Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Daniel Groebner discusses the history of community theater in New Ulm. During the presentation is spoke on the Pioneer Players that formed from the New Ulm High School class of 1963. During the summer the class put on a production of a Greek tragedy, creating masks for the play.

NEW ULM–State Street Street Theater played host to Brown County Historical Society’s (BCHS) Lunch and Bite of History program Thursday, with a presentation from Daniel Groebner on the history of community theater in the New Ulm area.

Groebner said community theater in New Ulm was made popular by German-speaking immigrants. Many immigrants who settled in New Ulm brought with them books, which included German-language plays.

A New Ulm newspaper article from Jan. 14, 1858, featured an advertisement for “Liebhabertheater”, which translates to “Amateur Theater.” Plays were going to be performed in New Ulm on Jan. 17, 1858. The two plays were “Einer muss heirathen” (One Must Marry) and “Die Tochter Pharaonis” (Pharaoh’s Daughter). In 1858, there were eight different plays advertised in the newspaper.

A year later, the first Turner Hall was constructed, and it was ready to hold play production immediately. The first Turner Hall play was “Die Engländer in Paris” (The English in Paris) was performed Jan. 30, 1859. Turner Hall would become one of the early homes for community theater.

Turner Hall created a new building in 1866 that included theater space. The Turner Amateurs were considered the home talent for New Ulm. It was mostly Turner settlers performing on the stage in New Ulm, with some of their children following their footsteps.

The Turner actors were still using German language scripts over a decade after immigrating to the United States. As a result, plays were performed in traditional German. Groebner believes this might have been a reason why the German language was preserved by second-generation children.

New Ulm’s early amateur actors would remain a tightly-knit group. Their children would continue performing into the next generations. It was not unusual to see the same last names on cast lists year after year.

By the 1900s, entertainment became more available throughout the country.

A new theater was created by The Turner’s in 1901. More shows were booked in the theater, many of them in English. Manager Fred W. Johnson was able to convince large roadshow performances to stop in New Ulm.

However, the Turner Amateur group which had been active in some form since the 1860s began to hold fewer performances. Their last performance was in 1911.

There were a few scattered performances from different community groups, but there was no consistent community theater group for decades.

In 1952, a fire burned down the Turner Theater. The new Turner building included no dedicated theater space.

The next community theater company was the Pioneer Players who got their start with the New Ulm High School class of 1963. The group of students put on several successful plays. In 1977, alumni for the class reunited and filed articles of incorporation for the Pioneer Players of Minnesota.

All but a few of the Pioneer Players productions were held in Hanska and attracted a loyal audience for a decade.

In 2002, Judy Sellner gather a new group of community actors to revitalize the Pioneer Players under a new name, New Ulm Actors Community Theater.

Ten years later, the New Ulm School Board decided to close the Historic Middle School building. NUACT suggested using the building as a theater. A group purchased the building and it was eventually donated to NUACT, which changed its name to State Street Theater Company (SSTC).

“For the first time in 63 years, New Ulm Community actors had a home,” Groebner said, “and this is it here today.”

Groebner covered the recent history of SSTC including the struggle with keeping the lights on after a contractor balked at making the payments.

In 2020, the pandemic put a halt on the production of “Over the River and Through the Woods.” It would be a year and a half before the production was performed. There were nine plays produced in 2021 using creative staging.

Upcoming SSTC productions include “Peter Pan” and Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that Ends Well” in the summer. A production of “39 Steps” will be held April 22-April 24.

Groebner said the continuation of community theater depends mostly on the audience.

“Great audiences make for great theaters,” he said.