A Community of the Arts

Shenandoah developed a long tradition in arts and entertainment through institutions and community efforts that ranged from imported theatrical troupes at the City Opera House and the first Chautauqua in 1886 to a Shakespeare Society, women’s clubs devoted to self-improvement through the arts, radio stations that featured lecturers and poets from the Chautauqua circuit through the 1920s, and local vaudeville performances by entertainers including Monte Montrose. In 1957, professional actress Maribelle Reed founded the Southwest Iowa Theater Group, which quickly succeeded with help from trained radio talent, first staged plays in the Mayfair Auditorium, then moved to the historic Rose Garden at the fairgrounds and added a new 152-seat theater wing in 1967, after which the remodeled Park Playhouse became one of Iowa’s most outstanding and longest-running amateur theaters. Visual arts also flourished in the 1950s when Czech artist and potter Franz Kriwanek started the Shenandoah Arts Guild and established a studio and private art school, and in 1991 Mary Williams, Phyllis Goldberg, and Loreen Burrichter expanded arts education with the Wabash Arts Camp, where third- through eighth-grade campers studied acting, music, painting, and other arts each summer until the camp received Iowa arts and local youth honors in 1998.

Shenandoah, Iowa · United States