1968

The Bucks County Playhouse was undergoing change. Walter J. Perner had ended a critically successful, if not financially successful three years of producing. His productions rivaled those seen on Broadway but it had the lowest number of seats of any summer theatre thereby limiting the potential income any one show could generate.

In spite of these limitations, the Bucks County Playhouse had power and influence in the theatrical world. Lee Yopp took over the 1967 - 1967 fall and spring seasons, producing shows in association with the Bucks County Community College. The summer season was produced by the Producing Managers Company headed by James B. McKenzie, Spofford J. Beadle and Ralph Roseman. The group had packaged many of the productions touring the summer theatre circuit.
The summer season had a repertory company consisting of several actors. Jeannie Carson, Biff McGuire, Nicholas Pryor, Melinda Plank, Bruce Hyde, Anthony Call and Margaret Mullen Root all took turns assuming the leads in productions. They were supported by other actors. Parking was always a limitation for Playhouse audiences.

The Producing Managers Company had considered building a series of barges that would float on the Delaware River, behind the theatre, to accomodate the cars.
Jeannie Carson
Cactus Flower with Jeannie Carson opened the summer season. Carson had previously appeared at the Playhouse in 1967 in She Loves Me. A big name in theatre in England, her television show, "Hey Jeannie!" was popular in both England and the United States.
The Agatha Christie mystery, The Mousetrap also starred Jeannie Carson. Still a popular play even today, story is an eerie comedy of murders set in a snowbound boarding house in rural England.
What Else Have You Got In The Closet? ran in July and was described as a political comedy set in Moscow. The comedy featured an unscrupulous janotor who deals in the black marke, bribery, sells "secrets" to the CIA and dreams of America. The show was to move to Broadway in the Fall of 1968.
Margaret Mullen Root
The Mad Woman of Chaillot featured everyone in the company that season including Margaret Mullen Root. Margaret Mullen Root lived in the neighboring village of Solebury and had been a hit on the Broadway stage for many years. She continued her acting career at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope where she appeared in virtually every season and many acclaimed productions from 1947 to 1969. She returned to Broadway in 1965 to appear in Anya. She considered her role in Frank D. Gilroy's The Subject Was Roses, a 1967 Bucks County Playhouse production which was staged at the Bucks County Prison as entertainment for the inmates, her most fulfilling and gratifying appearance of her long career.
Biff McGuire
The Pirate was a world premiere at the Bucks County Playhouse starring the husband and wife team of Jeannie Carson and Biff McGuire. Originally a 1948 MGM movie starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, The Pirate featured music by Cole Porter. Included in the musical score were several songs by Porter that had remained unpublished until this musical.
Nicholas Pryor
Bruce Hyde
Neil Simon's The Star-Spangled Girl was the final show of the 1968 Summer Season and featured Nicholas Pryor, Melinda Plank and Bruce Hyde. Simon's Nobody Loves Me (Barefoot In The Park) had made it's world premiere at the Playhouse in 1967. Melinda Plank had succeeded Connie Stevens in the Broadway production. Daytime television audiences knew Plank from roles on such shows as "Our Five Daughters", "The Secret Storm" and as Patti Tate on "Search for Tomorrow". She was also the wife of Nicholas Pryor. Bruce Hyde was also a familiar face to television viewers having played roles on such shows as "Star Trek" and "Dr. Kildare". Pryor was an accomplished stage actor who had starred on Broadway in Small War On Murray Hill and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Daytime television audiences knew him as Tom Baxter on "Another World".