The Bingham Family has been a staunch supporter of Actors Theatre from its beginning. Barry Bingham Jr. served as vice president of the board the year Actors Theatre was formed and for the next 35 years.

Known for a love of the arts, the Bingham family contributed generously through several generations to a variety of projects benefiting Kentuckians, including gifts to capital campaigns and annual operating costs. Barry Sr. and Mary Bingham established a special Shakespeare Endowment which enables Actors Theatre to mount a Shakespearean play every two or three years.

So it was fitting that when the third performing space was added to Actors Theatre’s complex in 1994, it would be named after the illustrious family that so generously supported us for so long. The following family members have especially close ties to Actors Theatre:

Barry Bingham Sr. oversaw a media empire in Kentucky until 1986 that included the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times Co., WHAS television and radio stations, large printer Standard Gravure Corporation and other small firms. The Washington Post Co. chairwoman Katherine Graham called him "one of the most high-minded, able and dedicated people I knew. He ran a paper that was a model for the industry. Together with his wife, Mary, he was a true public servant in his community and in his country." NBC television commentator John Chancellor said he was "one of the class acts of American journalism – an executive who cared deeply about responsibility to readers." Mr. Bingham gave generously of his time and financial resources to education, mental health, civil rights, politics and humanitarian causes. He arned two Bronze Stars in the Navy during World War II and spent a year in Europe as Marshall Plan administrator. His many awards included appointments as Commandeur, Legion of Honor, from the French government, and honorary commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II. In 1954, he initiated the annual Crusade for Children "to benefit children to whom nature has not been very kind." His father, Judge Worth Bingham, was named as Ambassador to the Court of St. James by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Presidents Kennedy and Carter both approached Barry Bingham Sr. about diplomatic posts but he turned them down, preferring to tend to Louisville and his media interests. He died in August 1988 at age 82.

Mary Bingham was born Mary Caperton in 1904 in Richmond. As a young woman, she acted with Richmond’s Little Theater and was involved in collegiate dramatics while attending Radcliffe College as a classics major. Following her marriage, she was a generous supporter of the arts and of educational social programs. She was a strong environmentalist and avid supporter of the Louisville Free Public Library, leading a drive to send bookmobiles to rural Kentucky. She was also a force at the Courier-Journal. She was vice president, director and wrote editorials while her husband was overseas during World War II. For 26 years, until 1968, she was the editor of the book review section. Mrs. Bingham died in April 1995 at a dinner honoring her achievements as a philanthropist and civic leader. In the part of her talk that remained undelivered, she quoted Pericles as saying that an Athenian "who did not acquaint himself with and took no part in public affairs was regarded not as unambitious, but as a man of no consequence whatever."

Barry Bingham Jr. was born in Louisville in 1933. After graduating from Harvard in 1956, he served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps and was assigned to the Third Marine Regiment on Okinawa. After various summer jobs with the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, and a brief assignment with WHAS, he went to work for CBS in New York, later joining the News Department of NBC, and was later transferred to their Washington bureau to conduct research and field production of documentaries, including The River Nile and Shakespeare: Soul of an Age. From 1971 until 1986, he was editor and publisher of the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, vice-chairman of the board of WHAS Incorporated and Standard Gravure Corporation All of the companies were sold in 1986. Inheriting his parents love of the arts and community service, Barry served as president of the boards of Actors Theatre, the Louisville Orchestra, the Fund for the Arts and the Bernheim Forest Foundation. He also served on the Board of Overseers at the University of Louisville and the Smithsonian Institution. He is formerly a member of the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Nature Conservancy, Kentucky Opera, African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, Berea College, Bingham Child Guidance Center, the Fund for the Arts, Governor’s Scholars Program, Harvard Alumni, International Center for Journalists Advisory Board, J. Graham Brown Cancer Center, Jefferson Club, Jewish Hospital, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Kentucky Higher Education Nominating Committee, Louisville Ballet, Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Louisville Rowing Club, Leadership Louisville, Main Street Association, St. Francis in the Fields Church Vestry and the WHAS Crusade for Children. At Actors Theatre he has served at various times as Board President and Chairman of the Capital Campaign in 1994 to oversee the completion of a $12 million expansion and renovation that included an additional 318-seat performing space, expanded lobbies, restrooms and box office, plus a 400-space, nine-level parking garage, as well as serving on every capital campaign in the theatre’s history. Barry is a talented photographer and an exhibit of some of his photos was held at Actors Theatre in November 2005.

