Last updated on 2013.02.24
Rand Williams got his start as a gravedigger. Now he specializes in resurrection... of historic Spearfish properties. In 1995, he bought the old City Hall, which is now an office and apartment complex with the prettiest green space on Main Street. Last year he bought the old Spearfish High School.
Now he's bought the dormant Passion Play Amphitheatre. The Meiers and their buyer, Rand Williams, are keeping the sale price secret. Whatever he spent, Williams plans to spend another big chunk modernizing the site:
Williams said he plans to keep the property a performance, entertainment, and education venue, and plans upgrades that will include state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems, large video screens, and enhanced visitor amenities.
“There is a real economic opportunity here for our region,” Williams said in a prepared statement. “I want this facility to once again play an integral role in the community, as it did in the past. I understand how Spearfish people volunteered in the Passion Play for generations, and how they feel a sense of ownership in what happens here” [staff, "Former Passion Play Site Sells," Black Hills Pioneer, 2012.11.09].
Catch that, Madison? Economic opportunity in an arts facility? In its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, the Passion Play drew over 100,000 a summer. 100,000 people buy a lot of sandwiches and gasoline.
Williams is looking for ways to bring those sandwich-eaters and gas-guzzlers back to town. He tells the Pioneer that he will hold public meetings (!) to take suggestions on uses for the grounds. He says he won't restage the Passion Play itself (from the tone of the coverage, I get the impression the Meier family has trademarked Jesus), but Williams is thinking about sequels (The Adventures of Saint Paul? A Passage to India, starring Saint Thomas?).
Spearfish has a lot going for it. The purchase of the Passion Play Amphitheatre by a local developer keen on bringing outdoor performances back to that naturally splendid venue is one more great opportunity for the town.
Josef Meier, the name itself brings up memories of the distant past that are as interwoven in my life as the town of Spearfish, the Black Hills, and the creek that runs through that town. I was around him many times and only saw him maybe three or four times without makeup. There were so many sides to this man that it would be hard to just say xyz and let it go at that.
He could be compassionate although you had to be standing there to see it. He could be and was a tyrant. This you could see almost every night of the production. He was a community organizer, more on that later. And he was a user of people.
The success of the Passion Play was because of those volunteers that Williams mentioned. It could never happen today, "read that again" and it could never have happened except for the family of Meier. They aimed their ambition like a lazer in the night and they didn't let anything get in their road while they were doing it.
Meier was a combination of philosophies. He knew how to get at money just like Donald Trump, he was a master promoter like PT Barnum, and he knew how to use people like LBJ.
For example he knew that after the first couple of years his production was the biggest thing in western SD. He knew that for every advertising dollar he spent the town of Spearfish and the businesses that were there, and that state of South Dakota itself would spend ten times that for the privilege of taking the almighty tourist for everything they were worth.
He knew that with a mostly volunteer cast of hundreds he could get a lot done for very little money invested. From the crowds in the streets to the sheep herders, to the roman guards, those people showed up three nights a week to work for? Oh ya they worked so that they could get their names written down in a big old book that gave their churches credit for their services. I myself didnt have a church but I think at the time they probably put me down as a Catholic because that's what my eleven cousins were, and they all served the play. Does that sound like Donald Trump or what?
I'm sorry I got a little of track here but now I'm ready to get back on the road.
The play was successful because Spearfish was at that time a very small town. Everyone knew everyone else and their kids. It wasn't uncommon to see twenty kids riding ten different kinds of bikes around town at night without any thought of what might happen.
Days were spent playing along Spearfish Creek and it was common to go home wet at the end of the day. If I heard it once I heard it a hundred times when asked why are you wet. "I fell in the creek for a while."
There was more gravel then pavement, fewer places to eat, and more adults that gave a shit. There was less crime, less traffic, and the pace was definitely slower then it is today. I haven't looked at this but it seemed like the growth in population was in direct proportion to the demise of the play. The more people that moved there the less community involvement there was.
Its sad but a fact of life. The more people there are the more money needs to change hands for those people to feel comfortable with their lives.
I wish Williams all the luck in the world but asking the people of Speardog to come up with a plan to replace the play is like three people pissing into the wind and a fourth standing behind them watching, everyone's going to get wet, some more then others.
If I were him I might get out the old Ouija board, and ask Josef what he would do. After all the man who played Jesus should have some connections shouldn't he?
The Blindman
Property that sits on ground sacred to numerous tribes: nothing that the Yellowstone supervolcano won't fix.
Interesting, Bill.
You bring back memories.
We did get reward for volunteering. Unsweetened koolaid and stale rolls/pastries old enough the stores gave Josef the deal he couldn't refuse and us hungry kids lived for.
I will repeat this story of my only walk from the streets to Gogatha. You had to be above a certain height to be in that part of the play. I was not, but curious as to what went on up there. I slipped into the throng during my last performance and made it to the top. Not knowing my part on the hill, I wandered looking for a place to fit in. Just as suddenly a priest noticed me and hissed, "what's that little SOB doing up here" while grabbing me and shielding me from view of the audience.
That was the last time I played with the bad guys in the stinkin fake play. I think I was 7 or 8 and they weren't gonna fool this country boy again.
40 some years ago I was a soldier stationed in Germany. A German woman asked me where I was from and I said South Dakota. She said, "Oh, that's where they have the Passion Play. Later I learned there were many German admirers of the Spearfish Passion Play among ex-Nazi party people. I hadn't realized until then how anti-Semitic that play really was.