Cross and Sword made The Amp possible
June 27 marks the 60th anniversary of the production and the venue
June 27 marks the 60th anniversary of the opening night of Florida’s Official State Play, Cross and Sword. For some it is a fond memory. For others it is something they heard about as a vague historical reference. For most it is a lost piece of St. Augustine’s cultural past they know nothing about.
Cross and Sword is a play about St. Augustine’s founding originally produced as part of the city’s 450th anniversary in 1965 and was performed every summer for 32 years. Each season ran six nights a week for 10 weeks from mid-June until the first weekend in September. The production was staged in an outdoor theater built specifically for the play and located on the site of the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. Had it not been for Cross and Sword back then, The Amp would not be here today.
Cross and Sword’s roots stretch back seven years before the year of the city’s quincentennial when a group of business leaders came together and formed the Saint Augustine 400th Anniversary, Inc. Soon it was decided that the commemoration should include an original, historical, outdoor drama, staged during the summer in an outdoor amphitheater. Other cities had done it; why not St. Augustine? But first, there needed to be a play and a place for the play to be performed.
For the play, there was an obvious choice for creator: Paul Green, the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and creator of the ”symphonic drama” genre. These historical productions were something of a rage at the time, especially as tourist attractions. Staged in a large outdoor theater, usually on the site of the historical events depicted, these large scale productions included drama and comedy, song and dance. In his career, Green authored 17 symphonic dramas; the first and most famous is The Lost Colony which opened in 1937 which is still performed each summer.
With the play’s author secured, there needed to be a place for it to be staged. At that time, St. Augustine had no theater space that would be adequate, so one would have to be built. The organizers reached out to the State of Florida and obtained a lease for a portion of the decade old Anastasia State Park that fronted Highway A1A. Its untouched, coastal hammock environment was the perfect backdrop for the play’s setting, the Florida wilderness, and an ideal location for its amphitheater.
Funding for the facility came through a host of private donations in the form of $1,000 indebted certificates, civic clubs’ contributions, and support from the City of St. Augustine and St. Johns County governments. Seating to accommodate an audience of 2,000 came from the recently demolished Polo Grounds ballpark in New York City identified by the NY lettering on the end of each aisle seat.
Cross and Sword’s schedule took advantage of the summer tourist season common at the time. The business community embraced the production with hotels and motels selling tickets at check-in and restaurants accommodating those needing to make it to the play’s 8:15pm start. Local advertising was everywhere and there was widespread regional marketing through magazines, newspapers, radio and television. A publicity boost came in 1973 when Cross and Sword was designated as Florida’s Official State Play, a designation it retains today.
The cast on opening night included over 50 roles, original songs for the 20 member choir, and an equal number of dancers performing tightly choreographed pieces. Some of the cast were St. Augustine residents with generations of ancestors from the area, others were university theater students looking for experience, while others were aspiring performers who had auditioned at cattle calls attended by directors from myriad regional productions. In addition, there was the front office and management team, the dozens who worked the concession stand and gift shop, ushers who sold souvenir programs, and the production staff responsible for lighting, sound, hundreds of 16th Century authentic costumes and props from rosaries and tools to furniture, swords, a working cannon and a live donkey.
Cross and Sword was a big deal in St. Augustine of the mid-1960s.
Through its first decade the production continued to be the city’s biggest cultural offering during the summer tourist season and continued into the mid-1970s with the show averaging over 500 attendees each night through its 65 performances.
But by the late mid-1980’s staging the play became more and more challenging. Big, lavish historical pageantry did not have the same draw as it had years earlier for tourists whose tastes in entertainment had changed. The production was growing more expensive, often having to rely on grants from the State of Florida to meet rising costs in personnel, facility repairs, and marketing. And there were changes in the nature of tourism. There was the new draw of Central Florida’s attractions and interstates made it easier to go farther faster, often bypassing communities whose attractions depended on a US highway through town. Into its third decade it had become evident that the production was no longer viable.
When the cast of the 1996 production took its final bow on closing night, they did not know it would be the play’s final curtain call. In early 1997 the Cross and Sword, Inc. board of directors decided to move the play into hiatus where it remains. But even without the play, the St. Augustine Amphitheatre remained open.
With one employee managing the facility, booking continued in spite of the facility’s teetering infrastructure. Rentals were accepted for an array of events including concerts and theatrical productions, festivals and markets, and St. Johns County through its Tourist Development Council assisted with utility costs. Support for the theater’s programming was sufficient to just barely get by. The community saw the facility as a valuable cultural asset even in its tired state, and did not want it to go completely dark, forever.
The comeback began in 1999, when Cross and Sword, Inc. relinquished its lease with the State of Florida and the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners stepped in, took over the lease, and began a multi-million dollar building project. In September 2007, over four decades after its first opening night, a new St. Augustine Amphitheatre opened on the footprint of the original theatre, and since then has become an award winning premier venue of live entertainment, markets and festivals known and respected worldwide. Cross and Sword is gone, but its legacy, the very property where it sat, made The Amp possible.
One of the tenets of historic preservation is adaptive reuse, that is finding a way to apply a current use to a historic feature so as to preserve it and continue its use. The amphitheater that opened in 1965 could not be preserved, but the use of the site has been preserved. It remains a place where people gather for the thrill of live entertainment, outdoors, in a rich Florida environment.
June 27 mark’s the 60th anniversary of the debut of Cross and Sword and of the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. May The Amp last another sixty years.