1955-1976: For-profit Theater - Coconut Grove Playhouse

1955-1960 – Under the Direction of George Engle

Despite the building’s failings, George S. Engle, a wealthy Coconut Grove resident, saw promise there. He was a multi-millionaire who had made his fortune in the oil industry, he wanted to see more cultural offerings in Coconut Grove, and he bought the old movie house in the spring of 1955. He hired the well-known architect Alfred Browning Parker and then spent $1 million (about $12 million in 2024 dollars) on the renovation.

Photo from the book “Broadway by the Bay,” courtesy Carol Cohan.

The Playhouse, as transformed by architect Alfred Browning Parker, was elegant.

…. Parker used the finest materials, always lavish, sometimes opulent. The apartments upstairs had Thai silk draperies, 14-carat gold plated shower knobs, and rhinestone-studded toilet seats. The lobby and auditorium held custom designed Karistan carpeting woven with a scattered star motif. The restaurant was paneled with matched woods flown in from Honduras. The bar was made of thick mahogany. The tables were set with custom designed linens and china.

Carol Cohan

In her book “Broadway by the Bay

The Playhouse boasted many amenities, including a bar and a restaurant

The Coconut Grove Playhouse was the place to be seen when its first play opened on January 3, 1956. Prominent people in furs and jewels, coming from lavish dinner parties, were driven there in limousines. The play they were to see, billed as “the laugh sensation of two continents,” was “Waiting for Godot.” It starred Tom Ewell and Bert Lahr. Despite the play’s critical acclaim in Europe since 1952, Coconut Grove was not ready for it. It was a colossal flop.

Engle’s second show starred Tallulah Bankhead in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Later that season Engle enticed Victor Borge to appear for two weeks in “Comedy in Music,” which was wildly successful and put the Playhouse on better footing.

Engle continued producing commercially for four seasons, bringing to Coconut Grove big stars of the day, including Billie Burke, Beatrice Lille, Imogene Coca, Edward Everett Horton, Chico Marx, Jean Stapleton, Ed Begley, Barbara Baxley, Joan Fontaine, Hildegarde, Carol Channing, Paulette Goddard, and Ben Gazzara. During Engle’s time at CGP, Tennessee Williams (a Coconut Grove resident) began working extensively with the theater. By 1960, six of Williams’ plays (“A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Orpheus Descending,” ”Period of Adjustment,” and “Summer and Smoke”) had been produced there, and Williams directed some of them himself.

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Sketch of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, on the program of the opening production in 1956.

Photo from the book “Broadway by the Bay,” courtesy Carol Cohan.

Coconut Grove Playhouse in that era was a major setting in the Miami social scene. Society columns reported citizens of stature holding theater parties there. Articles described the details of patrons’ gowns and furs. Photographs showed notables eating at the Playhouse restaurant. Engle had wanted to bring a cultural center to his town, and he did. But it cost him. For Engle, four seasons was enough. It was hard work, and he spent a lot of his own money renovating the playhouse, subsidizing its operation, and establishing its restaurants and art gallery. He told the Miami Herald “I’m an oilman. Oil I understand.”

The Miami Herald ran many stories about the difficulty of operating live theater in Miami, with the first line of an April 1960 article saying “Running live theater in Miami is enough to put a man on a psychiatrist’s couch.” That same article reported that George Engle had turned over the management of the Playhouse to Owen Phillips, whom he had hired two years previously as managing director of the theater.

Coconut Grove Playhouse’s restaurant menu, undated.

1960-1961 – Under the Direction of Owen Phillips

Owen Phillips was a theater professional. Prior to joining CGP, he had been owner/producer/director of Studio M in Coral Gables. As managing director at CGP, he handled administrative duties and he directed plays. He had connections, and was able to use them when needed. He saved a failing run of “Damn Yankees” by calling in Gretchen Wyler, the original Broadway star of that show, to replace the lead actress mid-run. He had experience working with Tennessee Williams, co-directing “Period of Adjustment” at CGP with him in 1958.

When Engle bowed out, Phillips leased the theater from him. As the new producer of CGP, Phillips and his Grove Productions produced approximately 16 shows in a mere year. Many were notable, such as a version of William’s “The Night of the Iguana” in August 1959—well before its December 1961 Broadway premiere. As with Engle’s shows, many starred big-name actors of the time including “The Disenchanted” with Kim Hunter, “West Side Story” with William Yule, “A Curious Evening with Gypsy Rose Lee,” “Showboat,” “Marriage-go-Round “with Vivian Vance, and “A Majority of One” with Molly Picon.

The times were changing in the country and in the South. Actor Clarence Thomas confronted Phillips about the theater’s policy of segregation. Phillips reversed that policy – four years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated desegregation.

The financial situation at the Playhouse was not good, however. Phillips was well-regarded as a theater professional, but not as a businessman. Financial issues plagued him, including an unexpected $83,000 tax lien.

