The Intersection of Music, Arts, and Theatre: A 120 Year Legacy

If these cupids could talk…
In a time when an activity such as “play-acting was considered daring if not downright sinful,” in a small southern town, the Körner family defied convention. [1] The Körner’s dedication to music and performing arts shaped not only the family but also influenced the construction of the Folly, with the creation of Cupid’s Park Theatre. In turn, the Folly became a home for the arts in Kernersville, bringing the community together around culture. Both Jule and Polly Alice dedicated themselves to cultivating and providing free access to the arts for the community with Körner’s Folly as an anchor.
While Jule Körner is known for his artistic flair and ingenious designs, an accomplished cellist, his wife Polly Alice, was no stranger to the arts. Polly Alice Masten Körner came from a southern, small-town life, (now present-day Winston-Salem). However, when she and her husband took trips to cities, though infrequent, the theaters delighted her, inciting an appreciation for performing arts.
Jule and Polly Alice passed their passions to their children, providing them music lessons. Gilmer received piano and violin lessons while Dore had piano and cello instructions. The siblings had to practice their instruments every morning for two hours before breakfast, no matter how cold or hot it was up in the “music room,” now the theatre.
All those years I availed myself of all the professional talent I could get in training the children.
– Polly Alice Körner in her memoir, I Remember [2]

Under the direction of the children’s music instructor, Professor Hobbs, Gilmer became a skilled violist. He played violin in the orchestra pit and was well known for his role as Napoleon for the Juvenile Lyceum’s plays.

Doré diligently practiced piano for two hours every morning. She became very involved with the Juvenile Lyceum, playing piano in the orchestra and acting in staged performances.
The Creation of the Kernersville Orchestra
One of the Körner’s first community-wide cultural projects was in 1894 with the creation of the Kernersville’s first musical organization, the Kernersville Orchestra, an impressive feat in the small town. Both Jule and Polly Alice recruited local talent and hired Professor Charles Brockman of the Brockman School of Music in Greensboro to instruct lessons and conduct the orchestra. Within the orchestra, Polly Alice played the cello while Jule’s brother Joseph Körner played the bass violin. Other instruments featured were piano, cornet, clarinet violins, and flutes. They met for weekly practices at the Folly. Instead of having to travel to larger cities via the train for music, the Körner’s brought an orchestra to the Kernersville community.
On April 16, 1894, the Kernersville Orchestra performed its concert to the public. The Kernersville News reviewed it positively,
Kernersville is proud of her orchestra and rejoices at the success of this entertainment and the rapid advancement being made in the line of music by so many of our citizens, some of whom, if not all, we hope to see rise high in the role of music. To Mr. J. Gilmer Kerner belongs the credit of the organization in our midst and to him are we largely indebted for this enjoyable evening, and the honor paid our town in having the talented Miss Leinbach and Professor Brockman visit us and delight our citizens with their talent, skill and ability. Success to Kernersville’s Orchestra.
Polly Alice intended to write about the Kernersville Orchestra, once remarking it was a “quite a story in itself” and she would write about it at another time. [3] However, her children noted in I Remember, published posthumously, “Whether or not Mama ever wrote this complete story of the Kernersville Orchestra is not known. If she did, the manuscript has not been found. It would make a very interesting story.” [4]
For a closer look at the Körner family’s instruments, click the images below:
The Juvenile Lyceum
As the orchestra’s success continued and the audience continued to grow, in 1896, Polly Alice began an even more industrious task of establishing a dramatics society for children, the Juvenile Lyceum, or Children’s Little Theatre.
Attentive to the education of her own children, Polly Alice wanted to provide cultural education to the local children. Consequently, Polly Alice wrote an invitation to send to the Kernersville children’s parents. Therein, she proposed a program where children could create and perform productions, including not only plays but also recitations, declamations, pantomimes, vocal and instrumental music, and more. The Lyceum would meet every other Friday evening, allowing the children to study performing arts at no charge.
The first meeting was held on April 3, 1896, at 6:30 p.m. at Korner’s Folly. A total of 42 children signed up. Composed of Kernersville children between the ages of 7 and 13. (Polly Alice specifically chose those ages, as she thought they would be better behaved and easier to teach), the Juvenile Lyceum officially began.
Polly Alice worked conscientiously to ensure that every child had a task, inspiring full participation. Some responsibilities included creating programs, assigning roles, and helping train other children. In 1897, Polly Alice reorganized the Juvenile Lyceum, including what she referred to as “only those children who had shown genuine interest, reliability, and dependability.” [5] She considered this a very serious endeavor and wanted the children to treat it as such.
Polly Alice once again hired Professor Charles Brockman as a music teacher. Together, she and Brockman taught piano, violin, and cello to the Körner children and their friends, to have a small orchestra ensemble to accompany the Juvenile Lyceum’s performances. While pioneering the Lyceum, Polly Alice also introduced home-made costumes, penciled eyebrows, and painted cheeks.

