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RICHARD DAVID WATERS / THE FISHERMAN’S PLAYERS / THE REVEREND RICHARD D. WATERS

The Reverend Richard David Waters (July 12, 1927-August 25,1990) was an influential American playwright, actor, director, United Methodist minister, social activist, and pioneer in the use of didactic drama to bring about social change. He authored or adapted more than 50 plays for the stage and founded several influential theater companies during his lifetime. His was one of the first theater ensembles in the country to have in-resident interracial companies, casting actors without regard for their race, color, or ethnicity. Waters originated the concept of “dramatic sermons,” giving professional dramatizations in small spaces like a church sanctuary. His plays and performances dealt with the significant issues of the day, featuring titles as diverse as The Black Messiah, about Malcolm X; The Truant Apostle; Plight of the Green Man; Charley and the Man With the Upside Down Eyes, and New Shoes for Uncle Tom, a play addressing the terrible circumstances in modern day society confronting the black community. His work was most prominent in the 1960s and 70s. He devoted himself to touching the lives of countless thousands of people from all the world and from all walks of life through his writing and productions in an effort to effect nationwide social change, awareness, and discussion.

Contents

Early Life Hollywood Ministry /College and Theater Cape Cod and The Fisherman’s Players The Fisherman’s Players in Eastham Later Years and Death Historical Archives

Early Life

Richard David Waters was born in Lynchburg, Virginia on July 12, 1927. He was the first son of French West Waters and Mary Ellen Brown Waters. Their second son, Harold Robert, was born two years later. Robert was known for his high-end furniture companies, Porters of Racine, located in Racine, Wisconsin and other locations.

Both parents were descended from Virginia family lines dating back to the revolution. On his mother’s side, there were a few clergymen and a connection to the Mennonites. The family lived mostly in rural areas near the Blue Ridge Mountains. His father was badly injured in WWI and made much of his living running a square dance hall where he was famed throughout the area as an excellent caller. He was not financially successful, due to his wartime disabilities.

Waters’ mother was a Licensed Practical Nurse and made a slim living for the family. During the depression, she nursed her husband through failing health, as well as her neighbors and friends. She was highly prized in the community, where many people could barely afford food, much less a doctor.

Waters, with his parents’ signature, joined the military underage. He first served in the Merchant Marines on the Murmansk runs and later in the 82nd Airborne as a paratrooper. He was honorably discharged.

Hollywood

After the war, Waters attended American University in Washington, D.C. to study Drama. He began acting at The Crossroads Theater at Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia. Among his fellow actors were Purnell Roberts and George Grizzard. Waters ventured into radio and became an announcer with his own program. He continued acting in local theaters and in 1952, he set out for Hollywood. There he worked as a short order cook near the film studios. He met Richard Widmark, who helped him land a job as director of the studio lot theater at 20th Century Fox. Training newly contracted players in acting skills, Waters directed numerous plays. Later, with a partner, he also opened a theater company in Los Angeles. They named it The Globe Repertory Theater.

At that time, television was at its beginnings. Waters directed a number of one-act plays, performed for live television. He worked with name actors, such as Edward G. Robinson, Ann Francis, Robert Conrad and many others who wanted to explore this new medium. But, the fast paced life was difficult for him. Waters became convinced that the artificial lifestyle in Hollywood was not the right environment. Ida Lupino had begun to mentor him early in 1955, but he decided to return to the east coast to establish a repertory company patterned on the British theater.

He stopped for an extended visit with his mother in Lynchburg, Virginia, to make a decision about where he would locate on the east coast. It was during that time that he met his future wife, Maria Manos, at the local theater there and married her on August 9, 1955. Together they went to Arlington, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. They opened a tiny theater in Franconia, Virginia, then a very rural setting. They and the actors worked for free. Everyone supported themselves with day jobs, Waters as a short order cook and Maria as an elementary school teacher at the Fort Belvoir Army base. It was at this theater that he began his playwrighting and staged adaptations. The next year, the theater was moved for a short while into the old Arena Stage building in Washington, D.C. and later to MacLean, Virginia, in an old Episcopal Church building.

