A History of the Coshocton Footlight Players and Triple Locks Theater

Before the first actor placed a foot on the stage at the Coshocton fairground theatre, two local amateur theatre productions had been presented at the Plainfield Grange Hall and Coshocton’s Central High School building. From these productions in 1942, a small core group of theatre enthusiasts emerged to form what would be known as “The Footlight Players”. What this group now needed was a home, what they created was an institution.

It was like a scene from an early MGM musical where some eager young actor-in-the-rough shouts, ”My uncle has a barn and there are some costumes in the attic!” that ignited 50 plus years of community theatre in Coshocton. And a barn it was. The initial venue of the Footlight Players was an old Grange theatre building at the Coshocton County Fairgrounds. A building which…according to one of the group’s founders…was once used to house chickens or “some other unsavory thing”. In order to properly develop an unheated building with no running water, so much work would have to be done. The renovation of such a space was surely overwhelming to those about to shoulder this enormous undertaking.

The theatre’s genesis was anything but smooth. The seats were originally rough sawn benches and the floor was raw earth concealed by wood chips. Although the circus-like floor was later replaced by cement, the seats were another story altogether. According to the publication “The First Fifty Years Of The Footlight Players”, 150 folding rowboat seats were to be ordered from Roscoe Hardware and installed in time for the first production.

When the manufacturer received this unusual order, they were skeptical…who orders 150 rowboat seats? The shipment was delayed and many frantic telephone conversations ensued. After convincing the seat supplier that the order was indeed valid, the seats arrived the afternoon of the first performance. This was the first major crisis at the theatre, but certainly not the last. Thankfully they stuck to old adage…”the show must go on”…and it did. Over and over again.

Behind a grand curtain donated by the old Sixth Street Theatre, the inaugural production of the Footlight Players was a show called “The Little Foxes”. This play launched the 1949-1950 Season that consisted of three shows. “Blithe Spirit” and “Night Must Fall” rounded out the year. Popular dramas, comedies and musicals followed at the old Grange building until it was obvious that the group needed (and deserved) a new state-of-the-art theatre if they were to continue offering quality theatre to the community. But where…and how? The group was not flush with capital nor did they have a steady revenue stream. That is when the theatre group asked its audience to perform.

And what a performance it was…eventually. A capital campaign was organized and, as a fundraiser, a review of past shows was staged at McKinley Auditorium. Although the special review called “A Night To Remember” did not raise the expected finances, it raised community awareness and Coshocton rallied to generate enough money to build a new community theatre. In addition to the funding, hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” was amassed by over 50 Footlight Players members. On November 30, 1974, Triple Locks Theater opened with the production of “Forty Carats”. The opening night performance was very warmly received, but the real star that night was the theater itself... Local headlines declared the Triple Locks Center "An Impossible Dream Come True".

Over thirty years later, the Triple Locks Center remains one of Ohio's premier community theaters, hosting regional competitions, and other local entertainment in addition to the quality community theater productions to which our appreciative community deserves and respects.

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