A Stage in Berea

The History of Theater in Berea, Kentucky

For more than 130 years, people in Berea have been gathering to tell stories on a stage.

They have performed in college halls, school auditoriums, outdoor amphitheaters, converted buildings, black box theaters, and community spaces. Some became professionals. Some became teachers. Some spent decades acting and directing close to home. Thousands more built sets, sold tickets, sewed costumes, worked lights, played music, brought their children to auditions, and sat in the audience.

Berea’s theater history is not the story of one institution. It is a story passed from one generation to the next.

The earliest documented chapter begins at Berea College. The story soon grows beyond the campus through Wilderness Road, the Berea Players, school drama programs, Berea Community Theatre, Berea Arena Theater, Spotlight Acting School, the Spotlight Playhouse, the Bluegrass Players, Making Noise Theatre Company, and generations of local performers and playwrights. The original research assembled for this history already showed that long chain of people and places.

The First Recorded Stage, 1892

The earliest recorded theatrical performance at Berea College dates to November 28, 1892. A Class in Literature presented a staged reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Red Parlor of Ladies Hall.

A Dramatic Club was organized in 1920 for full-length and one-act plays. In 1929, $5,000 was provided to convert the old Tabernacle, commonly called the Tab, from its earlier uses into a space suitable for theater. It became the center of campus theater for decades.

Those college beginnings are important, but theater in Berea would never remain only a college activity. Students, teachers and townspeople repeatedly crossed those boundaries. That exchange between campus and community became one of the defining features of Berea theater.

Wilderness Road: The Production Berea Still Remembers

If one production stands above the others in Berea’s theatrical memory, it is Paul Green’s Wilderness Road.

Berea College commissioned the outdoor symphonic drama for its centennial celebration in 1955. Green was already a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and one of America’s leading writers of large outdoor historical dramas.

A new outdoor venue, Indian Fort Theater, was constructed in the Berea College Forest and designed by John Lippard. Berea College’s archives describe it as the first outdoor theater in Kentucky and the only outdoor drama in the United States at the time sponsored by a college.

The scale was unlike ordinary local theater. Wilderness Road brought professional theater people together with students, teachers, musicians, community members and local performers. It told a story set in the Kentucky mountains before and during the Civil War, using the conflict between brothers John and Davy Freeman to explore education, divided loyalties and the region’s history. Its organizers also saw the drama as a way to share Appalachian culture with visitors and challenge stereotypes about mountain people.

The original production ran for four summers, from 1955 through 1958. Financial problems brought that first run to an end, but the story was far from finished.

In 1972, Wilderness Road returned.

Paul Power became one of the most important people in that second life. Power had worked as an actor and in support roles during the original 1955 to 1958 run. He later returned to Berea College to lead theater and produced and directed the revival from 1972 through 1980. The Madison County Historical Society credits the production with becoming one of Berea’s first major destination activities, helping connect theater with the town’s growing identity as a place for arts, crafts and visitors.

That second run is essential to understanding why Wilderness Road remains so fondly remembered. It was not simply a show that appeared for a few summers in the 1950s. Two different generations of Bereans knew it. Children grew up with it. College students worked beside townspeople. Performers returned year after year. Families spent summer evenings under the trees at Indian Fort.

The production also helped launch careers. Actor Muse Watson, identified by Berea College as Cx’71, performed in Wilderness Road while studying in Berea. Watson later built a long career in stage, film and television and credited Paul Power with giving him his acting foundation.

Actor Muse Watson visiting Spotlight Acting School in 2015
Actor Muse Watson, who performed in Wilderness Road, visiting Spotlight Acting School in 2015.
Wilderness Road: A Symphonic Outdoor Drama by Paul Green, published by Samuel French
The published script of Paul Green’s Wilderness Road.

The final Wilderness Road season was in 1980, when financial pressures again ended the production. But ending a production is not the same thing as erasing it. Programs, photographs, scores, scripts and correspondence from both runs survive in Berea College Special Collections. More importantly, the memories survive in the community.

Even Indian Fort Theater is finding a new theatrical life. In 2026, the historic amphitheater hosted Kentucky Shakespeare’s The Tempest through a partnership between Berea College and the City of Berea. More than 70 years after Wilderness Road first opened beneath the trees, actors and audiences were gathering there again.

