What began as a vaudeville stage and silent film house in 1925 has evolved into one of the most beloved and respected regional theaters in the country
By Billy Liggett
The small town of Sanford, North Carolina, was home to barely 3,000 people in 1925, but it had one thing going for it — location. The geographic midpoint between cities like Boston and New York City to the north and Miami to the south, Sanford’s train station was a popular stop for weary travelers up and down the East Coast.
That year saw the addition to two important (still standing) monuments to Sanford’s growing downtown area — the Wilrik Hotel and Temple Theatre. The former was a luxury hotel built to house and feed those travelers decades before interstates would exist in North Carolina. And the latter was built to entertain them.
On March 6, 1925 — just two days after Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. president to deliver his inaugural address by radio — Sanford celebrated the opening of Temple Theatre. Named for its proximity to the Masonic Temple just a few doors down, the new $40,000 playhouse opened its doors to a full house of local residents and wealthy donors (familiar names like J.R. Ingram and J.W. Hawkins) and had a full orchestra perform to the popular silent film “Janice Meredith,” the story of a woman who helped George Washington and Paul Revere behind the scenes during the Revolutionary War.
“Altogether, it was an evening well spent,” wrote the long-defunct Sanford Express on the following week’s front page. “And the people felt they had received more than their money’s worth.”
Temple Theatre has provided many “evenings well spent” in the last 99-plus years. From those early silent films to the “talkies” of the 1930s; family-friendly Vaudeville acts to more risqué burlesque shows; country and bluegrass performances to full-fledged rock concerts; intimate plays to large-scale musicals — the theater once known as “Sanford’s hidden gem” has shown it all.
As it inches toward its 100th anniversary next March, the Temple has never been stronger. Fully renovated during the recent “down times” brought on by a global pandemic that kept everyone out of public venues for a two-year period, the theater is welcoming its upcoming centennial celebration with one of its most ambitious mainstage seasons to date (starting Sept. 5 with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).
How it’s managed to stay strong and relevant after a century is a story worthy of the stage. Producing Artistic Director Peggy Taphorn — who came to Sanford fresh off a 22-year career as an award-winning actress, director and choreographer in New York with six Broadway shows under her belt — marvels at where her theater is compared to the first time she looked up at its marquee 18 years ago and even where it is compared to those tough COVID years.
“It really is a bumblebee,” she says, referring to an article written about the theater about 12 years ago, referencing the common thought that a bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly based on the size of its body compared to its small wings.
But bumblebees do fly.
“A theater like this, it really shouldn’t be able to survive in Sanford, North Carolina,” she says. “But it does. To this day, it’s still the cheapest ticket in this region for professional, quality shows that people want. We have busses coming from Durham, from Dunn, from the beach, from Virginia and from South Carolina. Some of them drive three hours to get here. They come, they see a show, they shop and they eat here.
“To be a part of the legacy and the history here … it’s just really been a privilege.”
A movie was the feature on opening night, but Temple Theatre’s early days were carried by vaudeville — popular in theaters all over the country from the late 19th century through the 1930s. Vaudeville shows often consisted of 10 to 15 unrelated acts, featuring comedians, magicians, trained animals, singers, dancers, jugglers and (unfortunately) minstrel shows, to name a few.
“These shows would stop between New York and Miami and unload and perform here for a couple of nights, get back on the train and go somewhere else,” says Seth Hoyle, Temple’s marketing director and a veteran of several recent productions. “That’s how it all started — J.R. Ingram saw a need for it, so he had it built. And it looks like it did really well in those early years.”
Big names made stops here. Mildred Harris Chaplin, the first wife of Charlie Chaplin and an actress in several silent films in the 1920s, performed on the Temple stage touring with comedian Phil Silvers, who would go on to win two Tony Awards and appear in several big films.
In 1926, the original New York cast of Abie’s Irish Rose, a hugely successful play at the time, performed in Sanford. The MGM lion — the one that roared at the beginning of MGM films from 1928 to 1956 — even hopped off the train and performed its signature roar inside the acoustic-rich theater.
Associate Artistic Director and Director of Education Gavan Pamer, who studied theater history at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, says the vaudeville acts gave way to burlesque acts in the 30s. American burlesque at the time, Pamer says, was more than the “striptease” acts that the word is associated with today. Burlesque was a whole genre that leaned into short sketches, quick-witted humor (lots of puns), sexually suggestive dialogue and minimal clothing on the female performers.
