To learn more about this collection please see the finding aid link found above, and/or visit the College and Lutheran Church Archives to use these primary sources.
Anderson, Evelyn Cecile Olson. “History of the Theatre in St. Peter, Minnesota: From its Beginning to 1930,” Thesis, 1946. CAMC Collection 32. ½ Hollinger box.
ABSTRACT:
This collection consists of Evelyn Anderson’s thesis, A History of the Theatre in Saint Peter, Minnesota, From its Beginning to 1930, written for her MA from the University of Minnesota in 1946.
Evelyn Cecile Olson Anderson was born in 1908 in Wynette, Minnesota, graduated with a BA from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1929, went on to attain a MA from the University of Minnesota, and did additional graduate study at the University of California, Los Angeles as well as the University of Minnesota. She was a professor of Speech and Drama at Gustavus from 1938-40, and 1944-74, when she retired. She married Dr. Evan E. Anderson of the Speech and Theatre Department in 1939. The Evelyn Anderson Theatre and Dance Scholarship is named after her, and Anderson Theatre after she and her husband.
“Evelyn Anderson [was] an extraordinary teacher and director at Gustavus Adolphus College from 1938 to 1974. For 36 years, "Mrs. A" fired the imaginations of countless numbers of students through her legendary classes and her bold and elegant productions of classical, contemporary and children's plays. Passion, discipline and high style were hallmarks of Professor Anderson's productions. In 1971, her dream of an intimate classical theatre on the Gustavus campus was realized with the opening of a 270 seat theatre modeled after the famous Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. Upon her retirement in 1974, the theatre was dedicated to Evelyn and Evan Anderson.” (taken from webpage on the Evelyn Anderson Theatre & Dance Scholarship, 11 May 2010)