From the Tab to the Phoenix and Jelkyl

Berea College theater itself went through major changes.

The Tab was destroyed by fire on September 3, 1973. Theater continued almost immediately in the upper chapel of Phelps Stokes, where the temporary performance space became known as the Phoenix Theatre.

The Jelkyl Drama Center opened in 1980 on the old Tab site. Its first production was Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by John Bolin. Bolin, Paul Power and Richard Sears are generally credited with shaping the modern college theater program, and a formal Theatre major was approved in 1985.

The Jelkyl Drama Center at Berea College
The Jelkyl Drama Center, built in 1980 on the old Tab site.

Bolin’s influence also reached beyond campus. He directed more than 50 plays during his Berea career and was a founding member and first president of the Berea Arts Council. In 1985, he approached Berea Mayor Clifford Kerby with a proposal for a community organization that could coordinate and support the arts. The Berea Arts Council grew from that effort and remains active today.

The college also produced students whose work reached far beyond Berea. Lighting designer Tharon Musser graduated from Berea College before continuing her training at Yale. She became one of the most influential lighting designers in Broadway history. Musser received ten Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards for Follies, A Chorus Line, and Dreamgirls. Her use of computerized lighting on A Chorus Line helped change Broadway lighting technology.

Muse Watson likewise began acting at Berea before moving into a long professional career. These achievements matter because they show one side of Berea’s theater tradition: a small Kentucky town could give artists a starting place from which they reached national stages and screens.

Community Theater Was Growing Too

While college theater was developing, Bereans were also building theater outside the college structure.

Newspaper and archival records show an active Berea Players and Berea Community Theatre tradition during the 1960s, 1970s and later years. A 1968 Berea Players production of Night Must Fall, for example, included a young Eddie Kennedy. Later community productions included titles such as Inherit the Wind, Fiddler on the Roof and Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. Plaza Suite was staged at Berea Community School with a cast bringing together performers from Berea and Richmond.

Berea College archives even preserve a 1987 file specifically identified with Berea Community Theater and the Berea Players. That record is a useful reminder that Berea’s community theater history did not begin with the organizations that exist today. There were earlier groups, some formal and some loose, that kept theater moving between campus, schools and the wider town.

Eddie Kennedy: Teacher, Playwright, Actor and Builder

Few people connect as many parts of Berea’s theater history as Eddie Kennedy.

Kennedy attended Berea College, graduating in 1968. He studied and performed during the Paul Power era, and Power became an important mentor. Long before Kennedy created his own theater, he had already appeared in local productions and was part of Berea’s community stage.

Kennedy then built one of Berea’s most important school drama programs.

He founded the drama program at Berea Community School and taught there for 33 years before retiring in 2006. Generations of Berea students learned acting, writing and stagecraft through his program. His work became so closely associated with the school that its theater bears his name.

Kennedy was also an accomplished playwright. His work went far beyond local productions. Just One Day was adapted into a Kentucky Educational Television production that received both the Eudora Welty Americana Award and a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award. His plays including Just One Day, The Quiet Place, Dreamwalk and The Trip have been commercially published for schools and theaters to perform.

In 2001, Berea College honored Kennedy with its Distinguished Alumnus Award, recognizing an award-winning school drama program as well as his work as a playwright and actor.

Retirement from teaching did not mean retirement from theater.

Berea Arena Theater

Eddie and Norma Kennedy helped create Berea Arena Theater, which began its first season in 2007 and 2008. The first production was Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. It was followed by Arsenic and Old Lace, Night of January 16th and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. The response was strong enough that extra performances were sometimes needed.

Arena Theater gave Berea something important: a regular community stage where adults could keep performing, people could try theater for the first time, and writers could see new work produced.

The company also kept older Berea theater connections alive. Paul Power’s Noel and Reb was staged there, with Eddie Kennedy playing Reb Dooley and veteran Berea actor Darrell Harrison playing Noel Godby. The production brought former students, friends and colleagues of Power back together.

Arena supported original writing as well. It worked with the Kentucky Women Playwrights’ Seminar and invited local writers to create new work. Kennedy served as managing producer and artistic director, but the theater also depended on Norma Kennedy and a large group of actors, technicians and volunteers who made the operation possible.

Many people who would later appear elsewhere in Berea theater worked at Arena. Todd King performed and directed there. Darrell Harrison became a familiar face. Chad Hembree returned to the stage there, including appearances in Hee Haw and Rehearsal for Murder.