The first of Water’s adaptations was called The Son of Man. It was marketed to the churches in the local area and was well supported. He was seen and approached by Ella Harlee from the National Council of Churches. Because television was so new, the local stations gave a tithe, ten percent of airtime, to the churches for their use. Ella Harlee was in charge of utilizing that time. She approached him about creating half- hour dramas that would enrich people’s minds and stimulate them toward wise and fruitful living. Waters accepted the challenge, wrote a number of scripts that year, and the actors performed for free. No one, not even Waters, was ever paid. However, because the quality was so professional, the unions came in, demanding that the tech people be paid union wages. Since that was impossible, the project shut down after just one year. The Council of Churches, so grateful and impressed with the quality of Water’s work, gave a banquet to honor him, with Julie Harris presenting the award.

Ministry /College and Theater

During this period, their first child, a son, was born. A second son was on the way when Waters announced to Maria that he was going back to school to become a Methodist minister. He enrolled in Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Coincidentally, a minister had just died after being assigned to a country parish. Waters was approached by the church and accepted a three-point charge about an hour from Lynchburg College. He attended college during the week and came home to the three small churches and his family each weekend.

While at college, he began to write plays and the drama department at Lynchburg College performed them. They were also performed at The Church of the Covenant, a sister church to The Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. These churches were begun by two brothers, Gordon and Beverly Cosby. Both had a significant impact on their communities. They patterned a whole new way for churches to operate and take seriously their personal spiritual journeys and service in the community.

By this time, Waters’ plays were leaning toward more controversial topics. The Methodist District Superintendent urged him to go to Boston University School of Theology for his Masters Degree. He wanted Waters to have a top notch theological education to give him clout when the controversy increased. In 1962, Waters was accepted at the university and was assigned as assistant pastor at Trinity Methodist Church in Providence, Rhode Island. In concert with many in the parish, Waters formed The Trinity Square Players. They performed in the large Sunday school auditorium in the church. Everyone said it was a factory town and no theater would run more than a couple of weekends. They launched his play, The Truant Apostle, and it ran Thursday through Saturday for more than 15 weeks. Reviewers gave glowing write-ups. After each performance, the audience was invited downstairs to a coffee house. Over refreshments, audience members could discuss issues raised in the play. Providence was hungry for the arts. Waters’ work with the theater company became his dominant responsibility as associate pastor and founding director. However, the church leaders were not open to him continuing this work as part of his ministry at the church. They had reached a crossroad.

A local group of citizens who supported Waters’ work approached the church about leasing the space and continuing the theater. Waters was offered the director’s position for what would become The Foundation for Repertory Theater in Rhode Island, Inc. But it would have meant his giving up the ministry. The church agreed to lease the space to the group, with a director who was not affiliated with the church. The group continued growing the Trinity Square Theater, which became known as the Trinity Repertory Company. It’s now one of the foremost repertory theater companies in the country.

Meanwhile, Methodist Bishop James Mathews recognized Waters’ talent and did not want to lose him. Mathews decided to send him to lower Cape Cod, Massachusetts, then known as the summer stock theater capital of the nation and beyond.

Cape Cod and The Fisherman’s Players

Waters was sent to Wellfleet and Eastham on Cape Cod in the fall of 1963. Before the church year was up, The Fisherman’s Players was born. The project came to fruition with the participation of local people, church members, and actors who came from Virginia and Rhode Island to help Waters launch the new theater. They began a full summer season in 1964, performing plays he wrote and adapted for the stage. Performances alternated between the Wellfleet Methodist Church basement and the Eastham Methodist Church sanctuary.

From 1963 to 1969, The Fisherman’s Players were a unique force tackling issues such as the Vietnam War, the generation gap, race relations, illicit drugs, the women’s movement, environmentalism, the population boom, and other issues that were paramount in the 1960s.

During this period, Waters’ work blossomed and his output hit new heights. An intellectual alliance of sorts was formed. He co-wrote The Abelard with Pascal Tchakmakian. He collaborated with Norman Mailer to dramatize Mailer’s book, Why Are We in Vietnam? One of Waters’ closest friends and writing advocates was Prince Paul Chavchavadze, an exiled Russian writer who lived in Wellfleet. Together they read and critiqued one another’s work, encouraging and challenging one another. Waters also collaborated with Judge Francis Biddle on Biddle’s play, The Trial of William Penn. Judge Biddle was a former Attorney General of the U.S., who also served as the primary judge at the postwar Nuremberg trials. His play ran for several seasons and was taken out on tour by Waters’ and The Fisherman’s Players.

