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Dan's first job, with the Fish Commission, brought him to Clinton County in 1956. He moved into a farmhouse across a country lane from a dilapidated old dairy barn and it was here that Dan's aptitude and love for both science and the arts merged and melded. "The creative process in science and the creative process in art are absolutely identical in all ways. There's different terminology put on what you do but you're doing the same creative thing. It has to do with the philosophical, the soul part of man..."
In October, 1956, with the assistance of Robert Johnston, professor of art at Lock Haven State College, Millbrook Art Gallery was opened in the farmhouse and the Millbrook Plan was formulated. By 1961, the members of the plan had been leasing space from the dairy barn next door for art shows and classroom space for some time. One Friday night that summer, in the early hours of the morning, Dan was with his friend, Pete Gstalter, a Williamsport artist, in what is now the tunnel back to the playhouse kitchen. The two of them were searching for "found" items to use in making "junk sculptures." Dan told Pete of his plan to make this old barn they were in would make a dandy space for a live theatre; by morning it had been decided that Pete would come live in Dan's home and run the gallery for a year, freeing Dan's time to devote to the foundation of a live theatre in the barn. The barn's owners, Louis Winner and Joseph Bechdel, were generous in accommodating this plan, and Robert O'Conner, a lawyer, began organizing the idea formally by initiating the paperwork to form a corporation.
While there was again much skepticism about this plan of Dan's, the people of Clinton County proved that they liked the idea, and they wanted a theatre. Typically, when asked about the beginnings of Millbrook Playhouse, Dan is anxious to credit the many people who were inspired by, and who improved upon, his idea: "Dick Lipez, Slim Bossert, Jerry Schaitkin, John Akeley, Chuck Stein, Dick Edmonston, Bruce Bechdel, the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Lambda Chi boys from Lock Haven State, the Lock Haven and Mill Hall fire companies..." Slowly, the barn was transformed, a board of directors was appointed, and a play performed on the stage - Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn - in the summer of 1963.
Thirty-four years ago, from the idea and dedication of one man, Daniel G. Reinhold, Millbrook Playhouse began. He is the force behind the hundreds of plays that have been produced on Millbrook's stages, the hours and hours of pleasure of thousands of people.
We acknowledge his vision, and thank him for sharing it with us, so that together we could build the playhouse of which he dreamed.
"Every theatre, play or production begins as one man's idea."
So says Stephen Langley, author of Theatre Management in America; using Langley's premise, Millbrook Playhouse is indisputably the brainchild of Daniel G. Reinhold.
Dan was born in Philadelphia, and grew up in Allentown, PA.
His formal education began with his apprenticeship to a silversmith. This work led Dan to take an interest in gunsmith, and to start developing innovative tools for himself and others who worked in these trades.
The Dreamer
by: Rose Ann Yannarella
Some men dream of fortune and some men dream of fame.
Some envision big marquees with lights around their name.
Some men go to great extremes to make their own star shine.
But one man had a dream, that has stood the test of time.
He thought about this vision and he knew the plan was good.
To build a summer theater where just a barn had stood.
Soon others joined the dreamer and they too felt the need.
To make the dream reality and all strove to succeed.
With hard work and persistence the dream began to grow.
The result of that dream, is the Millbrook that we know.
A professional live theater doing shows each summer season.
Now in it's thirty-fourth year and one mans' dream, the reason.
Well some men never live their dreams, some would never see.
A stage and lights and players where a dairy used to be.
The community is richer, for the dream now turned to gold.
And the man with the vision is, the dreamer, Dan Reinhold.
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