Lyric Theatre Company Celebrates 40 Years of Community


“The King and I,” 1977


In December 1973, the late W. Howard Delano invited a few friends to his home on a snowy winter’s night. Together, they conceived a plan to bring large scale, quality musical theater to Northern Vermont using local talent, supported by local donors, and run completely by volunteers.


by SYNDI ZOOK, Lyric Theatre


Executive Director


At that time, the Flynn was still a movie house. Howard had served as an usher when he was a boy and though theater groups were performing at Memorial Auditorium, Taft School, and South Burlington High School,


he dreamed of the Flynn and its rigging and stage equipment still in place from its Vaudeville days, unused for decades.


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In May 1974—and with permission from the generous Merrill Jarvis—charter Lyric members including Howard and his wife Ellie, Polly and Red Nulty, Chet Cook, Bill and Terri Kneen, Jeffrey Aronson, Bruce Hewitt, Steve Plumb, Donna Riera, and Gib Smith, among others, mounted Lyric’s first show How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It was a creative success but a financial failure: with a production cost of $15,000, it lost half that amount.


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Al Myers and me in Lyric’s 1988 production of “Annie” as Daddy Warbucks and Miss Hannigan. We had so much fun and it remains a highlight of my life.


Members of the group chipped in and raised enough to mount one more show. Gypsy, in November 1974, was a critical and financial success and began the great love affair between Lyric and the Flynn. Lyric volunteers cleaned the drapes, fixed the rigging, restored the lights, and worked under what can only


be deemed “primitive” conditions. Backstage there was no water or “facilities.” Musicians reached the orchestra pit by climbing on their hands and knees through a trap door from underneath the stage. The boiler room was the dressing room. But Lyric gave the Flynn life, and the Flynn gave Lyric class—together we’ve given Vermonters countless opportunities to see and participate in great musical theater.


From 1974 to 1981, the only live use of the Flynn stage was by Lyric Theatre Company. In 1980, Lyric led the drive to purchase the Flynn, providing the down payment and creating the nonprofit organization known as the Flynn Theatre.


Lyric followed Gypsy with Pajama Game; then in November 1975, Lyric hit its stride with a production of My Fair Lady that sold 7,000 tickets and set the benchmark for Lyric costumes and sets. Lauded performances of Guys and Dolls and Oklahoma followed in 1976. A brilliant, still-remembered 1978 performance by Harry Lantz in Fiddler on the Roof cemented Lyric’s reputation as an all-volunteer theater company that produces professional quality shows.


Lyric’s First Show in 1974, “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.”


Bill Kneen


Bill Kneen


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