By Glen Macnow
Teddie and Jimmy Psitos
It’s impossible to list in one article all the roles and responsibilities Teddie and Jimmy Psitos have taken on at the Swarthmore Players Club over the years.
But we’ll try.
Actor. Music director. Lighting designer. Master carpenter. Group sales coordinator. Fundraiser. Tree planter.
For more than four decades, PCS’s pre-eminent power couple has helped – in ways huge and small – to guide hundreds of productions and off-stage efforts toward success. They are visible everywhere, in nearly every show. And their work behind the scenes may be even more valuable.
For their extraordinary efforts, Teddie and Jimmy will be recognized at the April 26th closing-night performance of “Rock of Ages,” (Teddie is music director for the show and Jimmy is master carpenter), when their name is added to the Wall of Honor. It’s a fitting tribute for two people who have given so much of their lives to this old building.
Shop manager. Director. Box office manager. Production committee chair. Governor. Lightbulb changer.
“This theater is unique,” says Teddie. “It has provided so much for me and my family over the years. I want to see it flourish. We have it all here – from the quality of casts and production teams, to an amazing costume floor, actual dressing rooms, a box office – amenities unheard of for community theater. This is professional theater. And the only way to make it work is to keep it going – help it flourish.”
Here’s a little of their backstory. They met at a Greek convention in Houston, and started dating when Teddie was in high school and Jimmy attended Penn State. The first time Jimmy asked her to marry him occurred during intermission of “Little Mary Sunshine,” her final high school play.
“I told him, not now,” Teddie recalls. “I still had Act Two to perform.
She eventually said yes, of course. Teddie went on to West Chester University and then taught high school math for 38 years. Jimmy worked as an electrician for Strawbridge & Clothier and then Macy’s. Both are now retired which means, of course, more time for the theater.
Maintenance director. Costumer. Sound designer. Assistant director. Special effects coordinator. Trash collector.
They started at PCS in 1984 when Teddie was cast as one of the alter egos in “They’re Playing Our Song.” Jimmy came along to keep her company, and got involved in lighting for the show, and then sound.
“Teddie is the performer,” Jimmy says. “She’s the singer.” (Author’s note: As someone who recently attended Paul Kerrigan’s karaoke farewell party, I can attest that Teddie can belt out an impressive version of Etta James’s “At Last.”)
Since then, they’ve gone through life here. Teddie recalls getting sick from pregnancy while acting in “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” She performed in “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1986, then directed their two kids in the show in 2003, and then directed it again in 2023.
Jimmy has only taken the stage once, playing one of the jurors in “Twelve Angry Men” during the late-1990s.
“They were short an actor so I got drafted,” he recalls. “I was nervous. I survived it.”
Producer. Treasurer. Money collector. Makeup artist. Silent auction coordinator. Caterer.
Teddie describes her husband as “the silent champion. Whatever needs to get done, he does it. That’s what makes him special.”
His brilliance, as everyone around the theater knows, is using his mechanical and engineering skills to create magic. Like making it rain onstage for “Singing in the Rain” in 2013. Or creating a hydraulic lift for “Beauty and the Beast” that allowed the beast to transform in midair. Or, in that same show, designing a rose that could slowly shed it petals. That rose is now rented out to other theaters.
“Every director has a vision,” Jimmy says. “My challenge is to communicate with those directors and set designers and get their vision on the stage – to make it happen.”
Teddie, meanwhile, has been director, assistant director or producer of more than 40 shows, by her estimate, covering the mainstage, second stage, children’s theater and YPTW. She last appeared on stage herself in 2016 in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “A Grand Night for Singing,” directed by their daughter, Kristina. Now, Teddie says, “It might be time to get back on it.”
She is certainly the more vocal of the two. As Jimmy says, “She talks. I listen. That’s why we’ve survived together for 45 years.”
Hairdresser. Set builder. Concessions organizer. Electrician. Marketer. Ambassador.
That last role is especially important. More than anything, Teddie and Jimmy care about the future of the Players Club and are evangelical about bringing in new talent – on and offstage.
“If we don’t find someone like Jimmy in the next 10 years, what happens when he retires from this?” says Teddie. “We tell the young people, ‘Make it yours; make it flourish. I love seeing so many couples – people like we were 40 years ago – come in here and make this place theirs. We want to see this theater thrive for another 100 years.”
JOIN US APRIL 26th at 6:30 for a special reception honoring our newest inductees into the PCS Wall of Honor in the lobby! Stay for ROCK OF AGES!