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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 17 written especially for the pro - gram — which meant that every year, YSKP’s young cast would star in a world premiere at the Antioch Amphitheater, the new home of the program. YSKP featured plays written by both nationally known and local playwrights, with music overseen by jazz artist Tucki Bailey for many years. The plays some- times took on historical subjects, and sometimes the mythical and fabulous, and sometimes a mixed bag of zany comedy, politics and heart — and some were more than a little prescient. In summer of 1998, the YSKP premiered “Bonanza Valley!” its fourth summer musical, written by then-chair of the Antioch Col - lege theater department Louise Smith and choreographed and directed by Fleming. According to the YS News: “‘Bonanza Valley!’ is a musical western whimsi- cally inspired by [two] popular 1960s television series, ‘Bonanza’ and ‘The Big Valley.’ As the play opens, it’s the last episode of the series and the famous ranch is about to be sold for real estate, unless Heartright and his sons can stop the famous developer, Donald Trumpmall.” Trumpmall’s last words in the play were, “I’m going to run for president!” John Fleming served as creative director for YSKP until 2014, before passing the torch to Ara Beal. YSKP took a hiatus after its 2017 season, producing no shows in 2019, but returned to the stage in 2019 with a reprise of “Bonanza Valley!”, perform- ing in the Foundry Theater after the Antioch Amphithe - ater was condemned and closed. The following year, partially in response to the loss of the amphitheater, YSKP announced a new direction: it would now focus its efforts on its new Traveling Tabletop Theater, or TTT, a mobile puppet theater complete with a stage, a sound system and even seating for a few dozen spectators. The TTT’s first show, “The King Stag,” — pro- duced in video format during the pandemic — debuted in February of 2021 on Commu- nity Access Yellow Springs. Theater in the schools As the YS Area Theatre became Antioch Area The - atre, and as those gave way to Center Stage and then to YSKP, there was one institution that kept producing shows on its own schedule, whenever it could: Yellow Springs Schools. Especially in the years when professional theater was at its height, the productions of the village middle and high schools were given short shrift by the local paper of record — the first mention of a high school production that can be found in the News archives is Bryan High’s production of “Daphne” in 1945, which was given only a few lines. Things improved in terms of News coverage in 1951, when Jan Lehman wrote a review of Bryan High’s production of “Rest Assured” by Donald Payton. Lehman didn’t pull any punches, writing: “We suggest that the Curtain Pullers depart from the tried and not-so-true collection of high school plays, and try something with a little more punch.” YSHS and McKinney eventually took this advice to heart, and by the 1980s, were consistently producing spring musicals like “Fiddler On the Roof,” “Big River” and “The Wiz.” In the early ’90s, YSHS began staging its annual one-act plays, with works written, directed and acted by students. These produc- tions had more “punch” than perhaps reviewer Lehman could have predicted: In 2008, the one acts were the cause of controversy when then-school district Superintendent Norm Glismann forbade student Peter Keahey from performing his play, “Cat Calls,” without considerable edits, as Glismann objected to the play’s use of innuendo. The controversy led to a villagewide conversation about censorship in the arts and in the schools; Glismann left his position as superinten - dent the next year. YSHS and McKinney contin - ued to mount at least two plays each year until 2020 when, in March of that year, the pan- demic forced the young actors to cancel their planned produc- tion of “The Fair Maid of the West,” which had already been deep in rehearsals. Not to be deterred, the schools worked around the limitations of the pandemic by releasing a filmed version of their fall produc- tion, “Dracula,” in December of 2020; the entire production was rehearsed and staged outdoors on the YSHS Morgan Fields so that the actors and crew could maintain physical distance. The following May, the young thespians returned to the outdoor stage to present “Please Stand By,” a collabora- tively written piece that aimed to capture their experiences during the pandemic. Pointing to her students’ abilities to roll with the punches, YSHS and McKinney Performing Arts Teacher Lorrie Sparrow-Knapp said: “Their growth has been monumental, and if we come out of all this with a strong theater program ... then we win. We win the pandemic.” ♦ Kayla Graham as Emilia and Elias Kelley as Othello in the YS Theater Company’s 2019 Summer Shake - speare Shindig production of “Othello.” The play was the fourth production in the annual summer series, which aimed to bring The Bard back to the village in homage to the famed Antioch Shakespeare Festival, this time as community theater. | PHOTO BY LUCIANA L I EFF