The Last Word

With Melinda Gassaway

Our community has always been a mecca for artisans who draw inspiration from a historic and picturesque area that continues to foster creativity. Long before the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Pocket Community Theatre, the Hot Springs Jazz Fest, the Muses Creative Artistry Project, and a profusion of galleries along Central Avenue in the heart of downtown, there were a number of gifted individuals who shared their talents with us and the world.

Among the marquee names of persons who found their way here and whose generosity and artistic contributions greatly enhanced the resort city were opera star Marjorie Lawrence, sculptor and philanthropist Louise Dierks, and watercolorist Carol Riley.

These three outstanding women were highly regarded by their professional peers and well known outside the state in which they came to live and work. It was not surprising that local denizens considered them celebrities of the first order and were proud to call them friends and fellow citizens.

From girlhood on, my mother had a keen interest in the arts and a particular passion for theater. It wasn't that she had acting ambitions, no, it was more that she was intrigued by how set designs, props, and dialogue delivered by trained thespians could transfix an audience.

In high school during the late 1950s, I fancied films, but also envied those outgoing classmates who could take to the stage, assume the personalities of altogether different characters, and mesmerize onlookers.

During that time — thanks to Patricia Walker, whose family had lived next door to my maternal grandmother on Quapaw Avenue — I was given a special pass to view live theater from the wings, so to speak. Pat owned the Magnolia Gift Shop on upper Central and was one of the Hot Springs Community Players most ardent supporters.

She enlisted me and a few Hot Springs High School classmates to help build the set for one of the troupe's annual productions and we were giddy at the opportunity to meet the cast members, several of whom exuded real star power.

Among the acting luminaries were Cecilia “Cissie” Beyers and her husband, Charles, both Pasadena Playhouse alumni whose names were frequently found at the top of Hot Springs' playbills. They were a striking and charming pair. Broadway may have had Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle but we had Charles and Cissie.

Immersed as she was in the theater group and in co-parenting the couple's two children, Shauna and Steve, the Players' popular leading lady somehow found the energy to offer drama classes in a small upstairs nook in the building across from the Garland County Court House.

Cissie directed her students in skits, in readings, in exercises that were aimed at giving us the confidence to speak in public. We recited poetry excerpts and the writings of famous playwrights. Because of my innate shyness at that age, I was less comfortable in performing than most of my pals, but I persevered nonetheless.

After all, this Springhill, Utah, native had invested so much effort and energy in mentoring all of us and in sharing her love of theater that it just would not do to shrink from the challenge.

Years later, I returned to Hot Springs and had a chance to thank the Beyers' team for their parts in getting me through the awkward teenage period and to show them I was much more self-assured as a 30-something adult. How lucky I was to reconnect with two of my very favorite people.

In 1975, I wrote a profile of Cissie for the Sunday, Oct. 19 edition of The Sentinel-Record. At that point, she and Charles had been Spa City residents of about 25 years. In the article she said, “People I met in Players were gracious and welcoming. They personified the Southern hospitality you hear about. Because of Players, I suppose Hot Springs was an exciting place to live even then.”

Without question, Cissie and Charles Beyers added immensely to the spark of creativity they nurtured in others.