“Papa Is All” is a folksy comedy about the Pennsylvania Dutch – amusing interludes – genuine entertainment.” – New York World Telegram.

“Papa Is All,” a play in three acts by Patterson Greene, has been chosen as the Little Theatre’s summer production. The play will be given in Shryock auditorium on July 21, at 8 p.m. under direction of Dr. Archibald McLeod. However the first appearance of the play will be presented at the Perry county fair in Pinckneyville on July 19. The play was first produced at the Guild Theatre, New York City, by the Theatre Guild on January 6, 1942.

“Papa Is All” is the story of a Pennsylvania Dutch mother, daughter, and son who rebel against a tyrannical father.

Mama and Papa Aukamp are of the Mennonite religion; the son and daughter, exercising the privelege that is part of the Mennonite faith, have not adopted it. They remain, in local parlance, “worldly,” until they feel the call to become “plain” or Mennonite.

Papa missuses the Mennonite tradition for the purpose of his own, suppressing, in the name of religion, the simple pleasures of recreations of every day life to which Mama, an authentic Mennonite, has no objection. Emma, the daughter, is in love with a surveyor who wants to marry her. The son, Jake, has a knack for mechanics, and wants to simplify farm life by the installation of machinery. Mama, though resigned to accepting Papa’s work as divinely sanctioned law, is wistful for the friendly association with neighbors that is a normal part of even the most orthodox Mennonite life. Papa opposes them, and keeps them in strict isolation, chiefly because Emma and Jake are good workers whom he would have to replace with hired help if they made their way into the broader activities of the world

Emma precipitates a crisis by stealing away, with Mama’s connivance, to attend a picture show in Lancaster in the company of her surveyor. Papa learns of this when Mrs. Yoder, a “worldly” neighbor who keeps the family supplied with local gossip, inadvertently reveals Emma’s secret. In a fury, Papa sets out to avenge what he calls an outrage to his family’s honor; he is determined to kill the surveyor. Jake, Emma’s staunch supporter, finds opportunity to hit Papa over the head with a monkey wrench and loads him into a coal car that is stopped at a high crossing – vaguely hoping that Papa will be carried far away and never return. He reports that Papa is dead; that a train wrecked the car in which Jake had been driving him.

The relief of the family is so great that Jake is reluctant to reveal the truth. Presently, of course, Papa returns. He brings word that he has shot the surveyor and he prepares to resume full domination of his family. But it develops that Papa, headlong, in his wrath, has wounded the wrong man, therby violating the law of the land, which is stronger than even Papa. The family, sanctioned by Mama, align themselves with the law of the land as represented by state trooper Brendle, and Papa is taken away just as the surveyor arrives at the door to pay his first call on Emma in her house.

Included in the cast are Hugo Gartner, senior from Carterville, as Papa; Margaret Hughes, senior from Benton, as Mama; Dorothy Helmer, junior from Du Quoin, as Emma; Roy Weshinskey, senior from Marissa, as Jake; Patte Maneese, junior from Herrin, as Mrs. Yoder; and John Douglas, freshman from Robinson, as State Trooper Brendle.