Avondale Playhouse

Regarded as one of the Midwest’s top professional summer stock theaters, the Avondale Playhouse (or “Avondale-in the-Meadows”) contracted nationally recognized stage and screen personalities to headline casts composed largely of local talent. A candy-striped tent erected at the Meadows Shopping Center on East 38^th Street housed the 1,200-seat theater for most of its operating years, 1954-1966.

Avondale regularly drew capacity audiences to popular light comedy productions in addition to award-winning modern classics. One of the nation’s few theaters-in-the-round, Avondale’s stage afforded such stars as Myrna Loy, Cesar Romero, and Dorothy Lamour in an unusual live-performance experience, while its multiple viewing perspectives proved a challenge to directors and set designers.

Allen Whitehill Clowes, who along with W. Taylor Wilson helped found Avondale, promoted the tent theater and its friendly rival, Starlight Musicals, as the city’s two best alternatives to summer boredom. In 1964, ticket prices ranged from $2.90 to $3.20. The Crown Room, located in the Meadows, advertised a dinner, cocktail, and Avondale show package for $6.95.

Encouraged by the theater’s success, Avondale’s board of directors sought expansion to other midwest locations, but the failure of a Louisville venture in 1965 forced the company to sell its assets. A proposed Avondale “Playhouse-on-the-Lake,” scheduled to open June 20, 1967, at 116^th and Keystone, never reached the construction stage.