Memorial Structure

Named Building

Anti-Civil Rights

Stone, Fred

Fred Stone Theatre

The Fred Stone Theatre, constructed in 1926, was originally a local Baptist Church. The theatre was used until it was deemed a fire hazard in 1973 and torn down. In 1987, the Fred Stone Theatre was rebuilt on Chase Avenue, where it stood until it was torn down in 2018.

The Fred Stone Theatre was named for Broadway actor and Rollins honorary doctorate recipient Fred Stone. Stone was a minstrel and vaudeville performer famous for his comedy version of The Wizard of Oz. Prior to his experience of fame, Stone toured the country as part of a blackface comedy vaudeville duo called Montgomery and Stone. Through his time touring Stone befriended several other blackface comedy actors and eventually founded and led a white-only theatre fraternity known as the White Rats. After Stone gained popularity on Broadway, he became an outspoken detractor of anyone non-white working in the theatre world. He was also an advocate for the importance of blackface for comedy, writing in his autobiography, “In those days the best way to become a comedian was the road from black to white, that is, by way of blackface minstrelsy. It was the best school the beginner could find” (119).

Later in life Stone wrote an autobiography named "The Rolling Stone" in which he detailed his experiences in the White Rats and working with black people in the theatre; he did not shy away from the use of racial slurs. Stone’s brother-in-law was Rex Beach, the namesake for Rollins’ Rex Beach Hall.

The first building was a wooden structure with shingles and a porch; it did not appear as a theatre from the outside. A few years after its original construction, a scene shop was built. The building appeared as two separate buildings combined at the side.

The rebuilt theatre was a brick structure with seating for 174 people. Measuring 2,250 square feet, the building was originally a chapel that was converted into a theatre. Unlike the original Fred Stone theatre, this building had a raised stage.

Fred Stone Theatre

Hamilton Holt and Thaddeus Seymour

1926

1987

1973

2018

1890-1945: Era of the Lost Cause, Jim Crow legal segregation and discrimination, and organized anti-Black racism

1945-1976: Era of Civil Rights Movement and resistance to Civil Rights Movement

1976-2000: The Conservative Ascendancy and Retrenchment from Civil Rights Movement

2000-Present: Memorialization in the Era of Universities Studying Slavery and the Black Lives Matter Movement

Rollins College

Rollins College; Winter Park, Florida

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q373738

Stone, Fred. Rolling Stone. Whittlesey House McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc. 1945.

Orange Observer

JSTOR

Winter Park Magazine

Zhang, Wenxian, Enid Bano, and Charles Stevens. Rollins Architecture: A Pictorial Profile of Current and Historical Buildings. Olin Library, 2009.

Altered - Destroyed