The Woodland Players in Fort Johnson

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, August 10, 2025

     There was a lot working against the Woodland Players in their night-time outdoor performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" on July 13, 1904 at the three-year-old Antlers Golf Course in Fort Johnson.

The performance was originally scheduled the night before but had been rained out. It was chilly for July. There also could have been some apprehension among the actors about the financial solvency of their employer, Woodland Players, owned by the Phil Kilfoil Company of New York City.

The audience loved the show, according to a rave review the following day in the Amsterdam Recorder. An estimated 350 people sat on camp chairs to watch Shakespeare's pastoral comedy. Many in the audience arrived on crowded trolley cars from nearby Amsterdam.

The play was performed atop a hill overlooking the old Antlers clubhouse with the woods forming what the reviewer called "an ideal background" to a grassy stage. Japanese lanterns lighted the audience "with a soft flickering light" and Minch's local orchestra played popular songs before the play, keeping the crowd entertained while they waited.

When the play began, "powerful calcium lights" illuminated the stage and trees with what the newspaper called "a bright but weird glow, which might be well described as exaggerated moonlight."

The reviewer said the entire company performed well and delivered their lines clearly and distinctly. The review gave special praise to Ivah M. Wills who played Rosalind, F.J. McCarthy as Touchstone and James A. Young as Jacques de Boys.

"Now that the affair is over," wrote the reviewer, "And has proved an unqualified success, it may not be amiss to state that previously there was just a slight undercurrent of doubt as to the ability of any company traveling as does Kilfoll's at present, to properly present a play of such caliber.

"But the first lines were scarcely uttered when all questions along this score were obliterated, and the audience settled itself for what would have been a theatrical treat under any circumstances, but was doubly so amid scenes so absolutely fitting."

A couple weeks after leaving Amsterdam, however, producer Phil Kilfoil was charged with passing bogus checks in Oswego. Kilfoil left Oswego for New York City. A warrant was issued. He was arrested in New York City and returned to Oswego then was released on bail.

Kilfoil told the press, "We have been victims of circumstances and there was no intention of defrauding any persons in Oswego. We have met with poor business and benefit performances have so far proved a failure. I have secured funds to meet every obligation incurred by the company and will go on the road again as soon as this unfortunate affair is settled."

The Oswego and Amsterdam papers reported on July 30 that charges were dropped when Kilfoil's business partner, Charles Wiegand, provided enough funds to back the checks. Wiegand was described as a supervisor of the New York Central Railroad in New York City.

The Recorder said the actors apparently were among those not getting paid, "The company has been receiving money and one by one the members are leaving Oswego as fast as their remittances arrive. There will be no more Woodland Players, it is said, and both Wiegand and Kilfoil have expressed their intention of abandoning the dramatic field as a non-paying venture."

As for the Fort Johnson venue for the Woodland Players' 1904 production of "As You Like It," the Antlers golf course prospered for many years but its elegant clubhouse burned to the ground in a 1965 fire. A new clubhouse was built. The course today is called Rolling Hills Country Club.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

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