Emery Battis R.I.P.

Emery Battis (left) with Milo O'Shea in Blitzstein's Daarlin' Juno at Long Wharf in 1976. Photo courtesy of the Long Wharf Theatre.

Regional theater actor extraordinaire Emery Battis died this week in Massachusetts at the age of 96. He’d already been performing for over 30 years when the regional theater movement took hold in the late 1960s. Then he really got busy. New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre kept him active for over a decade, often in in large ensemble pieces such as David Rudkin’s Afore Night Come (a violent and controversial rural drama which had its U.S. premiere in New Haven in 1972), David Storey’s Changing Room (which had a 22-person all-male cast), the Chekhov anthology Troika, and Kaufman & Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You.

Battis was Carl Bolton, the builder given to “spells” in Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven. He was Boxer Daly in the Long Wharf’s regional revival of the musical Daarlin’ Juno, Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock.
Oh, and like a zillion other things. Seriously, a zillion.

He appeared in Long Wharf’s 1974 production of Peter Nichols’ The National Health which transferred to New York’s Circle in the Square theater, directed by Arvin Brown and also featuring such Long Wharf regulars as Joyce Ebert and William Swetland. (That dozens-strong cast also included a young Tazewell Thompson, who 30 years later would be the artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse for a time.)

Battis was also in rep companies at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater and Baltimore’s CenterStage. His best-known association was with the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. The Shakespeare Theatre’s artistic director, Michael Kahn cites a Battis improv in a Long Wharf show as the inspiration to lure the actor to Washington in the mid-1980s.

In honor of Emery Battis’ tireless service to the American theater, I am hereby reprinting a recipe he contributed to Long Wharf Theatre Cooks, a fundraising project published in 1976.

Lime Jello Supreme—Emery Battis

1 pkg. lime Jello
2 3 oz. pkgs. cream cheese
1 can crushed pineapple
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
½ cup chopped celery
½ pt. heavy or medium cream

Emery Battis was clearly a colorful, nutty guy. When you eat lime Jello with nuts in it, think of him.

Emery Battis as Martin Vanderfhoff in You Can't Take It With You at the Long Wharf. The production opened the 1971-72 season after having already traveled to Scotland as part of the Edinburgh Festival. Photo courtesy of Long Wharf Theatre.