Berea Arena Theater continued for twelve seasons. It closed in 2019 following a final production of Noel and Reb, bringing the story back once more to Paul Power.

Eddie and Norma Kennedy’s contribution has not been forgotten. The Berea Arts Council honored them with its Community Arts Award in 2017.

Kathie J.R. Bettler and Madison Southern

Another branch of Berea’s theater family was growing at Madison Southern High School.

Kathie J.R. Bettler spent decades teaching drama and introducing students to live theater. Her influence can still be seen throughout Berea’s theater community because many of her students continued acting, directing, writing and teaching long after leaving high school.

Kathie J.R. Bettler on stage
Kathie J.R. Bettler, founder of Spotlight Acting School.

Two of those students were Chad Hembree and Jeremy Grant.

Hembree performed under Bettler at Madison Southern in Oklahoma!, Arsenic and Old Lace, Bye Bye Birdie and Brigadoon. He originally expected to sing in the chorus of Oklahoma! but was cast as Will Parker. Grant was another student Bettler recruited into theater. Both later credited her with helping give them a love for theater and the community around it.

Years later, both men returned to perform in The Music Man in a production sponsored through Bettler’s Spotlight Acting School. It is an almost perfect example of how theater has worked in Berea. Students left, built lives of their own, and then came back to the stage with the teacher who started them.

Bettler founded Spotlight Acting School in 2004 as what she once called a retirement project. It became something much larger. Her belief in introducing children to theater became the foundation for one of Berea’s longest-running performing arts programs.

Chad Hembree: Four Decades in Berea Theater

Chad Hembree’s place in Berea theater crosses several generations and several organizations.

His story begins as a student actor under Kathie Bettler at Madison Southern. By Hembree’s own count, his involvement in Berea-area theater now stretches across roughly 40 years.

He later returned as an adult guest performer in Bettler’s Spotlight productions and acted at Berea Arena Theater under Eddie Kennedy’s leadership. Those experiences place him in a direct line connecting Bettler, Kennedy and the older Berea theater community to today’s Spotlight organizations.

When Bettler died unexpectedly in 2013, her family asked Hembree to take over Spotlight Acting School. Chad and his wife, Letha Hembree, continued the program together. Spotlight’s own history records their leadership beginning in 2013.

The next goal was a permanent community stage.

Hembree founded and developed the Spotlight Playhouse, which was established in 2014. The original Playhouse was built inside the old Churchill Weavers property. Its first public production in 2015 was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. A Berea Citizen report from October 2015 described Chad and Letha Hembree building the small black box theater and preparing a season of community performances.

The Bluegrass Players community theater troupe also traces its beginning to 2014. For a period, Spotlight used both the Spotlight Players and Bluegrass Players names. Contemporary records from 2018 actually list them as two troupes operating during the same season, so the history is more complex than saying one simply changed its name to the other. Today, the Bluegrass Players name is the continuing community theater identity at the Playhouse.

The Bluegrass Players in a staged living-room scene
The Bluegrass Players, the continuing community theater company at the Playhouse.

In 2018, Spotlight moved into a much larger permanent home at 214 Richmond Road. A ribbon cutting was held February 16 at the new location. The 13,000-square-foot facility became the home of Spotlight Acting School, the Spotlight Playhouse and the community theater program.

Hembree has remained active not only as an executive but as a playwright, director and actor.

His current biography describes dozens of performed plays, and Hembree’s own count places the total at more than 30. His original work ranges from murder mysteries and comedies to adaptations and dramas, including his locally rooted Dracula plays and original versions of holiday classics. He continues to write and direct new productions while also appearing onstage.

His contribution has also been recognized outside Berea. In 2026, the American Association of Community Theatre selected Hembree as its current Spotlight Award honoree for local service to community theater. AACT cited his leadership of Spotlight Acting School and the Spotlight Playhouse, development of the Bluegrass Players, support of local playwrights, and efforts to make performances accessible through programs such as Pay What You Can nights.

Hembree’s role is larger than one theater. His work has included acting, directing, playwriting, arts education and civic leadership. He has served the community in elected and appointed roles while continuing to build programs that connect young performers with experienced community actors.

More about his work as a playwright, director, performer and community leader can be found at ChadHembree.com.

