Surrounding® Dr. Jack Wann and the Steamboat Cabin Theatre!

March 19, 2025

SURROUNDING THE STEAMBOAT CABIN THEATRE

Time, like a river, flows with only one leaning. For time, like a river, there is only the future. And for water, all of its movement is always downriver. But rolling waters spin off on its edges, playing like errant children, creating swirls folding back on eternity.. Seeking a moment’s hesitation within which water-based life can again be certain, before resuming its race to the final destination and obliterating its history.

The future can be similarly described, racing forward in demon-like fashion, degrading all that was previously created, and erasing from memory, all of what has already happened. But the future of its movements also creates those secret eddies, seeking to fool time in its probable passage forward.

Within those resisting, counter revolutions, new opportunities are presented; opportunities for the history of time’s past to reassert itself, cross over, and temporarily connect up with future developments. Time, it seems, is not strictly linear.

These connections are what historians study, the byssal strings that tie life’s “mussel shells” together, preserving the pearls of wisdom that roll up inside them.

That, too, is what this book seeks to uncover. Events that can open up again, turning back upon themselves to reveal the effects of their previous existence. The treasure chest of human experience!

Life is a relational database. And it is up to historians to link up cause and effect. To fish for relevant information within those circles that tie us together. And one of those old swimming holes spun off along the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It was called the Steamboat Cabin Theatre, now long forgotten, but still remembered.^[i]

The Steamboat Cabin Theatre first played on stage around the years 1971-1974. It was established by Dr. Jack Wann, who was previously a teacher of English and Humanities at Jeffersonville High School, which he once attended when younger. Several years before, he had established the Franklin Square Players Summer Theatre at the High School. Several years later, he would be honored as one of the school’s “Wizards” during its 100-year celebration.

Wann was raised in Jeffersonville on Meigs Avenue, just one block down from the Jeffersonville High School building in which he would later teach. Just over six feet tall, they considered him to be the right height and placed him on the school’s 1953, No. 1 State Ranked, High School Basketball Team. But that three-room shotgun of a house down the road on Meigs Avenue would sprout something more of value. A “Theatre Tree” legacy that would grow beyond those high school years, to hang boughs of experiences as “art-cicles” of stunning performances on stages throughout this region. A legacy that informed many of his students of a higher artistic ambition.

So, many linked theatrical circles began to form up in Jeffersonville around the soon-enough-to-be Dr. Jack Wann, Ph.D. Even Schimpff’s Confectionery and the famous Louisville Modjeska Caramel is related to this human eddy. For when Helen Modjeska, the famous Polish Shakespearian actress, came to Louisville in 1883, she came not to perform Shakespeare. She was premiering the shocking new reality-of-a-play written by Norwegian Playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1879. It was called A Doll’s House, and moved theatre into the modern era of depicting family life. Later, Dr. Wann would stage it himself!

Why would such a major arts event occur way back then in Louisville, Kentucky in the middle of our American continent? Steamboats! And the Falls of the Ohio River was necessarily a stopping point in a central position for distribution. Everything that was important back then passed through here and stopped in for a visit!

As previously noted, Modjeska’s fame and performance led to the development of the caramel-covered marshmallow that bears her name. But consistent with the theme of this writing, Modjeska would leave further links to her passage through the eddies of these waters.

Helen Modjeska had a son, Ralph, who became a successful structural engineer in America. He designed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. But his importance to this story, especially if you recently rode over it, is Louisville’s Second Street Bridge, now called the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge. He designed it himself!

Schimpff’s Confectionery on Spring Street is famous for its version of the Modjeska Marshmallow dipped in caramel. Schimpff’s also makes a version dipped in dark or white milk chocolate. Very tasty. Go visit it and verify my analysis!

Wann was born in Fort Wayne in 1935. His family moved to Meigs Avenue in Jeffersonville when he was six. His father would become a silk-screen printer with his own business. But the military needed tents back then, and they were making them down the street in Jeffersonville. So drive north now on Meigs Avenue in Jeffersonville, and you will run right into the old federal Quartermaster Depot that brought the Wann Family to Jeffersonville. It has its own interesting story.

