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University of Tampa
Actors are reviving stories from the Tampa Bay Hotel each Sunday by giving voice to famous guests and staff members.
By AMY SCHERZER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 11, 2003
Edith Roosevelt sips her tea and sighs. There's so much to talk about.
Being the wife of President Theodore Roosevelt brought a wealth of adventure and notable experiences, she says.
Like the train trip from New York to Tampa in May 1898 to visit Teddy, who was stationed with the U.S. Calvary 1st Volunteer regiment known as the Rough Riders during the Spanish-America War.
She made her way to the Tampa Bay Hotel, past clusters of shanties, low palmetto bushes and tall palms. The hotel verandah teemed with soldiers, newsmen and Washington bureaucrats.
Teddy had booked a suite for them, $6 a night, she recalls. They dined on 11-course meals and enjoyed live entertainment.
Actor Nonie White tells these and other stories as part of Upstairs/Downstairs, a series of vignettes about life at the historic hotel appearing at the University of Tampa. The performances are held Sunday afternoons through the end of May at the university's Henry B. Plant Museum.
"They are fictional accounts based on the actual employees who worked here," said Amy David, the museum's curator of education. "We've taken some literary license with some of their stories."
Upstairs/Downstairs features five characters central to the hotel between 1895 and 1920. A different one appears each week to give museum visitors a sense of the former hotel.
Nan Colton, artist-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, wrote and directed the 35-minute monologues. The Arts Council of Hillsborough County funded the performances, which are free to the public.
Edith Roosevelt represents the upstairs of the hotel as a privileged guest. The others, all employees, work downstairs.
-- Vivacious Polly is the telegraph operator, played by Barbara Eaker. She chats about her life as a modern woman, single and self-supporting.
-- Maitre d' Otis Freedman rules the hotel dining room. Nathan Burton plays the role of a black man who interacts with the wealthy and notes that even millionaires get soup in their beards.
-- Arthur Schleman, the dashing hunting and fishing guide, instructs guests, among them a young Winston Churchill, on the proper way to bag an alligator. John Snell portrays the huntsman.
-- Jazz singer Gloria Bailey shares her dreams as Maggie Stroud, a personal maid so trusted that some guests asked for her by name.
Upstairs/Downstairs was conceived and researched by executive director Cynthia Gandee and former curator Marcia White in 1998. They sought stories from people who worked at the hotel or had relatives who worked there.
Additional characters are being considered, possibly other guests, such as Babe Ruth or John Philip Sousa.
A typical Sunday finds 25 to 30 visitors in rows of chairs lining a darkened hallway. The museum's lighting is set to duplicate the hotel's wattage at the turn of the century.
"Edith" arrives for tea in a broad black hat, lace collar coat and ivory gloves. When the coat comes off, she reveals a dress copied from a picture taken of the former first lady during her years in the White House.
White shares letters and photographs from the 26th president, Edith's childhood friend. She recounts her character's nicknames: Indifferent Edie and Spotless Edie. She notes Edith's shyness and reserve, and Teddy's self-assurance and sense of humor.
The couple married in 1886, and they had five children together.
Edith tells the audience what it was like raising Rose Lee, the daughter of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice, who died in 1884.
"We called her 'Our Alice,"' Edith says. Her step-daughter grew up to be "Wild" Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the colorful Washington, D.C. socialite. She recalls Teddy's famous quote: "I can either run the country or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."
When President William McKinley was shot on Sept. 6, 1901, Vice President Teddy Roosevelt became the youngest president -- just 42 years old.
It wasn't easy adjusting to being the first lady, Edith says. But after having tea with her, you know her well enough to know she'll do just fine.
-- Amy Scherzer can be reached at 226-3332 or scherzer@sptimes.com .
Upstairs/Downstairs runs from 2 to 2:35 p.m. Sundays at the Henry B. Plant Museum, 401 W. Kennedy Blvd. Free admission and parking. For a schedule of performances, call 254-1891.