Edith Stenhouse Bingham was born in Washington, D.C. in 1933 and graduated from Smith College. A life-long ardent preservationist, Edie has lobbied for preservation-minded town planning and development in Louisville, led efforts to preserve the historic Brennan House, and chaired an advisory committee and donated funds to the Shaker Museum at South Union. She also donated funds for the preservation of Pope Villa, a home designed by noted architect Benjamin Latrobe and an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures, a public-private partnership between the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust. She has donated to and is chairing an advisory committee dedicated to establishing the University of Kentucky College of Architecture Historic Preservation Masters Program. She is also a trustee of Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, serves on the Board of Preservation Kentucky, Kentucky Smart Growth Coalition, and on the Advisory Boards of the Brennan House, Incorporated and Shaker Museum at South Union. She also serves on the Portland Wharf Task Force, on the Architectural Review of the Louisville Landmarks Commission and as chairwoman and Projects Chair of Glenview Garden Club. Previous Boards and Committee service includes Christ Church Cathedral Capital Campaign & Design Review, Cathedral of the Assumption Design Review, St. George’s Episcopal Mission, Smith College, Preservation Alliance, the Filson Club Historical Society, Center for Women and Families, Junior Art Gallery, Council on Peacemaking, Kentucky Heritage Council and as the Kentucky Representative for Washington National Cathedral. She has garnered numerous awards for her work in preservation that include the National Trust for life time work in preservation, the Louisville Historical League Founder’s Award, the Kentucky Heritage Council’s Ida Lee Willis Award, the Blue Grass Trust’s Lucy Graves Advocates for Preservation Award and the Glenview Garden Club’s Medal of Merit for civic contributions, all in 1999. The most recent award, River Fields Land Heroes Award, was presented in 2005.

Eleanor Bingham Miller currently serves as producing partner of Skinner & Company, which produces documentaries, and as president of Cumberland Gap Productions, which provides funding and creative assistance to media projects. These include feature films (House of Usher, Keep Your Distance, Paper Cut, Star Maps and Once Around), documentaries (The Butterfly Trees and Out of the Past), and audio essays (This I Believe for NPR). She is also a majority partner with her husband in the development of Waterfront Park Place, a luxury high-rise condominium residence at Waterfront Park. She is a sponsor and starting founder of The Alliance for American Quilts. She was sponsor of a French exhibition of historical patchwork quilts in the hexagon pattern from nine countries in the Western world from the early 1800s to 1930s in 2003. Previously, she worked in Los Angeles and New York on documentaries for PBS and local cable channels, and in Aspen on a community-based radio program. She was director of special projects, and then director of corporate services for WHAS television and created the public affairs show, Louisville Tonight Live. From 1980 to 1984, she was co-producer of The Olmsted Festival, a three-part salute to Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), the founder of American landscape architecture and the nation’s foremost park designer.

Rowland Miller was born in Louisville in 1951 and received a degree in architecture from Tulane University in 1978. Active in the redevelopment and growth of downtown Louisville since 1985, Rowland has maintained ownership, managed the renovation of and overseen the daily management of projects such as the buildings of 635-637 West Main Street as well as the Independence Building located at 137 West Muhammad Ali Boulevard. As president of Mason Lane LLC, Rowland maintains ownership, renovation and management of the Skylight Center in Goshen, and ownership and management of Mason Lane Farm. Rowland balances operations and ownership of Harrods Creek Farm and Harrods Creek Stables. Committed to giving back to the community, Rowland serves on numerous boards, including St. Francis High School, the Standiford Art Foundation, the Creasey Mahan Nature Center and as treasurer for the Kentucky Center for the Arts Foundation. He is on the building committees of the Speed Art Museum, Muhammad Ali Center, Louisville Olmstead Conservancy and the Kentucky Center for the Arts.

Sallie Bingham A novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer, Sallie lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was 22 when her first novel, After Such Knowledge, was published in 1961. She later published four collections of short stories, several of which were included in Best American Short Stories and two O’Henry Collections (1964 and 1966). Additional novels include Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir, Small Victories, Matron of Honor, Straight Man and Upstate. Three of Sallie’s plays have been presented at Actors Theatre: The Act, In the Yurt and Couvade. Other plays include: Milk of Paradise and Paducah, produced by Women’s Project and Productions, Hopscotch, The Awakening and Piggyback, produced by Horse Cave Theatre, Kentucky, and In the Presence produced at Mill Mountain Theatre in Virginia, Goucher College in Maryland and St. Edwards College in Texas. Her most recent play, Treason, based on the life of poet Ezra Pound, will premiere at New York’s Perry Street Theatre. In addition to writing, Sallie has founded several organizations devoted to the work of women artists: the Kentucky Foundation for Women; the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City, and the Sallie Bingham Archives for Women’s Papers at Duke University. Sallie maintains that her writing has been greatly influenced by family tales of a mischievous black-suited monkey named Parpeetus that her grandfather owned.

— Trish Pugh Jones