As The Fisherman’s Players grew in influence and popularity, the work took a decidedly controversial turn. Waters’ play, Charley and the Man with the Upside Down Eyes, was in total opposition to the Vietnam War. Color Me Human, The Truant Apostle, The Son of Man (loosely based on Kahlil Gibran’s work), The Black Messiah, and many other Waters’ plays were highly received and met with standing room only at many performances. The coffee house discussions following each performance proved their own merit as audiences, the director and author, and actors from the production discussed and debated the issues raised by the evening’s play. One reviewer stated that “to attend one of his plays was equal to a semester at college, so carefully researched was his work.”

The Fisherman’s Players quickly outgrew the Wellfleet church basement and the chancel stage at the Eastham Methodist Church. The popularity of the plays, the growing national attention of Waters’ work, and the controversial subject matter soon courted opposition from some church members and others in the community who were deeply involved in the John Birch Society. Momentum built continually until it became clear that deep divisions were forming in the churches and the community at large. A change was needed. Waters resigned as Pastor of the Wellfleet and Eastham churches.

The Fisherman’s Players in Eastham

Quietly, supporting members of the community and powers within the Southern New England Conference of the United Methodist Church came together, and a property on Route 6 in Eastham was made available. A steel building was erected and a 225-seat venue was built to house a theater. Waters then continued the theater work full-time, sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Missions as an outreach program dedicated to the current issues of the day. In front of the theater building was a 200-year-old former inn and stage coach stop with 13 small rooms. There, the family resided and many of the actors were housed for each summer season.

The Fisherman’s Players of Cape Cod put up as many as four shows a week in repertory as the summer season grew each year. Each play, most written and directed by Waters, dealt with pertinent issues of the day. The Fisherman’s Players repertory company ran at the Eastham Theater from 1969 through 1974. It was a ground swell of early social activism. It reached people visiting Cape Cod from all over the United States. They, in turn, became conduits traveling near and far carrying Waters’ messages, spreading the ideas and lessons learned from each of his plays.

Once home, they requested performances during the rest of the year at colleges, universities, community civic organizations, churches, and synagogues along the eastern seaboard. Waters and The Fisherman’s Players became a touring company during the other three seasons of the year. He operated The Fisherman’s Players on Cape Cod through the 1974 season.

Later Years and Death

In 1975, Waters returned to the pulpit. He took a position at Old West Church in Boston. His health had deteriorated from the grueling schedules of writing, producing, directing, and performing. He had done double duty running the theater and his responsibilities to the church for so many years, it just wore him out. He never stopped performing completely, and would cobble together two and three person companies for his one-act Dramatic Sermons, designed to be performed in a church sanctuary. He would continue touring these small performances till the end of his life.

In later years, Waters was able to return to his beloved Virginia. There, he served small rural multiple-parish charges. This enabled him to continue to follow his three greatest passions—fishing, writing, and acting. He would never stop writing. At the time of his death in 1990, he was writing a one actor monologue play on Robert E. Lee. He also would never stop fishing. He died while fishing the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia on August 25, 1990 from complications of heart disease. His funeral arrangements required four different services over three days in three different locations from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Smithfield, Virginia to accommodate his mourners.

The influence of The Reverend Richard D. Waters and The Fisherman Players stretched far beyond Cape Cod and affected the lives of countless thousands of people. He challenged others to work tirelessly in their own lives and communities for the betterment of humanity, the less fortunate, and the world around us. Some of his more renowned plays were The Truant Apostle, Father and Daughter, Charley and the Man With the Upside Down Eyes, The Black Messiah, Chickenhawk, Jonah, The Son of Man, Simon Peter, The Plight of the Green Man, and The Black Messiah. In addition, he wrote One Word from Lavinia, a Christmas special teleplay written for the Rhode Island Council of Churches in conjunction with WJAR TV 10. It ran every holiday season for many years.

Historical Archives

The writings, scripts, photography, and historical archives of The Reverend Richard D. Waters and The Fisherman’s Players are housed on Cape Cod at the Wellfleet Historical Society, 266 W. Main Street, Wellfleet, MA 02667.