History and About the Follies

   Truckee Follies 

Right around 1981 (?) Jenna (? Gina? Jana?) Was the Manager of the hotel, had some theatrical experience & background. She suggested a variety show for the business community as a fundraiser. Larry Lewis was the president of the TDMA at the time. Bob & Marylou Herhusky wrote scripts, music & the program, which right from the beginning was a great source of revenue. All done & created by volunteers. The show was always held the “old” rec center. Was originally a yearly show for the first maybe 6 years. Then switched to every other year due to the amount of energy that is needed to put the show together. Things progressed; lights & sound got bigger & better. Music was originally canned however Tom Albright started playing piano. Next came real bands. Pam Krone painted the backdrop still used today sometime when the show premiered. $ raised by the show then & now is used for primarily the same purpose, to help beautify the downtown area by in the beginning helping to pay for the parking lot next to the fire station, keeping the streetlights on, supporting the children’s Christmas celebration, Santa, snow shoveling, sidewalk sweeping, clearing the back alleyway, and now pays for two $1000 high school scholarships. 

Historically there have been some shouts to sue the follies over either ads in the program or how local characters have been portrayed. Once a sticker had to be placed on an ad the purchaser thought was too outrageous. This actually backfired, most people took the sticker off to see what was underneath making the ad the most popular in the program! It has been said there is 1 divorce & 1 unplanned pregnancy per show. There is no information to neither confirm nor deny this rumor.