Polly Alice (crouched center) and cast in the Long Room.
While she purchased scripts, Polly Alice often rewrote and adapted them to their needs. She even wrote the original scripts herself, exploring current events, such as the Spanish-American War, the Audubon Society, and the recently founded American Red Cross.
Notably, Polly Alice recalled that “Dore was quite good. She seemed to have a flair for the dramatics and entered into her roles with the greatest enthusiasm.” [6] In fact, Doré became a playwright herself. When she was 12, Dore wrote her own play, persuading the Lyceum and even Jule to help her bring her show to life. Inspired by fairytales and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Dore’s imagination created a three-act play about the crowning of the Fairy Queen. Unfortunately, Dore’s script is now lost.
The Construction of Cupid’s Park Theatre
When the Juvenile Lyceum began in 1896, their fortnightly meetings took place in the Long Room and Reception Room They soon began to outgrow these spaces, necessitating a larger stage. Once known as the Billiards Room, used for dancing and recreation, Jule converted the top floor of Körner’s Folly into Cupid’s Park Theatre, aptly named for the cupid murals painted by Cesar Milch, the German-born artist who worked for Jule’s Reuben Rink Home Decorating & Furnishing Company.
For the performances, as an artist, Jule not only bought several sets of scenery from Chicago but painted many of the sets himself. He also used his creativity to engineer a special circular wooden rod that allowed the curtains to rise and fall for the stage, a difficulty with the peculiar shape of the ceiling. He also provided the performers with dressing rooms in the South Guest Room, building stairways from the third floor to the Long Room and to the South Guest Room.
For the audience, Jule supplied the room with 75 to 100 chairs, tightly squeezed together. As there was no electricity or gas in Kernersville, all of the lighting in Cupid’s Park came from kerosene lamps. [7]
With Jule in charge of the sets and Polly Alice in charge of costumes, local youth continued to perform here over several decades, with the entire community invited to attend these performances at no charge.

Jule and Polly Alice working together in Cupid’s Park Theatre in 1897.
The First Private Little Theatre in America
In the late 19th century, the theater began taking off, with performances produced across the country in big cities. However, in the 1910s and early 1920s, the grassroots Little Theater Movement exploded in the United States, which challenged commercial businesses, with a broader selection of themes and artistic liberties.
Initially thought to be the first private little theater in the South, following self-reporting surveys from amateur theater groups released after the Little Theatre movement; it was believed the Juvenile Lyceum was the first private theater in all of the United States. In a 1940 article, “First Little Theater, in The State magazine, Majel Ivey Seay described the Juvenile Lyceum was “the first complete Little Theater in America.”
Regardless of any distinction, what began as the Körner’s community project demonstrated a new tradition of amateur theaters that spawned an entire movement.

1947 article, “America’s First Little Theatre” about Cupid’s Park Theatre in the Journal and Sentinel.

