A Legacy of Theatre in Highlands
By Lindsay Garner Hostetler
Highlands has long been a haven for the performing arts, with theatre a celebrated aspect of the town’s culture. Mountain Theatre Company, Highlands professional regional theatre, is one of North Carolina’s oldest theatre companies. It is the legacy of early Highlands visionaries who sought to bring the art of theatre to a small mountain town during the height of The Great Depression.
The origins of Mountain Theatre Company began at The Highlands Playhouse, which was initially built as the auditorium for the Highlands School in 1931. The building still stands on Oak Street, and while performances no longer take place on the historic stage, the hallowed building has tales to tell of the town’s early artistic dreamers.
In the mid-1930s, Jack and Virginia “Ted” Wilcox helped to create the first organized troupe of actors in Highlands. They began using the Highlands School auditorium for summer theatre performances while school was out of session. Their first production was the hit Broadway comedy Dulcy, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright George S. Kaufman’s first successful play and his first with frequent collaborator Marc Connelly. Reserved seats for Dulcy cost 50 cents, bleacher seats were 35 cents, and it was a sold-out house. The excitement of live theatre had arrived in Highlands and would grow through the remainder of the century and into the town’s present history.
This troupe of players, led by Jack and Ted Wilcox, formally organized as the Highlands Little Theatre in 1938. By 1949 they had become a staple of summer entertainment in town, and they renamed themselves the Highlands Community Theatre. Tickets were sold at the Wit’s End shop on Main Street, and auditions were held at Helen’s Barn. Plays featured a combination of professional and armature actors. They gained audiences not only in Highlands but in other nearby towns such as Brevard where they would travel to perform. When the Highlands School moved to its present location in 1952, the Town of Highlands acquired the school’s original auditorium building, and the Highlands Community Theatre gained a permanent home, with schedules no longer dictated by school calendars. Over the decades, this dedicated troupe of players put on important works by nationally significant playwrights.
In 1972, the theatre company became a nonprofit organization, further establishing their permanence as a leading arts institution in Highlands. As the organization grew over the next several decades, so did the number of shows produced, along with the number of talented actors, designers, and technicians needed for each season. In the early 1980s, Highlands Community Theatre, Inc. started hiring professional actors, directors, and technicians to share their talents. No longer a community theatre, the identity of the theatre company became that of the building it had occupied for nearly 50 years, The Highlands Playhouse. They specialized in presenting summer stock musicals.
Actors who tread the boards on the Playhouse stage went on to serve full and distinguished careers in the performing arts in theaters across the country and on Broadway. Collin Wilcox, the daughter of Jack and Ted Wilcox, studied at The Actors Studio in New York City. Over the course of her career, she worked with Tallulah Bankhead, Geraldine Paige, and Tennessee Williams. Her most notable role came in 1961, as Mayella in the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Highlands has come a long way from the Wilcox family’s dream of bringing quality theatre to the small town of Highlands nearly a century ago. There were challenges and tribulations along the way. World War II stopped all productions from 1942 - 1946. A downturn in the mid-1960s threatened to close the theater’s doors, with no performances at all produced in 1966. In 2019, a fire almost destroyed the historic playhouse building. And when the theater was shuttered in 2020 during the pandemic shutdown, there was real possibility that the company would not return. With a concerted effort to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, The Highlands Playhouse entered a new chapter. They officially rebranded in 2022, changing their name to Mountain Theatre Company. No longer a summer stock theatre, they are now a professional regional theatre, offering a full season of Broadway-quality musicals throughout the year.
In 2023, Mountain Theatre Company became the resident professional theatre company at the Highlands Performing Arts Center, where they perform on a new state-of-the-art stage. The history and legacy earned for over 85 years on the Highlands Playhouse stage has traveled with Mountain Theatre Company to their new home, and the future of performing arts in Highlands seems brighter now than ever before. The original players of the Highlands Little Theatre, envisioning a big dream for a small town, would be proud indeed.