When I first saw it in the 1970s, it was looking quite decrepit, one side burning down in the 1990s. But revitalization in that city had begun to save those downtown historic structures, and the Steamboat Cabin Theatre was to become part of that renewal effort. Go take a look at the Quartermaster Depot now. Imposing, with impressive stores. And the Jeffersonville City Hall is right in the middle!

The Depot is really a brick fortress, a giant quadrangle that, at one time, operated within a 10-block district. Early Civil War activities began at this location because of the three northern railroads converging here to link up with Ohio River traffic which was dominated by Union gunboats. And with the addition of Camp Joe Holt in Clarksville, soldiers could be trained and mustered over here, and made ready for Civil War service if the South invaded Kentucky. The area became a Union logistics center, centered on the Indiana “Falls Cities” and feeding the Northern war effort driving into the heart of the Southern states seceding.

In 1874, Major General J. C. Meigs, Quartermaster of the United States Army, supervised the construction, in Jeffersonville, of a quadrangle with 150,000 square feet of storage for vehicles, stoves, harnesses, and hardware. By 1898, the Depot was producing sewn clothing for the American forces in the Spanish-American War. With the addition of more brick buildings, even more flannel clothing was produced.

World War I brought additional construction, with 20,000 employees eventually producing 8,500,000 pieces of clothing per year. The Quadrangle was known back then as the world’s largest shirt factory, and was producing 1,000 pairs of pants a day!

By 1927, operations at the Depot extended to 240 acres and 61 buildings with over a million square feet of permanent storage. It was the need for sewing canvas tents in World War II that brought John Wann to Jeffersonville. Moving into that shotgun home on Meigs Avenue, he could walk to work.

The Jeffersonville Quartermaster Depot would close in 1957. In 2006, the City of Jeffersonville obtained the Depot and redeveloped it with private investment. It now again looks strong and productive, and is worth stopping in for a visit.

Jack Wann was about 19 when he attended Indiana University Southeast to begin work on an Undergraduate Degree. By the late 1960s, he was teaching popular classes in Humanities and Theatre at Jeffersonville High School. Soon enough, Wann would develop a high school “Summer Stock” Theatre of amateur actors from the high school program. They called themselves the “Franklin Square Players,” named for an alley behind the high school. During the school year, plays were staged in the old “Jeffersonville Gymnasium,” which still stands at the corner of Meigs Avenue and East Court Avenue.

Just a block away is the Nachand Fieldhouse where Wann played basketball in high school. It was built in 1937 and is still being used by the community. You will see it again, drawn on the floodwall mural facing the river.

The success of the Franklin Square Players would catch the interest of community leaders beginning to look for opportunities to revitalize the downtown area. Two local banks and American Commercial Barge Lines [ACBL] were, in particular, interested in supporting a local live theatre for Jeffersonville. A Board was formed and, in 1970, Wann decided to leave the high school and take over operations.

His vision was the development of a semi-professional troupe of actors mostly composed of local amateurs. The Carriage House at the Howard Steamboat Museum Mansion was available. A stage was built inside, and the building renovated. The “Steamboat Cabin Theatre” was born!

Its first show was Man of La Mancha. The response by both the community and critics was enthusiastic. The theatre soon needed more room than the 94-seat Carriage House could encompass.

Marty Rosen was Student Body President at Jeffersonville High School in 1970 and 1971. He had acted in Jack Wann’s classes and would often come back to watch play practice at the Carriage House. Once, he even auditioned for C. Douglas Ramey, the well thought of Director of the Louisville Shakespeare Company. He performed a monologue memorized from one of Wann’s classes. It was the “Bloody Dagger” speech from Macbeth. Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us!

