Crowd Gathered Around the Box Office at Playhouse on the Green

This black-and-white photograph shows a crowd gathered around the box office at Playhouse on the Green at dusk. A couple dozen people are shown sitting and standing in small groups, with the box office behind them lit up with several lights and fields and trees visible in the background. The photograph is undated, but was likely taken the week of June 11-16, 1956, as handwriting on the back indicates that it was from a performance of "Seven Year Itch," which ran that week.

POG was central Ohio’s first professional theater, and operated north of Worthington during summer from 1955 through 1972. The theater was managed by The Columbus Theatre Company, with a director and Equity actors from New York City supplemented by central Ohio actors.

This and other photos of POG are from the scrapbooks of Bernice Warner Letson, in the collection of the Worthington Historical Society. She is notable not only because of her revolutionary home-based business selling worm castings all over the world, but also because of her involvement with POG, often hosting actors at her home for the season.

The photograph was taken by Nils Lindquist, who worked as a photographer for the Columbus Dispatch prior to starting and operating three companies: Lindy Productions (a film production company), Ohio Newsfilm (a TV news reporting service) and Magnetic Studios (a sound recording company).