In the summer of 1961, George Engle canceled Phillips’ lease and reviewed multiple offers for a new tenant. He told the Miami News on June 25, 1961: “My aim is to get someone in the theater to operate it from a sound business as well as professional standpoint. I’ll be very careful considering any tenants.” Staying on briefly as resident director for the new tenants, Phillips resigned in early 1962.

Owen Phillips.

1961-1962 – Various Ventures

For the two years, two ventures (Theatre Enterprises, Inc. and Community Playhouse, Inc.) leased the building from Engle and produced shows. Although the Playhouse was intermittently closed, they were able to put on a number of productions with major actors, including: “Sextet with Mae West,” “The Inkwell” with Gloria Swanson, and “Invitation to a March” with Celeste Holm.

1962-1970 – Under the Direction of Zev Bufman

In 1962, with “Pajama Tops,” Zev Bufman discovered the Playhouse. He and his business partner, Stan Seiden were Hollywood-based producers and operated several theaters. They had been wildly successful with their staging of “Pajama Tops,” which had a long run in Los Angeles and then at the Seattle World’s Fair. Once the fair ended, the show toured nationally. Just prior to its engagement in Pittsburgh, the Nixon Theater there burned down and Bufman scrambled to find a new venue. He quickly found the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which had been closed since earlier that year, and “Pajama Tops”opened there on October 9, 1962.

Bufman was a showman. He claimed credit for introducing the “two-fer,” a coupon distributed widely that could be used to buy two-for-one tickets. He had other gimmicks, including two for the opening of “Pajama Tops” at Coconut Grove. Carol Cohan noted in “Broadway by the Bay”:

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Zev Bufman outside the Playhouse, 1966-1967 season.
(Photo from the book “Broadway by the Bay,” courtesy Carol Cohan.)

John Agar, the male lead, offered to kiss the first twelve women who arrived at the theater. Both Agar and June Wilkinson, the female lead, promised to pose for amateur photographers after each performance.

June Wilkinson [the very attractive leading lady] agreed to spend an evening with the man who best stated “why I want to win a date with June Wilkinson” in twenty-five words or less.

Coconut Grove Playhouse when the exterior was a sienna color, c. 1970s.

Photo from the book “Broadway by the Bay,” courtesy Carol Cohan.

Even before “Pajama Tops” opened, Bufman was smitten with the Coconut Grove Playhouse. In early October he was telling the Miami News that he could foresee starting his national tours there, and by December he had booked several productions for the coming year. For his new year’s resolution, he added, he was vowing to stay at the Grove for more than one season.

He did. Bufman was a real entrepreneur and despite its recent on-again, off-again operation, he knew he could be successful there. A real deal-maker, he went to Broadway producers to negotiate rights for their plays. Bufman said

I was a gut player…I played everything on instinct. I was reckless. I took chances. I was at an age where I felt if I get in trouble, I’ll come out of it.

At the young age of 31, already with Hollywood successes and a Broadway revue, he moved fast. In 1962 he leased the Playhouse from George Engle, negotiated a five-year lease with an option to buy in 1963, and bought it in 1965. For eight years he was at the helm, and he and the Coconut Grove Playhouse figured largely in the Miami scene.

In 1963, with the play “Irma la Douce,” the Playhouse went to the streets of Coconut Grove, transforming them with a Paris-like sidewalk art show in order to promote the musical, which was set there. This dynamic idea came from Bufman’s long time public relations guru, Charlie Cinnamon. With over 150 artists participating, the Coconut Grove Art Festival was a hit and soon became an annual event, and after 60 years is still a major event in Miami.

Bufman’s shows were so popular that he had to expand audience seating capacity.

There were many notable performances during Zev Bufman’s tenure. To name just a few: Ethel Merman in “Mame,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” with Jose Ferrer (who ran the Playhouse in the early 1980’s), Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in “A Delicate Balance,” and George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst in “Lion in Winter.”

The Playhouse was so successful that it needed more seats: Bufman constructed a 300-seat mezzanine, expanding the theater’s capacity to 1100.

But Bufman was involved in much more than just Coconut Grove. He had his touring operations and also produced several Broadway shows in the 1960’s. He stayed connected with the larger theater world from his corner office in the Paramount Building overlooking Times Square. By 1969, Newsday wrote that Bufman had a larger payroll than any other producer in the country, even Hal Prince or David Merrick. He had essentially cornered the market on South Florida theater, he was working on three movies in Hollywood, and in addition to his Broadway successes, he had a wildly profitable Off-Broadway show, “Your Own Thing.” He told Newsday:

I want to have the most diversified show business operation of anyone in the country. It’s the planning and the packaging I enjoy most. The day after a show opens, I’m bored with it and I’m ready to move on to something else.

