SULLIVAN - When people tell Nancy Burcham they've read her book and then they begin sharing memories that go along with the book's topic, that makes her happy.

"I love seeing those memories come up," said the rural Sullivan woman.

Q: Anyone living in Central Illinois can almost guess the subject from the title of your book.

"Broadway in the Corn" is the story of Little Theatre on the Square's 50 years of surprising, delighting and entertaining the world with its fare.

"I saw the beginning of the Little Theatre," said Burcham, "and I saw how it changed the community."

Though at the time she didn't know Guy Little Jr. (the group's founder) personally, she knew family members. Backers wondered, she said, how such a venture could make it, how it would succeed.

"We've always known him," she said people would say. "Is it worth the $2.80 ticket to go?"

When Little began the theater, there were less than 4,000 people in Sullivan. He rented a movie theater and began the productions there, she recalled, with the opening performance on the Fourth of July. That turned out to be somewhat of a poor choice since Sullivan has a long-standing and well-attended Fourth of July celebration. Little just rolled with the punches, she continued, and took the actors to the park to parade among the people.

"It took five or six years before people were up in arms about 'their' theater not getting a good review."

Q: This book marks the theater's 50 years but was another planned earlier?

At the quarter century mark, Jane Krows, then doing public relations for the theater, planned a book but it never made it to publication when the company scheduled to publish it folded.

"Jane Krows was my inspiration. That's what started me writing. Jane Krows gave me her material that she had," continued Burcham.

So Burcham used those resources for this book as well as articles written for 35th anniversary and others down through the years. She also visited with Jibby's - the Sardi's of Sullivan where the stars gathered and crowds followed them after the shows. That's where Pat O'Brien recited his Knute Rockne speech (from the movie "Knute Rockne All American.")

Q: Can you tell us some tidbits from the book?

"Guy and Inis Little, Guy Little Jr., they were wonderful. They worked day and night, year in, year out.

"They called themselves the producers of the producer," said Burcham. Inis, a drama and English teacher, even performed on stage.

Back in the day, "Hair" raised more than a few eyebrows when it was staged but the theater came back with "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Godspell" and "Jesus Christ Superstar."

"If anything, it was wonderful what Guy Little started," Burcham said. "It became a part a part of our lives, even though it wasn't a part of our lives."

She believes the theater is celebrating its 50th year because of Sullivan and the surrounding area and the people who stepped up.

Q: And is this your first - or last venture - into authoring a book?

In her first book, "Everything Happens with Kids," she even used real names. It's biographical in nature and stresses that you must laugh at life and with life or it's hard. She also has a couple of books geared to the junior high school age child and a fictional romance novel.

And the future?

"I have a lot of unpublished material, but I'm just so glad to get this published," her voice trailed off.

Arlene Mannlein can be reached at amannlein@herald-review.com or at 421-6976.

About the book

TITLE: "Broadway in the Corn: Fifty Golden Years" by Nancy Burcham

TYPE: paperback, 219 pages

ISBN-10: 1424184029

ISBN-13: 978-1424184026

PUBLISHER: PublishAmerica (July 30, 2007)

LIST PRICE: $16.95 to $19.95 plus shipping costs

AVAILABLE: Waldenbooks, Forsyth; Hagen's Family Pharmacy, The Coffee Bean/Images, Sullivan; publishamerica.com; amazon.com; barnesandnoble.com; or purchase directly from Burcham by sending $22 to covers cost plus shipping and handling to R.R. #2 Box 73, Sullivan, IL 61951.