1938 announcement for the opening of Körner’s Folly to the public.
After the deaths of Jule and Polly Alice, the Juvenile Lyceum became inactive. Remembering her mother’s work and the Little Theater fondly, in 1936 Doré wrote:
The Folly still stands four-square. For years no voices has [sic] spoken from its stage and the curtains are fading at the folds. The old piano under its canopy is mute. The cello has lost its strings. The violin has gone off with an expert tax lawyer, the heroine of the three-act play is busied as a politico farmwife. But the spirit of the Little Theatre shows bravely through the accumulation of cobwebs and dust. [8]
However, the curtains did not close on Cupid’s Park Theatre for good.
In 1938, the Kernersville Woman’s Club offered tours for the public for the first time, advertising the First Little Theatre, and even putting on a production.
In 1977, the theater was used for a production of the Importance of Being Earnest. After an interlude of disuse, Cupid’s Park was once again opened to the audience with the Kernersville Little Theater (KLT) 1982 performance of Angel Street. KLT continued to perform for years in Cupid’s Park Theatre.
Today, Cupid’s Park Theatre continues to host performances by local performing arts groups, as well as performances of The Körner Family Revue, a puppet show about the family history.
Cupid’s Park Through the Years
Restoration
During the Folly’s periods of disuse, Cupid’s Park Theatre suffered damage.
In 1972, the Körner’s Folly Inc. repaired the leaky roof that resulted in damage to the murals in Cupid’s Park Theatre. The organization called upon three graduates from the Central Institute of Restorers in Rome to restore Cesar Milch’s work. To avoid noticeable retouches, the Italian painters did not use chemically colored paints.

A newspaper article featuring the restoration of the murals in Cupid’s Park in the 1970s.
Polly Alice recalled the piano in Cupid’s Park.
It could not be brought up any stairs, so he [Jule] had to cut trap doors beneath to get it up there. I do not suppose it will ever come down again.
Nonetheless, the piano left the Folly in 2003 for the first time in over 100 years. Securing it in a specially built wooden crate, workers used a crane to lower the piano down the Theatre’s fire escape to transport to Tennessee for restoration. A few months later, the piano was returned to its home in Cupid’s Park, converted to a player piano.

The restored piano in Cupid’s Park Theatre today.

The piano being packed up for transportation in 2003.
As a part of the ongoing effort by the Körner’s Folly Foundation to restore the house museum one room at a time, Cupid’s Park Theatre underwent extensive restoration in 2017. Throughout the restoration process, the focus is on the house’s 1897-1905 appearance when the home was at the height of family activity — and the heyday of the Juvenile Lyceum.
To bring Cupid’s Park back to its original grandeur, workers first removed the modern elements added to the room over time. Next, they replicated and repaired missing or damaged woodwork, and refinished and cleaned architectural surfaces, such as the original wood floors.
The original light fixtures were upfitted for modern electric light bulbs to light the room. All of the original stage carpentry, including the unique semi-circular curved curtain rod, was repaired and re-hung, with the original curtains replicated. The murals were preserved as they exist today.
Through music lessons, set designs, and theatrics, the arts brought the Körners together as a family. Doré once wrote, “Cupid’s Park, with its stage setting was a success. It brought many things to many people, but it brought the greatest joy to its creators.” [9] All four family members were extremely active in the Juvenile Lyceum. In particular, Jule was supportive of his wife’s artistic ambitions. Remembering his mother’s work, Gilmer wrote, “My Dad often and energetically backed and supported Mama in every way.”
Their dedication to the Juvenile Lyceum shaped the Folly’s architecture as we know it today. From the Cupid’s Park Theatre at the very top to the small back staircases, and dressing rooms once used to provide costume changes, Jule Körner adapted the home to fit their performance needs.
Today, Körner’s Folly uniquely stands as the intersection of art, history, and theatre. Cupid’s Park Theatre endures proudly at the top of Körner’s Folly, a testament to the Körner’s work in the arts. Their work provided art, music, and theater to the Kernersville community, who may not have had the opportunity to experience it otherwise. Their impact extended beyond Kernersville, with the Juvenile Lyceum revolutionizing the idea of Little Theaters across the United States, exposing the country to the performing arts.
Sources
[1] “A First Little Theatre: A Tribute to My Mother,” Doré Körner Donnell, May 1936.
[2] “I Remember,” Polly Alice Masten Körner, 57.
[3] “A First Little Theatre: A Tribute to My Mother,” Doré Körner Donnell, May 1936.
[4] “I Remember,” 57.
[5] “I Remember,” 67.
[6] “I Remember,” 56.
[7] “I Remember,” 53.
[8] “A First Little Theatre: A Tribute to My Mother,” Doré Körner Donnell, May 1936.
[9] “A First Little Theatre: A Tribute to My Mother,” Doré Körner Donnell, May 1936.