Working as a designer while her husband directed plays, she remembers moving the outdoor stage so the flooded Red Cedar River wouldn’t flow into the audience, and she remembers trying to convince actors not to step on the planted petunias — but for the last two years she hasn’t been involved in the work her husband started.

Instead she is retired, and spends time traveling as well as at home surrounded by memories of her husband, who died in February.

And Wednesday night, as the Summer Circle Theatre opens for about three weeks on a stage behind the Auditorium, actors and audience members alike can witness Frank Rutledge’s work.

“He left his legacy in this,” said Phil Ashbrook, a theater senior. “It’s like we’re carrying it forward for students, committing it to the memory of Frank.”

Summer Circle Theatre is a program of the MSU Department of Theatre. In a joint venture between faculty and students, said George Peters, chairman of the Department of Theatre, discussions and decisions about actors, parts and directors are made in early spring.

Students then spend six weeks in the early summer practicing, building sets and eventually performing a number of shows for free on a stage built behind the Auditorium.

A history

When Frank Rutledge started the program, shows were performed in a gymnasium, Gretel Rutledge said. A few years later, in 1969, the Department of Theatre went into enormous debt.

Gretel Rutledge said she and her husband decided to create a new, free theater to offer to the community. By 1970 the Summer Circle Free Festival performed three plays on a zero dollar budget, said Rutledge.

Now the Summer Circle Theatre is half-funded by the university and half by donations, Peters said. The numbers of shows performed range from three to five main stage pieces, touching on great works from “Macbeth” to novels adapted to plays like “Of Mice and Men” — two of Gretel Rutledge’s favorites.

Since Frank Rutledge founded the program, hundreds of plays have been produced, Peters said.

Gretel Rutledge said the program has lasted so long because of its benefit to the community. It thrives on being open, by offering free, outdoor summer performances, she said.

“It’s a wonderful way to experience a less traditional format of theater,” she said. “Community members are able to get involved as well as actors and friendships are built.”

“If people don’t like what they see, they can walk away,” she added.

But that was rarely the case. The crowds returned every year and relationships with the actors lasted over the years — partly because of Frank Rutledge, she said.

“Frank touched so many people’s lives through these shows,” Gretel Rutledge said. “At his funeral were people who had known him since 1959 and actors from the first summer production who came back.”

Aside from directing, Frank Rutledge was also a teacher. Kirk Domer, associate chair of the Department of Theatre, said his teaching style was very practiced and polished.

“He could do an entire lecture by rote, but he still kept these yellowed, old, out-of-date papers with him,” said Domer. “He was an academic, teaching me that ‘you know what you know, you do what you do, now here’s how you play ball.’”

Dave Wendelberger, a third-year graduate student in the Department of Theatre, was able to experience some of Frank Rutledge’s directing techniques in his four seasons with Summer Circle Theatre.

“He knew exactly what he wanted,” said Wendelberger. “He used to sit behind the director’s table, scowling the whole time. Then after a rehearsal he would jot down one or two words on a note and hand it to you, telling you if you did well or not.”

Wendelberger remembered working with Frank Rutledge on the show “Is he dead?” three years ago, and the presence he had.

“We all remember him and what he started here,” said Wendelberger.

Peters said Gretel Rutledge has started a memorial endowed scholarship for directing in Frank Rutledge’s name, and that there will be a page dedicated to the director and teacher in the 2008-09 brochure for the Department of Theatre.

The open curtain

Students have spent the past six weeks putting together the three main-stage plays and two late-night shows premiering in the next few weeks, carrying on Rutledge’s work.

With bleachers and a stage set up behind the Auditorium, actors make use of simple staging and painted backdrops as the setting to their different shows.

Ashbrook is starting his second year of performing with the Summer Circle Theatre. Acting as Frank, a special agent for the FBI in the spy-thriller “Red Herring,” Ashbrook and his five fellow cast members will perform for the first time this season on Wednesday.

Over the years, the Department of Theatre has viewed Summer Circle Theatre as a unique opportunity for students to get experience as part of a real company of actors, Peters said.

Students audition for the parts and, if cast, work six days a week on learning parts and organizing the shows.

“With only six weeks, students are working very intensively, devoted totally to this project,” Peters said. “It’s good experience, which may help them get a gig with another company later on.”

Time is key to the six young actors, Peters said. Along with designers and crew members, they make up this year’s 25-member student run group.

“We in the department are really just seeing that everything runs well,” Peters said. “As we are an educational program we want students to have a beneficial experience learning to adapt to roles in a relatively short time, acting despite limitations of stage space or time.” Wendelberger said the fast-paced atmosphere of summer theater is a benefit to the performers.

“Having little time encourages students to become professional,” Wendelberger said. “Students aren’t as worried about class, and can focus more on rehearsal and get more into it.”

With only six actors performing all the roles in the theater’s five works, Rob Roznowski, director of “Red Herring,” said students learn a lot through the experience.

“They have to switch gears so fast from serious plays to broad comedy,” said Roznowski, who also is an assistant theater professor and head of acting.

The passion

The theater is one of the best outreaches of department, and a tradition that will continue, Roznowski said.

“It allows students to feel and hear the energy of the audience,” Roznowski said. “And they learn to scream over planes, babies crying and swarms of mosquitos, too.”

Michelle Meredith, a theater junior, had her own motivation behind performing with the Summer Circle Theatre for the first time.

“This is the first opportunity I’ve had to get paid to do something I love,” Meredith said. “I wanted to stay in East Lansing, and this way I get to do shows and be with great people.”

She found preparing for shows to be hard work, she said.

“It’s harder than I anticipated, working Monday through Saturday for hours,” Meredith said. “It’s arduous, but the support of the dedicated and excited people make it worth it. We complain a lot, but I know when it’s over we won’t know what to do with ourselves.”

Despite hours of practice in the heat of the Auditorium’s basement, actors are positive about the group and excited about the upcoming outdoor shows, even as Rutledge’s absence is felt.

“Obviously it’s going to be different when the starter of something isn’t around anymore,” Ashbrook said. “But once you get into it full swing … it’s a phenomenal experience.”

Domer said that going through the department, he almost didn’t recognize it anymore.

“Without Frank we’ve lost the history. We no longer know what we used to be, but we’re still moving forward,” Domer said. “That’s scary, but that’s what Frank did, too — come in ready to change the world.”