Marty Rosen went on to a successful career as a writer, musician, and the librarian for Indiana University Southeast in New Albany. His prolific career as the Arts and Music Reviewer for LEO Magazine and the Courier Journalnewspaper was astonishing, and he still continues his critiques [here again is one of those “byssal threads” linking us all together!]. He also became the Food and Dining Critic for the Courier Journal. He has written thousands of reviews over the years of his career. He is currently Editor-In-Chief of Food & Dining Magazine.

Rosen will reappear in this discussion but, in the interim, catch him singing and performing with his group, “Hound of the Buskervilles,” in popular Louisville music venues. During his interesting and productive life and journey, Rosen also picked up a degree in Classical Guitar from the University of Louisville!

In 1972, with even more community support, the Steamboat Cabin Players bought the old “LeRose Theatre” in Jeffersonville on Spring Street. It had been shuttered for more than a decade. Next door to Schimpff’s Confectionery, it was an exciting new opportunity in downtown development.

The current owner of Schimpff’s Confectionery and 4th generation family member, Warren Schimpff recently met with Dr. Jack Wann and remembered fondly his family’s support for the theatre. He told us of attending an early production of Kiss Me Kate at the Carriage House.

But the work necessary to resurrect the old LeRose Theatre was extraordinary. Even the National Guard chipped in to help. But a little over a year later, in 1973, it became evident that the cost of operating at the new location was beyond the theatre’s capability to finance. Wann left for a position with Actors Theatre of Louisville and professional salaries were cut. Actor Richard Pruitt took over the productions, finishing out the season. Soon thereafter, the theatre closed due to the financial demands of maintaining such a structure and funding such a corps of semi-professional actors.

The LeRose Building is still there, right next to Schimpff’s Confectionery. In the front window is a small placard acknowledging its past uses. The Steamboat Cabin Theatre was one of its most ambitious efforts!

Jack Wann went on to obtain his Ph.D. and create the theatre programs at Northern Kentucky University and Northwestern State University of Louisiana. Then, after ten years of teaching at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, Dr. Wann retired in Eminence, Kentucky with his family.

But he wasn’t done then and, at 89 years of age, he isn’t done now. Upon arrival back in Kentucky, he immediately drove down to my home community of Shelbyville, Kentucky and to the Shelby County Community Theatre [SCCT]. Now, more than fourteen years later, Dr. Wann has become one of our theatre’s distinguished directors, directing popular shows, as well as staging weighty scripts from the most highly regarded playwrights. And his acting and directing classes have attracted an enthusiastic following!

So here is where the stream of life loops back upon itself to link together another bit of past history with the future of theatre in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

I met Jack Wann in 2010, when he asked me to write music for one of his Shakespeare productions [the famous eulogy from Cymbeline]. I soon found that the siren call of the theatre had begun to call me too! And I began, as with so many alumni of SCCT, a new and exciting journey of learning. I just wish I had experienced theatre earlier in my law career. But getting on with it, this is how Jeffersonville figures in.

Marty Rosen was still writing arts reviews for the Louisville Eccentric Observer [LEO] in 2015 when he noted that Dr. Wann was back directing plays in Shelbyville. Rosen came by and wrote about the impressive SCCT productions of The Crucible and Moliere’s Tartuffe. Reconnecting with Director Jack Wann, Rosen returned to review Gaslight[Angel Street], a famous 1938 British Who-Done-It stage thriller written by the talented British playwright Patrick Hamilton. Hamilton’s play later became the basis of the famous 1944 movie with the same name, starring Ingrid Bergman. [I had the wonderful challenge of portraying Inspector Rough in the SCCT production!]

Then Covid hit. Our theatre was shut down. But that did not mean that we were knocked out of opportunity. The theatre encouraged Dr. Wann and me to record a series of audio podcasts with our already experienced corps of actors. We would perform works by Shakespeare as well as many of the famous Modern Realists [see www.vanstockum.blog and click on podcasts].

And so, now there is yet another connection made here with Helen Modjeska. One hundred and thirty-seven years after her premiere of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Louisville, SCCT actors were performing parts of the same play again in our Shelbyville podcasts. And Marty Rosen, more than 50 years after auditioning for C. Douglas Ramey in Louisville, stepped back onto the stage to become one of our recorded actors!

