Prescott Park Arts Festival History
32 Years in the Making

In 1974, Paul McEachern, then a Trustee of the City Trust Funds, made a very important phone call. He called Grace Casey, Director of the New Hampshire Art Association, and said, "We bought you a great red, white and blue tent. Now present us with a budget and give us a program." That was the beginning.

Scrambling to create that program, Casey enlisted the talents of Theater by the Sea Executive Director Jon Kimball. Combining an already-assembled art exhibit from the New Hampshire Art Association and a production of Peter and the Wolf by the New Hampshire Ballet, the first multi-arts festival at Prescott Park was presented. Free art classes; a silent-film festival and an evening concert by the United States Air Force band were also included.

"The early years were a great experience," said McEachern, a former Portsmouth City counselor and Theater by the Sea board member. "Prescott Park provides a great opportunity for kids to go to the theater, and there are probably just a handful of places like it in the country where you can do that. We are lucky to have one of them. I got exposed to theater and I loved it. I am convinced that the reason Portsmouth is as vital as it is because of the arts. Portsmouth has become a destination because of the arts."

That was in 1974, 31 years ago. In sports, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home-run record and Bjorn Borg at 18, is the French Open's youngest winner. On television, The Waltons and Happy Days premiere at home while Chinatown, The Great Gatsby and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore filled movie theaters. In music, John Denver released Sunshine on my Shoulders while Barbra Streisand remembered The Way We Were. On the Seacoast, family picnicking was not yet a reality on Four Tree Island and Bruce Graves was Mayor of Portsmouth.

Of course the first festival, indeed the park itself, looked quite different in 1974. The trial gardens, created in cooperation with the University of New Hampshire, had yet to be created. The underground sprinklers, which provide life-sustaining water to the thousands of flowers in the park, had yet to be installed and the pier that juts into the Piscataqua River was just an idea. The first festival itself was presented on the lawn near the Liberty Pole, across the park where performances occur today.

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