Starlighters II theater celebrating 50th anniversary

When the theater bug bites, most people just audition for a play. Not Ron Ketelsen. His hometown of Monticello didn’t have a community theater, so he started one — when he was just 16 years old.

A high school student, Ketelsen was “mesmerized” by a production of “Oklahoma!” he saw at Dubuque’s community theater. He had gone there with Monticello teacher Emil Prull, and told The Gazette he couldn’t stop talking about it all the way home.

He knew he wanted to be in that show someday, but without a place to stage it, that would be a dream he would just have to make true. So he convinced Prull and another educator, Bob Furino, to join forces and get one up and running.

Since a short-lived Starlighters group operated from 1952 to 1957, the new troupe became Starlighters II, established in the spring of 1974. Their first event was three one-act plays, in 1975.

Fifty years later, Starlighters II is going strong, with a renewed commitment building on the momentum of the milestone anniversary. And staging three one-act plays July 27 and 28, including “Sparkin,” from the inaugural season.

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Ketelsen’s wish to be in “Oklahoma!” came true in 1986, when he played Curly at Starlighters II. After years of directing and acting in the troupe’s shows, he branched out to being involved in other area theaters, until moving to California in 1999. He stayed there 16 years, then relocated to Sharon Springs, N.Y., where he currently resides.

Now 66, he will be back home for the Starlighters II golden gala Aug. 10 at the Monticello Eagles Club. He’s working on a history book for the event, which is another monumental undertaking. He’s no stranger to that, after spending the past decade renovating a historic hotel in Sharon Springs, and now working on the town’s history museum.

Mary Sue Vernon, 63, who lives near Stone City, was one of the early actors and volunteers with Starlighters II. She pulled back in the 1990s because of work and shuttling her kids to their activities. She eventually made her way back, and not only serves on the board of directors, but is knee-deep in heading up the anniversary celebration.

Her now-adult daughter, Rebecca Vernon, is helping, as well, tackling the daunting task of organizing show photos and candid shots from throughout the 50 years, which had been scattered from their original albums. Laying them out in her mom’s basement, Rebecca put them back in order according to seasons, and created a digital video of the cast photos.

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New generation

Aimee Clemmons, 31, of Monticello, grew up in Starlighters II, hanging out there when her mother, Diana Jones, was performing. She credits Furino with getting them both involved in the troupe. It became a family affair, with her father and her late brother involved there.

She also met her husband, Steve Clemmons, on Sept. 18, 2016, when they were cast as the leading love interests in “Miracle on 34th Street.” Their theatrical miracle came full circle, when they married Sept. 18, 2021.

Clemmons is delighted to see the resurgence in the family feel of the theater in general, which she said waned a bit after the troupe moved from its first dedicated space in Anamosa to a larger renovated space just up the street in 2014, opening with George Bernard Shaw’s play, “The Devil's Disciple.”

The troupe had been alternating between performances in Monticello and Anamosa schools and other sites since 1975, and in 1988, purchased and turned a former Anamosa hardware store into a theater space. Some audience members had to look around load-bearing posts to see the action onstage, but it was home for the volunteer actors, crews, students and behind-the-scenes workers.

Clemmons loved it there.

“It just felt so cozy and warm and like a magical place,” she said. “I loved running around upstairs and sifting through the costume and the props room. It was like a fairyland at the old building. And when we moved to the new building, it didn’t have any of that. It was like this sterile doctor’s office feeling. I never got that warm feeling about it.”

That all changed about three or four years ago, she said, when they started talking about making the lobby a more welcoming place, and putting up pieces of the troupe’s history on the walls. Patrons could look for friends, family and people they recognized — including a couple of town mayors — who had been in Starlighters II shows.

“When kids came to camp recently, there was a dad that said, ‘Hey, kids, here’s a picture of me in this show.’ They all were gathering around and all excited — they had never seen a picture of their dad in a show. That made me feel so good, that history is back in our theater and up for everybody to see,” Clemmons said. “And so, now that warm, magical feeling has returned.”

The theater attracts performers and audiences from surrounding counties and cities, including Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Still, recruiting volunteers remains a top priority and concern. Clemmons noted Starlighters II has about 30 core volunteers, with more coming in to help usher or otherwise work on shows. Sign-up sheets are posted in the lobby, and more information is available online, at starlighters.org/volunteer.

Clemmons wears nearly every volunteer hat imaginable, from actor and director to board member, marketing chair, box office and costuming crews. Her husband is heavily involved, too, heading up the artistic committee, directing, acting and working on scenery. Both also are involved with the Junior Starlighters program, introducing the next generation of theater makers and patrons to the realm through classes and camps.

Nurturing talent

Calling it her “home away from home,” Clemmons said Starlighters II “is a place to leave reality behind, and be free to be whoever you want to be,” at any age. She especially wants kids to discover that, too.

“Without our young people, we can’t really look at the future and see where we’re heading,” she said. “Our young people are the future of Starlighters. And so I hope through establishing a bigger, better Junior Starlighters program, we are able to create a bigger, better, more successful Starlighters as a whole.

“With more actors, more directors, more people who are doing tech stuff, and more volunteers, I see that Starlighters is going to be around for at least another 50 years. That is my hope,” Clemmons said, “and I think that it comes from passing along all of these things to our young people.”

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Mary Sue Vernon is proud of the way they’ve nurtured talent over the years, onstage, behind the scenes and as playwrights, like Shawn Carr of Cascade, who in August 2022 debuted his original script, “Lost Memories,” looking at dementia’s effects on patients, family and friends.

“There’s so many people who not only grew up in our area but got their start in theater — kind of got their feet wet — at Starlighters in our small little venue,” she said. “It’s not so much tight-knit, because we have new people all the time and from all over. But we give people a start, and then they have gone on, as people do.

“Young people grow up and they go off and they seek their fortunes, and they have continued that love of theater, wherever they’re at. And I think that was one of the aspirations of Bob Furino — to launch people into the world to be successful in whatever they chose to do. But also just to love theater and continue doing it if that’s their passion,” Vernon said.

“And I think we can take note of time and time again when Starlighters has been effective at that mission — building people up and then letting them go to do great things elsewhere,” she said. “Some have stayed and some have gone, and it’s a wonderful legacy.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com