Then, in February 2022, the SCCT staged a new musical, Jubilee Barndance, one of the few live productions since the beginning of Covid. It was an original musical written by Dr. Jack Wann and this author. Dr. Wann directed the play, and I brought its narrator, Spud Loomis, to life on the stage.

So here is the coming together of numerous historical eddies, the waters of time turning back on themselves, creating something new and original. Marty Rosen, the Jeffersonville High School actor, writer, librarian, newspaper reviewer and musician, auditioned and was cast as one of the lead actors! He was back on stage directed by Jack Wann 50 years later! [You can see the musical on my YouTube Channel, just search for “Jubilee Barndance” under “Reggie Van Stockum.” You can also hear the music on your favorite streaming service!]

So the Big Eddy at the “Falls of the Ohio River” swings all the way over to Shelbyville, Kentucky where the 50-year careers of two men, both native sons of Jeffersonville, Indiana, Director Dr. Jack Wann and performer-writer, Marty Rosen, come back together.

And so they are linked to me and now you! Consider auditioning for a role in one of this year’s SCCT productions. Marty Rosen and I both did in another side eddy of that powerfully creative river called Dr. Jack Wann. The production features Rosen in an actor’s “role of a lifetime” as Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. And I was cast as the Soothsayer [you know, “Beware of the Ides of March!”].

And now I am proud to say that our musical comedy, Tower by the Thames, will have its premier at the wonderful, 60 year old, Lttle Colonel Players theatre in Pewee Valley outside of Louisville, Kentucky! As we say in the play, “Come and see, enjoy the fun!”

And so, roll on the mighty rivers of life, still mixing together and creating something new from what has happened previously!

[i] Here is a partial list of Steamboat Theatre Players Productions provided by Richard Pruitt with Dr. Jack Wann:

Jeffersonville High School – Carnival, 1965 or ’66; Harvey, 1966; Oklahoma, 1966; The Music Man, January 11-13, 1967; Arsenic and Old Lace, 1967; Carousel, May 11-13, 1967; South Pacific, November 29-30, Dec. 2, 1967; Brigadoon, 1968; Li’l Abner, May 9-11, 1968 (Spoon River Anthology, 1968 classroom production); The King and I, 1968; You Can’t Take It With You, 1969; Finian’s Rainbow, 1969; My Fair Lady, 1969; The Miracle Worker, 1970; Annie Get Your Gun, 1970.

Franklin Square Players – The Fantasticks, August 7-8, 10-12, 14-15, 17-19, 1967 (Carnival June 20-22, 27-29, 1968 Springs Valley Playhouse); Once Upon A Mattress, July 29, 30, August 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 1968; The Fantasticks, August 14-18, 1968; You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.

Steamboat Cabin Theatre – Man of La Mancha, June 23-July 12, 1970; Funny Thing/Forum, July 16-August 5, 1970; Kiss Me, Kate, August 9-27, 1970; Fanny, October 16-25, 1970; Cabaret, April 16-May 1, 1971; Camelot, Summer 1971; Sweet Charity, July 14-31, 1971; Fiddler on the Roof, August 6-23, 1971; The Roar of the Greasepaint, September 30-October 17, 1971; Oliver!, November, 1971; The Fantasticks, March 31-April 17, 1972; Anything Goes, April 20-May 7, 1972; The Boys From Syracuse, Summer, 1972; The Tempest, Summer, 1972; Hello, Dolly, Summer, 1972.

Monday Night One-Acts at Steamboat – Crawling Arnold, August 8, 1972; The Lesson, Summer, 1972; Hello Out There, Summer, 1972; This Property is Condemned; Comings and Goings; Zoo Story; Constantinople Smith.

IUS Productions at Steamboat (Carriage House only) – The Crucible, Dec. 4-6, 11-13, 1970; The Odd Couple, Feb. 25-27, March 4-6, 1971; An Enemy of the People, 1971; 1776, March 2-3, 9-12, 1972.