic strip. Set in the backwoods town of Dogpatch, USA, the production marked a turning point for the school — "L'il Abner marked the end of class plays and the ushering in of the all-school era." Roughly 80 of Triopia's 120 students took part, including most of the football team, and the cast collected a small menagerie of live farm animals to bring onstage.

Songs

Cast

Carole Robertson served as vocal director and pianist throughout these early Triopia shows.

Production Notes

To make Dogpatch real, the cast gathered a small barnyard of live animals: several hogs, a live chicken, a hen who died of a stroke on opening night, a cow they could never get up the steps, and a live pig kept in a cage backstage. One little porker was apparently so anxious to get onstage for its "Jubilation T. Cornpone" scene that it began grunting loudly. As Pappy Yokum, Jay Wessler was to lead Bruce Surratt's dog "Action" across the stage; on opening night the dog refused to walk, so Jay had to drag him across before about 600 people packed into the Triopia gym. Mark Jones lifted a section of the stage for Mammy (Gina Nergenah) Yokum's entrance, and Officer Rex Ginder became the first actor to appear on the THS stage in Speedos. Mark Tiemann was remembered as very large and muscular with a cleft chin, while Betty Meyer kept modestly pulling her shorts up over her belly button. 1975 was also the year a blonde young man named Chuck West joined the orchestra — later a noted area technical director. When the script called for the football players to wrestle onstage, Ken joked that they had no need for fake blood, and he spent most evenings shouting for "Quiet!" to keep order backstage.