And so he did. In 1970, after being approached by Eddie Bracken, veteran actor of stage and screen, and an up-and-coming producer. His newly-minted company, Eddie Bracken Ventures Inc., owned two Broadway theaters and a score of regional playhouses, and he was expanding. He wanted to buy Coconut Grove Playhouse, and in September 1970 he did, with Bufman staying on as an adviser.

1970-1971 – Under the Direction of Eddie Bracken

In March 1970, the Hartford Courant headlined an article “Eddie Bracken Becomes an Entertainment Baron.” Shortly after that, the local newspaper near Bracken’s regional Hyde Park Theater opened its article about the launch of Eddie Bracken Ventures, Inc. by acknowledging his successful past and his promising future:

In 1966, Esquire Magazine cited 42 people out of all the people in the world who could be considered worthy of the title of “unknockable.” Eddie Bracken was one of those saluted.

Eddie Bracken.

Eddie Bracken Ventures presented “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He unfortunately was trying earnestly to be successful with the Playhouse, but he was not..

Sadly, this title was to be short-lived.

Bracken’s tenure at the Playhouse was not a long one. In December 1971, not even two years after being lauded as a major new producer, his situation had totally changed.

That month, The Fort Lauderdale News headlined an article “Eddie Bracken Calls His Theater Business Role Tragic.” Bracken explained that his financial woes were caused by gross mismanagement and too-fast growth.

Nonetheless, eleven plays were staged that season, featuring well-known stars: Ann Sothern, Milton Berle, Robert Morse, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Tammy Grimes, Mickey Rooney. Ironically, one of those plays was “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,”

Although Bracken sold subscriptions for the following 1971-1972 season, that season never started. The Playhouse was bankrupt and remained dark through the 1971-1972 season.

Working to secure the future of the playhouse, a mayoral committee of local bankers and receivers struggled through many ups and downs. Finally at the end of January 1972, the day before the theater was to have been auctioned, two nationally recognized New York producers stepped in with a plan. The judge involved in the case viewed it favorably and called off the auction. Once again, a future for Coconut Grove Playhouse was possible.

1972-1976 – Under the Direction of Arthur Cantor and Robert Fishko

Arthur Cantor and Robert Fishko had substantial experience and, importantly, the financial backing of a major Canadian telecommunications company. At the time of the purchase in the early winter of 1972, they had planned to resume the theater’s operation about a month after doing about $25,000 worth of renovations. However, they found that substantially more renovation work was needed. After spending about $200,000 on that work, they launched their first production, “Man of La Mancha,” in December 1972.

Photo from the book “Broadway by the Bay,” courtesy Carol Cohan.

“Man of La Mancha” was the duo’s first production – in December 1972.

Cantor and Fishko had many successes over the next few years. They began booking shows aimed at attracting black audiences, who had never felt comfortable at the Playhouse–a white institution until the early 60’s. “Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope” was the first, and there was extensive outreach to the black community to encourage attendance.

Later, productions like “Purlie,” “Bubblin’ Brown Sugar,” and “When Hell Freezes Over I’ll Skate” reinforced the message that the Playhouse was definitely no longer “whites only.” In addition to introducing productions that would attract wider audiences, Bob Fishko was committed to presenting serious, thought-provoking drama. Most notably, he brought “Equus” to the CGP, and it enjoyed a long and financially successful run.

This era also saw the Playhouse’s first significant foray into an Education program. Corky Dozier, a Broadway actor, came to the Coconut Grove to perform in “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope.” She not only performed, but when ticket sales were dwindling, she spearheaded the outreach efforts to promote the play in the Black community.

The Playhouse recognized her dynamism and hired her. Although not specifically
hired to do this, she apparently saw the need for a theater program for children and she started one. After initially basing this at the Playhouse, within a few years she left to run her program independently as The Coconut Grove Children’s Theatre. She rented space in Coconut Grove for the venture, which flourished well into the 1990’s.

For four years Fishko did well, but in 1976 the Canadian company decided it would no longer support the operation. Initially they felt this was a good investment—primarily because of the value of the property—but their thinking changed. From its start as a legitimate theater venue in 1956, the Playhouse was never a big money-making venture, save for some of Zev Bufman’s golden years. Fishko made money on some productions and lost on others.

Compounding the difficult financial situation and loss of its backer, the Playhouse now had significant competition from Zev Bufman’s latest ventures: the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale and a new huge and, very importantly, tax-supported theater in Miami Beach.

Although Fishko initially thought that he could continue without a backer, he later realized that he couldn’t. He believed that private production companies could no longer successfully operate the Coconut Grove Playhouse, but thought that a non-profit might be able to. He put up the property for sale. Luckily, a local non-profit theater, in negotiations to secure government funding, was interested in securing a larger venue.

Programming such as “Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope,” “Bubblin’ Brown Sugar,” and “When Hell Freezes Over I’ll Skate” aimed to draw Black audiences to the Playhouse.