La Salle Music Theatre was started in 1962 by Dan Rodden, ’41. He founded the program to provide a place for young people to train in musical comedy, and it quickly became one of the most popular summer entertainments options in the greater Philadelphia region.

At its founding, La Salle’s Music Theatre was the only college-sponsored professional summer theatre in the U.S., and by its own account, it retained this distinction for more than twenty years. Another point of pride was that, while many musical theatre companies were run by volunteers, all of La Salle’s Summer Music Theatre members were salaried, from technical staff to performers.

From its initial production, Carousel, to its record yearly attendance in 1970, with 23,600 patrons attending Bitter Sweet and Man of La Mancha, La Salle’s Music Theatre thrived under the leadership of Dan Rodden. Even as his health declined, his passion for the Music Theatre program persisted. Once he stepped down from the Theatre, his work continued through the hands of Sidney J. MacLeod, Jr. and Bro. Gene Graham. Though the program had been immensely successful throughout the 1960s and 1970s, by the 1980s it faced rapidly increasing production costs and declining audience numbers. After 27 years and 52 productions, La Salle Music Theatre performed its final play, Good News!, in 1988.

Over the years, La Salle’s Music Theatre saw a number of entertainment industry professionals cross its stage. Notable names included Mary Lou (Cookie) Metzger, who was a feature soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show; Marcus Brown, who was company manager, captain, and lead dancer for The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show in Las Vegas; Dennis Cunningham, who was a drama critic for WCBS-TV in New York; and Pat Cronin, who appeared on TV shows, including All in the Family, Alice, and Two Close for Comfort.