Letha Hembree and the Work Behind the Stage

The modern Spotlight story is also inseparable from Letha Hembree.

Letha became involved with Spotlight during Kathie Bettler’s years, first as a pianist. After Bettler’s death, she and Chad took responsibility for keeping the school alive. Their work developed into a partnership that combined administration, music, education and production. Spotlight’s official history recognizes Chad and Letha together as the leaders who took over the school in 2013.

That partnership matters because theater history is often written around directors and actors while overlooking the people who make the organization function every week. Berea theater has always depended on that less visible work.

A New Generation Keeps Building

Berea’s theater story continues to branch out.

Jeremy Grant, once one of Kathie Bettler’s students alongside Chad Hembree, is now the drama director at Madison Southern High School. Berea College reported his appointment in 2020, and current Madison Southern records continue to list him with the school’s Drama Club and International Thespian Society.

Jeremy Grant and Chad Hembree
Jeremy Grant and Chad Hembree, two of Kathie Bettler’s students.

Grant is also part of Making Noise Theatre Company, a Berea nonprofit created as another outlet for community theater. Making Noise has produced work at Madison Southern and describes its mission around the simple idea that communities need their stories and voices heard.

Todd King provides another example of the generations crossing. After years of work at Berea Arena Theater, King continues creating locally. In 2026, his original play The Booking Committee, written and directed by King, premiered at the Spotlight Playhouse.

Darrell Harrison’s long community-theater career also continues to connect eras. He shared the Berea Arena stage with Eddie Kennedy in Noel and Reb and later became a regular performer with Spotlight and the Bluegrass Players, including productions such as Dracula and The Carol Burnett Show.

Paula Davis is another familiar performer in the modern community. Records document her joining the Spotlight Players acting company in 2016, and she has continued appearing in productions with Spotlight and the Bluegrass Players. A decade later, she was still onstage in Berea.

These individual stories matter because they show that Berea does not have a single theater pipeline. People move between schools, community groups and stages. A high school student becomes a director. A college actor becomes a teacher. A community actor becomes a playwright. A child in one production comes back years later with children of their own.

More Than One Stage

Today, Berea has something remarkable for a community its size.

Berea College continues its theatre program and still maintains the historical connection to Indian Fort Theater. Madison Southern continues school theater under Jeremy Grant. The Spotlight Playhouse operates a year-round community performance venue at 214 Richmond Road. Spotlight Acting School brings children and teenagers into theater. The Bluegrass Players give teens and adults a community stage. Making Noise Theatre Company has added another independent voice. The Berea Arts Council continues the community arts mission John Bolin helped organize four decades ago.

None of those groups has to replace the one that came before it.

That may be the most important lesson in Berea’s theater history.

The Tab did not replace the people who performed before it. The Phoenix did not erase the Tab. Jelkyl did not erase the Phoenix. Berea Arena Theater did not erase the community productions that preceded it. The Spotlight Playhouse did not erase Arena. New companies do not diminish the older ones.

Each generation adds another stage.

Sources and Further Reading

The Future Is Bright

Theater in Berea has survived fires, financial problems, closing theaters, changing schools, changing audiences and changing generations. It survives because somebody always decides the next show is worth doing.

Today, Todd King is writing and directing new work. Darrell Harrison continues a performing career that reaches across generations of Berea community theater. Paula Davis remains part of the local stage. Jeremy Grant is training another generation at Madison Southern while helping build Making Noise Theatre Company. The Berea Arts Council continues supporting the wider arts community. Berea College continues its theater tradition and has brought performance back to historic Indian Fort.

At 214 Richmond Road, Chad and Letha Hembree continue the work begun by Kathie J.R. Bettler through Spotlight Acting School, the Spotlight Playhouse and the Bluegrass Players. Young actors can learn beside experienced performers. Local directors can take on classics. Local playwrights can put new stories onstage. Community members who have never acted before can still walk into an audition and become part of Berea’s next chapter.

That may be the strongest link between the staged reading of Hamlet in 1892, the summer nights of Wilderness Road, Paul Power, Eddie Kennedy and Berea Arena Theater, Kathie Bettler’s students, and the many stages operating in Berea today.

The buildings change. The names change. The people pass the work forward.

More than a century after Berea’s first recorded performance, the curtain is still going up.

The future is bright.