Footprints of Pacifism - Lewis & Clark Digital Collections - Lewis ...

Kermit Sheets in Theater and Film — Case Four
The programs and advertisements shown here are samples
of the busy postwar life of Kermit Sheets in San Francisco
theater and film: A mailer for the plays Aria Da Capo (Edna
St. Vincent Millay), Don Perlimpin (Lorca) and Heartbreak House
(Shaw) playing in repertory in August and September 1947,
the three earliest Interplayers productions. Three programs
with Sheets as director, designer, or actor: Sartre’s No Exit
(July/August 1948); Broughton’s Fête Gala of poetry, theater
and film; Fanny’s First Play by Shaw (August/November
1951, the last production before the Interplayers split into
two companies and Broughton and Sheets left for Europe.All
these items were designed by Interplayers co-founder Adrian
Wilson, later one of America’s finest printers.
Also exhibited: titles and stills from two films, the second and
fourth of Broughton and Sheets’s Farallone Productions, both
starring Kermit Sheets: Loony Tom the Happy Lover (California
1951), and The Pleasure Garden (London 1953), winner of a
Cannes Festival award for poetic fantasy.
After his return from Europe, Sheets became managing director
of The Playhouse until the early 1960s, mounting many
successful productions, including Helen Adam’s long-running
San Francisco’s Burning (December 1961–June 1962) with music by Warner Jepson. In 1965 he married Jane Steckle,
who died in 1999. From 1970 to 1980 he was director of the Center at the Lighthouse for the Blind.
After retirement he spent much of his time writing and traveling with Jane. He died on April 6, 2006 in San Francisco.
Kemper Nomland’s Work After the War — Case Five
After the war Kemper Nomland returned to southern California where he and William Eshelman continued to issue
volumes of The Illiterati and publish works of poetry with the Untide Press imprint. Kemper also resumed his career
as an architect. Initially, he worked with his father Kemper Nomland, Sr. Among the Nomlands’ projects was the
design for Case Study House #10. The Case Study House project was an idea created by the founder of the Arts &
Architecture magazine who wanted to create modern homes for the booming post war housing market in California.
The Nomlands’ design for Case Study House #10 exhibited Kemper’s focus on simplicity and functionality.
After his marriage to Ella Kube, who taught psychology at Lewis & Clark College (1950-51), Nomland continued
to be a sought after Southern California architect. Notable among the homes and public buildings he designed was
a redesign of Moore Hall at UCLA. Nomland also continued to experiment with drawing, painting, and ceramics.
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