1971-1994: Wolf Trap National Park For The Performing Arts
As the founder of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Shouse helped lead its development into one of the most prominent performing arts venues in the Washington D.C. area from the beginning. During the construction of the Filene Center—named after Shouse's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Filene—in 1971, Shouse even visited and assisted workers on site, even offering sandwiches and other refreshments when possible. Shouse also helped design the Filene Center, working closely with renowned architects John H. MacFadyen and Edward F. Knowles to create a state-of-the-art venue that would still be able to "retain the unspoiled atmosphere of the setting.
In Wolf Trap's early years, Shouse also frequently traveled the world to scout talent and performers, including persuading the Chinese government to allow the Performing Arts Company of the People's Republic to perform at Wolf Trap in 1978.
In 1982, at age 85, Shouse led a rigorous effort to rebuild the Filene Center, Wolf Trap's main performing arts venue, after it was destroyed by a fire that April. In addition to helping convince the federal government to donate $9 million to the project, Shouse helped to raise an additional $15 million from other sources for the effort. While the new Filene Center would be completed and re-opened in 1984, Shouse also helped salvage the 1982 and 1983 seasons by leading the construction of the Meadow Center, an enormous tent where performances would take place during these two years.
In 1991, Shouse was reportedly close to breaking ties with Wolf Trap over a dispute relating to the park's 20th anniversary. In honor of the anniversary, Shouse planned to put on a television special to celebrate the occasion, a plan shut down by the Wolf Trap Foundation's executive committee due to budget constraints (although the special would be resurrected later that year). Nevertheless, Shouse didn't resign, and would stay with Wolf Trap until her death three years later.
On December 14, 1994, Shouse died of heart failure at her winter home in Naples, Florida on at the age of 98.
Read more about this topic: Catherine Filene Shouse
Famous quotes containing the words performing arts, wolf, trap, national, park, performing and/or arts:
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No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
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To be a comrade with the wolf and owl—
Necessity’s sharp pinch.”
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“Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the Park a-maying!”
—Unknown. Sister, Awake! (L. 9–12)
“And no one, it seemed, had had the presence of mind
To initiate proceedings or stop the wheel
From the number it was backing away from as it stopped:
It was performing prettily; the puncture stayed unseen....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“all the arts lose virtue
Against the essential reality
Of creatures going about their business among the equally
Earnest elements of nature.”
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