Top Right: Sam Bass (center) led the fundraising efforts to bring Temple Theatre back to life after it closed for good in 1965. Bass was also an artist and performer himself — shown here in a production of MASH peformed at SanLee Park to raise money for Temple.
Middle Right: Bass is pictured with artistic director Kathie deNobriga and architect Frank DeStefano (who designed the interior of the renovated theater) in the News & Observer in 1984.
Bottom right: Chicago was the first main stage production in the newly renovated theater in 1984. Pictured are Loretta Delamere, Joan Wimbish, Susan Swan King, Lois McKoy, Kathie deNobriga and Lavenia Womble during “Cell Block Tango.”
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Both vaudeville and burlesque saw decline with the Great Depression, crackdowns on risqué entertainment in the late 1930s and the rising popularity of movies. Temple Theatre eventually evolved into a movie house for decades until the 1960s, when Sanford Little Theatre and the Footlight Players used the stage again for community productions.
By 1965, those shows could no longer support the then 40-year-old theater. Temple closed its doors that year and became a furniture store and, after that, a clothing shop. Neither of those businesses made it, and soon, the building was shuttered for nearly 15 years.
In 1981, J.R. Ingram Jr., the son of the man who built the theater, donated the building to the citizens of Lee County. Temple Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and received a large grant from the General Assembly, which was matched by Lee County residents and business owners. A driving force behind the renovations was Sam Bass, a successful banker (and painter) who was also active in the establishment of O.T. Sloan Park. In a 1982 Sanford Herald article, Bass said the building was “crying out for restoration.”
That December, Bass put out a full-page ad in the Herald pleading to the community for donations of any kind to help make that restoration a reality.
“To those who love live theater; those who love good music of all types; those who value training and performing opportunities for your talented children; those who would love to see some of the old movies; … those who want to see downtown Sanford come alive with people,” Bass wrote, “To all of you, I say we are ready to begin construction. And now we need you.”
In addition to the grants, Bass helped raise more than $350,000, and the following year the building was gutted and refurbished to resemble the theater you see today. Architect Frank DeStefano was brought in to widen the aisles (reducing seating from 500 to roughly 373), remove a few steel pillars that marred sight lines in the audience, add twin staircases to the balcony and create a two-door box office at the front.
He covered the marquee seen today with copper and added decorative alcoves on both sides of the entrance. Dressing rooms, a kitchen area, bathrooms and a green room were created in the basement, and the orchestra pit was excavated and lowered to the basement level.
On Sept. 2, 1984, the News & Observer dedicated a multi-page spread in its Leisure section detailing the restoration work that began the previous winter: “The inside … was covered with cobwebs, mouse tracks and dust for years. [Bass] played the flashlight’s beam over the moisture-stained walls and the tattered show curtain like a shroud above the stage. The winter’s day accentuated the ghostly atmosphere, the strange silence that permeated the once-beautiful interior.”
On Sept. 7, Temple officially reopened with a “big, bawdy” production of Chicago, directed by Kathy deNobriga (with Bass playing a cameo as a lawyer in the show). Tickets sold for $4 a piece, with season passes that first year running just $12. All shows were produced by the Footlight Players, and Temple Theatre sold tickets and paid the bills. On Sept. 17, Judy Garland’s “A Star is Born” was shown on the big screen there. “Singing in the Rain” was shown a few weeks later.
Jazz concerts, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, a children’s play soon followed. The Footlight Players presented “Our Town” that November, “The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild” in February and “Harvey” in March.
Just three years later, Temple transitioned from community to professional theater, with three shows that summer using paid casts and crews for the first time. The theater would have strong seasons over the next 20 years, and when times were lean, Bass and other donors raised funds and spent their own money to keep the theater afloat. In 2000, the copper letters “TEMPLE” were added above the marquee.
And in 2007, Bass and the Temple board reached out to a theater instructor in Durham about taking over the job of artistic director. The instructor decided the job wasn’t for him, but he thought it would be a great opportunity for a friend of his who’d spent the last 22 years in New York acting, directing and choreographing.
Peggy Taphorn didn’t even have a car when she came to Sanford to interview for the job.
“Like most things in my life, coming to Sanford and taking this job was a happy accident,” she says.
In addition to her time in New York, Peggy Taphorn had seen the world via her career in theater. She spent a year in London, traveled to Asia and performed all over the U.S. and Canada in national tours.
