Beginning as a humble vaudeville hall in the Skowhegan-Madison trolley park, Lakewood Theatre has graced the southwestern shore of Lake Wesserunsett in Madison, Maine, since the turn of the 20th century. Under the masterful guidance of Herbert L. Swett, a Bangor native and Bowdoin graduate, Lakewood eventually developed into a nationally renowned playhouse that was called the "Broadway in Maine" by the New York Times in its heyday, from 1925 until World War II. In the years following the war, Lakewood was operated by Swett's heirs and became a virtual who's who of both Broadway and Hollywood, until it nearly went dark in the early 1980s. Operating today as a nonprofit community theater, Lakewood is the official state theater of Maine and the oldest continually running summer theater in the country. Oby's debut history is the latest Maine book in the "Images of America" series by Arcadia Publishing. Oby has added fascinating narrative to her collection of 181 black and white photographs to tell the Lakewood's story from its start as a vaudeville playhouse in a ramshackle amusement park in 1898 to its present day prominence as a summer theatre center.As she reveals, the Lakewood hosted summer stock theater on the "straw-hat circuit" in the 1920s, with resident acting companies staying all summer at the theater's complex of cottages and dining hall. Pay for actors then was just $20 a week (less room and board). Between 1925 and 1941, plays and musicals were put on as auditions prior to moving to Broadway.Best are Oby's portrayals of famous actors who played at the Lakewood -- Humphrey Bogart in the 1930s before he became a Hollywood movie star, along with Groucho Marx, Ethel Barrymore, Dorothy Lamour, Sally Rand, Lloyd Bridges, Carol Burnett and Betty White. She also highlights locals like set-designer Charles Perkins (43 years) and treasurer Mildred Fogg (54 years) who never saw a complete play. Kennebec Journal A native of Skowhegan, Maine, Jenny Oby is a copywriter and history buff who has long collected Lakewood postcards. She has culled these rarely seen images from the theater's archives, conducting extensive original research from old playbills and newspapers to piece together the first pictorial history of the Lakewood Theatre Colony. She continues to collect Lakewood ephemera to advance her efforts in documenting the theater's intriguing history. Number of Pages: 128 Published By: Arcadia Publishing Imprint: Arcadia Publishing Series: Images of America Release Date: June 12, 2017 Location: Maine Illustration: Black and White ISBN: 9781467125949 Book Format: Hardcover