WAUPACA COUNTY POST

September 30, 1920

PENNEY OPERAT HOUSE OPENING MONDAY, OCT. 4

Waupaca’s Latest Attainment

In the Temple of Dramatic Art and Music which is to be dedicated in this city of Waupaca, Monday, October fourth, the city attains a long cherished ideal, achieving a home for the silent and spoken drama, as well as an opportunity to enjoy the finest and best in music, through the instrumentality of the grand pipe organ which has been installed in the beautiful new theater.

Waupaca has long been famous as a city of attractive streets, of comfortable homes, of friendly people. It has been pre-eminent in extending co-operative hands to the rural community surrounding it, and has been well governed and happy. By the erection of this new and really magnificent opera house, a larger field for enjoyment, of entertainment and education is secured; one that will be more and more appreciated as time goes on.

It is a structure worthy of the people and city. Its semi-classic outlines, its dainty fretwork, its cheerful colorings, its commodious auditorium, lobbies and stage, its convenient retiring rooms and toilets, its safety appliances and heating arrangements, all tend to complete a play house and concert hall that will add to the city’s fame far beyond the confines of the state, giving an added prestige to this community, and a deserved recognition of the character of the citizen who has given so liberally toward this community enterprise.

The world cannot get along without the drama any more than it can without its sister art, music, and in the silent drama of the silver screen, the world’s ideals and purposes, the best in art, literature and history is being presented to the eye to a degree the spoken drama, even of Shakespeare, never was or never will be. By it is made known to the great masses of the people those forces, either of fiction or fact, which direct the destiny of nations, mold mankind in his social and industrial activities, and express the struggles of the soul in its effort to conquer fate; or, it brings laughter and gladness to the tired out mind, by sparkling comedy, funny cartoons or even by silly situations.

The need of the hour is for relief from entangling thoughts. We need an opportunity to see beyond our little circle, and this new Temple of Art will provide many of those blessings which have been missed in many of our lives, for amid settings of grace and beauty, to a setting of the thrilling paeons of grandest harmonies, will be shown from time to time those dramatic works which have been hailed as masterpieces by the world’s greatest critics.

It is admitted that there is much in the cinema portrayal which has been harmful, gaudy and cheap, but so there has been in literature and art, and there is no more reason to bar the silver screen any more than to anathematize all books because some are bad.

Under the new auspices, it is confidently predicted that there will be little cause for complaint, and much cause for approval, and as time goes on, the advantages secured by Waupaca’s Temple of Dramatic Art, given us by Mr. A.M. Penney, will be more and more appreciated. For he has builded not only for his own profit or advantage, but in the hope and wish that through this structure the city should have at heater which will add to the pleasures of its people, young and old, and have a means for seeing amidst artistic surroundings, those ideas and ideals which men and women of note have thought out, lived out and written out for the benefit of mankind.