In 2007, Taphorn was ready for “what’s next,” whatever that was. She agreed to the interview in Sanford, rented a car while in Greenville, South Carolina, and drove nearly three hours to meet with the board. She immediately fell in love with the theater, and she liked the idea of a change of pace in her life. She came back for a second interview — all while touring as stage manager for “Sweet Charity,” starring Molly Ringwald — and was wined and dined at the former Bella Bistro, owned then, coincidentally, the man who would become her brother-in-law. She took in a sold out jazz show that night at Temple and was sold.
“I thought, ‘If this is what Sanford is, I’m sold,’” she says. “The next day, I called the company manager [for Sweet Charity] and said, ‘I’m giving my two-week notice.’ He just started laughing. I told him I was serious. I went back to New York, bought a car, packed what I could into it and drove to Sanford. That was 18 years ago.”
In no time, Taphorn discovered the job was going to be no cake walk. The theater’s financial situation, she says, was “pretty grave.”
“Basically, there was no budget,” she says. “My predecessor was a very generous man, and his big joke was, ‘I came to Sanford a billionaire and left a millionaire.’ He invested a lot. He had a staff of about 15 people, and he self-funded productions that went over budget.”
One of Taphorn’s first moves was an unpopular one. She cut about two-thirds of the staff and went lean with just four paid positions — hers, a theater director, an education director and a business manager. She had to figure out how to produce shows on a “real budget” and keep the professional quality audiences were used to. She called in a lot of favors — pleading with longtime theater friends to come in and work cheap (or free).
She managed to do all of this in that first year and was rewarded in 2008 with an economic crash that hit Sanford particularly hard.
“Those were pretty dire days,” Taphorn says. “The advice from the community was basically, ‘You should just go back to New York.’ But that made me want to stay even more. I knew if I left then, nobody would be there to take on a failing theater in a town that wasn’t anything like it is now. I felt like the theater would end up becoming a parking lot, and in my heart, I just couldn’t let that happen.”
She says she was fortunate enough to have some money put aside from her previous career, so paying herself wasn’t an issue. The big donor checks were no longer coming in, so Taphorn — much like Bass back in the 80s — pleaded with the community to support the Temple any way they could.
“People were dropping off $10 bills, $20 bills … those small donations at the time literally saved the Temple,” she says. “That’s when I told myself, ‘Maybe people aren’t able to come to the theater right now, but they appreciate what the theater does and what it means to this community. And they’re willing to pitch in, right? That was our darkest time, along with COVID more recently. But there have been many peaks as well.”
Taphorn says establishing the Temple Teens — a group of local middle school and high school students who sing, dance and perform at various functions throughout the area — was “one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Brining in friends and colleagues and talent from across the country to perform in Sanford for weeks at a time has been just as rewarding, she says.
“The bottom line is, I think doing what I call ‘commercial theater’ for all of my career in New York has value, but it doesn’t really impact you as a human being or make you feel like you’re part of a community,’” she says.
“And I think that’s one of the biggest strengths of Sanford. There’s a very distinct sense of place here. A very real sense of community. And I love being a part of this.”
Learning how to do quality theater in an inexpensive way. That’s always been the challenge of Temple Theatre, and back in the 1990s, that was the challenge facing Gavan Pamer at West Virginia Public Theatre in Morgantown, a city roughly the size of Sanford.
That experience led to an artistic director position for the Pittsburgh Musical Theater just 75 miles up the road. In 2004, he became artistic director for the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center just outside of Pittsburgh, and it was here where Pamer found his “dream job.”
“It was a $30 million performing arts facility that I helped build — saw it through from the construction stage all the way through,” Pamer says. “And when I talked to the man who raised the money for the project, he told me that before I got to the ‘artistic director’ part of the job, I would be starting a performing arts school for kids. So we created the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, which was the first school of its kind in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
“An oasis of the arts along the border of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.”
Pamer spent the next decade-plus in that dream job that mixed professional theater with education. He worked with talented men and women who were community minded and who gave their all both to the stage and to their students.
“I was happy. I was in the job that I thought I would one day retire from,” Pamer says. “I loved what I did. I had my 401K going. This was going to be my legacy. This is where I was going to finish my life’s work.”
Pamer’s plot twist came in January of 2015 when he was informed that he — as well as many others involved in the center — were no longer needed. The news was devastating, and Pamer resorted back to performing and working odd jobs to make a living while simultaneously standing at the crossroads of his career.
