During the recent celebration of Beverly Cleary’s 100th birthday, OPB’s televised tribute to the beloved author got an assist from a Vancouver theater group.
Oregon Art Beat’s episode “Discovering Beverly Cleary” included some re-enactments of key chapters in her life. It wasn’t acting talent that Magenta Theater provided for the brief dramatizations, however. It was props.
Mostly, it was a vintage typewriter. An OPB staffer portrayed the 35-year-old Cleary sitting at her table and using the Smith-Corona to type out the opening lines of “Henry Huggins.”
Vancouver resident Tom Hubbard was the link between the two organizations.
“I’m a volunteer at both OPB (production assistant) and Magenta (lighting designer),” Hubbard said.
“He knew we had done some period productions,” said Amanda Goff, a Magenta Theater member.
“He was looking for a table, a vintage radio and a typewriter. We were able to provide all three.”
The radio and typewriter were used in the 2015 Magenta production “Rose Colored Glass.”
“I was part of the props team,” Goff said.
She was delighted to contribute to Cleary’s birthday festivities, by the way.
“Absolutely. I grew up reading Beverly Cleary books,” Goff said.
The 30-minute Oregon Art Beat episode was in the works for almost a year, Hubbard said.
“It became a labor of love.”
A shout-out in the closing credits wasn’t the only thing Magenta Theater got out of the production.
When Hubbard returned the table, it was in better condition than when it left.
“It had been on the wobbly side,” Goff said, noting that the table is about 60 years old. “Their technical team did a bit of magic to make it more stable.”
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