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Players say farewell with a forma! portrait on the Pontalba balcony Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre was saying goodbye to its home in the Pontalba buii'.d-ing when this group posed for a portrait there in May 1922. Le Petit was an offshoot of the Drawing Room Players, organized eight or nine years earlier by Mrs. James Oscar Nixon and Mrs. Rhea Loeb Goldberg. The group consisted of about 20 members and the plays were performed in Mrs. Goldberg's home. In 1919, Le Petit rented, for $ 17 a month, the entire upper floor of the Pontalba building, which faces Jackson Square. This photograph was taken on the Pontalba balcony, according to Rosa Deutsch, a past president of Le Petit and daughter-in-law of Mrs. Goldberg. Standing are, i>om left, lawyer Lionel Adamj.' architect Richard Koch, Le Petit actress arid secretary Zillah Mendes Meyers, financier Harold W. Newman, actress and drama coach Jessie Tharp and LePe-tit treasurer He nry Garic Seated are, from left, cofounder Helen Pitkin Schertz, Le Petit president and cofounder Mrs. James Oscar Nixon, and Goldberg. Adams, incidentally, was president of the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra before it merged with the Philharmonic Society. He died in 1958. Goldberg was married to lawyer Abraham Goldberg, who died in 1925. She married Eberhard Deutsch in 1935. "This is the founding group/' says Deutsch, who has been an active member of Le Petit for 35 years. Deutsch adds that her mother-in-law, who died in 1963, 'acted in a lot of the plays and was very good.'' Deutsch says the group at the Pontalba "became so popular that they needed more space " Le Petit formally opened its new playhouse and present home at 616 St. Peter St. on Nov. 21, 1922. — By John Burke J *
New Orleans and Louisiana Document (020)