That’s when he received a call from an old friend from his days back in Morgantown, Peggy Taphorn.
Aware of her friend’s predicament and hopeful that he could use a temporary change of scenery, Taphorn invited Pamer to Sanford to perform in two shows. He had to turn down the first one, but he happily accepted a spot in Temple’s production of The Addams Family in October of 2015. Pamer was hoping the role would be Gomez Addams.
Taphorn offered Uncle Fester.
“We tried a bald cap for a few days, and I realized I didn’t want to do two hours in a makeup chair before every show, so I just decided to shave my head,” Pamer recalls. “I thought maybe I’d look like Vin Diesel, but then I shaved it and realized, yep, I looked like Uncle Fester. She was right. I was cast in the right role.”
The diversion was much needed. Pamer says he had an “incredible experience” in Sanford. It reminded him of those days in the 90s back in West Virginia when he, Taphorn and Deborah “Princess” Raulerson (who has also reconnected with them in Sanford as Temple’s stage manager today) were cutting their teeth and loving their work.
“The quality of the productions [at Temple Theatre] were great, and it was a joyful experience,” Pamer says. “It was exactly why I liked doing theater. The joy. I’m sure it’s why Peggy chose coming here, too. It’s not all about commercialism, how much money you’re making, who’s getting the best reviews, where’s the show going next or even what’s your next job?”
Pamer returned to Pittsburgh after the Addams Family’s three-week run and went back to stage managing, acting and working up to five different jobs. A few years later, Taphorn reached out to him again to play Cogsworth in Temple’s production of Beauty and the Beast. He, again, had a blast in the show, which is to this day one of the most — if not the most — successful shows in terms of ticket sales in Taphorn’s 18 years in Sanford (it returns next spring for a rare four-week run to celebrate the official 100th anniversary of the theater).
That summer, he was brought back to Sanford again to fill in for Taphorn, who — after 13 callbacks during her Broadway days — finally landed the role of Donna in a full-orchestra production of “Mama Mia” at the Broadway Rose Theatre Company near Portland, Oregon. Pamer took over the summer youth conservatory shows and directed Aladdin Jr., Into the Woods and How to Eat Like a Child. He loved the work, and as the weeks grew, Pamer discovered that he had found that joy he had back in his Lincoln Park days.
“I had sworn off education after losing that job,” he says. “And then I came here and realized, ‘Oh, this is what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re supposed to be here teaching kids and working in a professional theater. That dream job that I had created for myself? I had that same fulfillment here.”
When Taphorn offered Pamer a full-time position as marketing director later that year, he and his husband moved to Sanford.
“He told me, ‘I can get a job anywhere, but you’re not going to anything that makes you as happy as this job makes you.’ So we moved. I took the job. And after helping hire three education directors since I’ve been here, I decided to take the job myself.”
His favorite part of the job, he says, is sitting in the audience and watching parents’ reactions when their kids get on stage. He says parents are often shocked at how brave and confident their children are on stage.
“I love creating opportunities for these kids,” he says, “because theater can really change their lives.”
Seth Hoyle was a short, lanky fifth grader when he summoned up the courage to step onto a Temple Theatre stage for the first time. Cast as Col. Hafi in the 2010 summer conservatory production of The Jungle Book, Hoyle had seen his two older brothers perform before him, but he wasn’t convinced (yet) the stage was for him.
But he loved it. And he did those summer shows for the next six years. And he got small parts in mainstage productions. And he became a Temple Teen (back before, he says, it was “cool” to be in the group).
Hoyle was a Temple Teen when the time came to pick a college. He was looking at Appalachian State University or possibly doing two years at Central Carolina Community College before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill. The idea of staying home and having two more years of work with Temple Theatre made the decision much easier, he says.
“Temple Theatre was my college experience, at least for those first two years,” says Hoyle. “And when I wasn’t going to school, I was interning at summer camps, where I first met Gavan, and we had a ton of fun and rewarding experiences.”
Hoyle majored in public relations and advertising at UNC, and knowing that Pamer probably wouldn’t want to be marketing director for over five years, he eyed the possibility of taking his degree and starting his career with Temple Theatre. His intuition was right. When Pamer took the education role, Hoyle was an easy pick for marketing. He’ll have been in the role for a year this September.
“The Temple is sort of a second home for me,” he says. “Not only for me, but for many of my friends and people my age who grew up here. I attribute it all to what Peggy’s built here, because when you do a show at Temple Theatre, or if you do multiple shows, you’re getting to meet some amazing people and many of them keep coming back. Every performance is like a homecoming.”
Hoyle arrived in the marketing chair after the struggles brought on by the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges ahead. Currently, only roughly a third of the theater’s audiences on a given weekend are local residents. The other two-thirds are often out-of-towners and groups brought in by bus from all over the state and the region. Getting more people interested who live locally is a goal — something that should be made easier by the area’s rapid growth over the last few years (and projected growth over the next five).
Another challenge is expanding the theater’s digital footprint. There are a surprising number of people living in Sanford who have never heard of Temple Theatre, or at least aren’t aware of the quality of shows or the educational opportunities for their children.
“I think a lot of people assume we’re a community theater, and while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a community theater, we do pay our actors, we pay our technicians and we put on professional shows,” Hoyle says. “It’s a very different business model, and there’s a different level of expectation that comes with being a regional professional theater. So our biggest challenge is getting people to the door. Once we do that, we think they’ll come back.”
In addition to this year marking the 100th anniversary of Temple Theatre, 2024 is also the 40th anniversary of Temple Theatre’s rebirth. And much like the more than $400,00 that went into making the theater whole again back in the 1980s, the past few years have brought dramatic upgrades to the now century-old building.
New floors. New carpeting. New acoustic panels. New seats that don’t squeak and that come with great cupholders.
It’s the project Taphorn has been waiting 18 years to do, and thanks to a $200,000 check from the North Carolina General Assembly, she’s now able to do it.
“That funding paid for about two-thirds of the cost to get this theater looking the best it possibly can,” Taphorn says. “And the timing couldn’t be better with this being our 100th year.”
When Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat opens on Sept. 5, it will kick off the official Centennial Season for Temple Theatre, one that Taphorn says will “bring back some of the biggest hits of the last 20 years” and tons of family-friendly entertainment. Most of the shows, she says, will involve local children and teens — adding to the idea that this celebration is more about the community than the theater itself.
When Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat opens on Sept. 5, it will kick off the official Centennial Season for Temple Theatre, one that Taphorn says will “bring back some of the biggest hits of the last 20 years” and tons of family-friendly entertainment. Most of the shows, she says, will involve local children and teens — adding to the idea that this celebration is more about the community than the theater itself.
After Joseph, Ring of Fire will hit the stage in October, a celebration of the music of Johnny Cash. The Temple’s own commissioned version of A Christmas Carol returns in December, and in January, it’s The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, a comedy from the people who wrote The Golden Girls.
A black tie Centennial Gala will be held March 1, 2025, followed by a Roaring 20s Revue (celebrating the 1920s and 2020s) from March 6-9. The following week, the Temple Teens Reunion Celebration will celebrate current members and alumni over the years on March 15-16.
“We just added a couple more special events for the centennial,” Taphorn says. “We’re bringing back Jason Petty in February, and he’s doing his ‘100 Years of Hank Williams’ show, which coincides perfectly with this. And Jason’s a big audience favorite. And then I just booked J.P. Coletta, who was a big hit here in Murder for Two — he’s a fabulous piano player who’s been playing Jerry Lee Lewis all over the country.”
The season will end with the return of Beauty and the Beast, to this day one of the more enjoyable experiences for both Taphorn and Pamer. Taphorn has tacked on an extra week for the show, rather than giving it a typical three-week run. The musical will run April 24 through May 18.
“Again, it’s family friendly,” Taphorn says. “There’s a lot of kids involved. Beautiful costumes. And it looks absolutely beautiful in this theater. It just fits perfectly.”
When J.R. Ingram built his theater back in 1925, all he wanted was a building that could provide a night of entertainment for those spending a night in Sanford on their way to other parts of the country. When his son and Sam Bass got together in the 1980s to revive the building after 15 years of collecting cobwebs and dust, they sought to not only bring in out-of-towners, but strengthen the existing community as well.
They all would be pleased with the state of Temple Theatre today. Refurbished and run by a team that’s as invested in the community as the community is in them. And as Sanford continues to grow, they hope the theater will grow with it. “Everything we do this year will be about celebrating this community,” Taphorn says, “because to even be a small part of the legacy of this theater and this community is really cool, right? And look, I won’t be around for the [200 year celebration], so may as well do this one big.”
Really nice article. Thank you!