Photo By Chad Menegay | Lee Farmer, a recreation assistant for the Nonappropriated Funds Service Support...... read more read more
FORT GREGG-ADAMS, Va.—Among the federal workers performing services that enable readiness for the community of Fort Gregg-Adams (FGAV), there stands one civilian employee who produces.
He stands at 6 feet 4 inches, hails from Rocky Mount, N.C., and works in the Nonappropriated Funds Service Support Division, providing operations and logistical support for the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation in the area of property management and internal controls.
That’s his lead role.
He also produces plays—180 over 30 years.
That’s his hobby.
“All of theater is nothing but one large logistics operation,” Lee Farmer said. “Put the pieces together at the proper time and place, and I developed that skillset in the military.”
Farmer, like 30% of federal employees today, applies the experience he gained as a servicemember to the next level in the federal civilian workforce.
He was a supply specialist and logistician in the Army.
“Everything in logistics has got timelines, and that’s the same in theater,” Farmer said. “A play, even though it may not be a musical where there’s a lot more choreography involved, there’s still moving pieces, and it has to be the right place at the right time. It’s a big, choreographed event.”
Farmer has been in and out of this installation since 1970. His military career—after serving in Vietnam and Desert Storm, including two tours in Italy and one in Okinawa—culminated in a role as garrison command sergeant major.
He retired from that role in 1994 after 24 years of service.
He was then hired as a civilian in January of 1995 to assist with all logistics within the FMWR directorate.
The installation theater program was set to close in 1994 because its building was condemned. Lucky for FMWR, AAFES had decided to close what was then called the Lee Theater, now the Beaty Theater, where they showed movies. The volunteer theater guild moved into it and has been there ever since.
“They convinced the garrison commander to give them a year and run it with FMWR oversight— that was me,” Farmer said. “I never saw a play, didn’t know what a ticket looked like. They had a meeting at the theater to go over the plan, and they were popping questions at the director left and right. He was getting frustrated, so he just looks at me and says, ‘you’re it.’ So, from that day on, I’ve been ‘Mr. Theater.’”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Farmer’s logistics and operations background helped him ease into the role of “Mr. Theater” far easier than he would admit because he knew how to manage people, said Amy Perdue, the senior arts specialist with Henrico County and the artistic director for the Henrico Theater Company.
“He would be very humble about that and say, ‘no, no, no, I needed people around to help me,’ which he did, but he already knew how to make things happen because of his background with Fort Lee at the time,” Perdue said.
Still, Farmer maintains that he didn’t know how the theater operated, didn’t know what a director was, a choreographer or much less how to get one.
“I just picked up the phone and called the other theaters in the area, got some experience and they helped me make some good decisions,” Farmer said.
Farmer has done well to make decisions based on knowledge provided by theater subject matter experts in the greater FGAV community, Perdue said.
“When he hired me for the first time, he realized that I did know what I was talking about because of what I had done for years with Henrico County,” Perdue said. “He has a great ear. He listens to thoughts and suggestions.”
Over the years, Farmer developed a reputation regionally as someone people want to work with, Perdue said.
“Back when I was doing a great number of shows on the base, lots of people would come from Richmond and surrounding areas to be a part of it,” she said. “Lee would be a reason that people would say, ‘Oh, I want to go there.’”
Frank Foster, a director and set designer who Farmer has worked with most over the last decade, describes Farmer as kind, positive and very helpful.
“He goes out of his way to support the program at the Beaty Theater,” Foster said. “I think a lot of people would be surprised if they knew all that Lee does.”
Farmer lines up contracts and rights to the production, runs the box office, helps patrons get on base, decides which plays to run, organizes volunteers and puts in time toward production.
““He’s there early; he’s there late,” Foster said. “He’s doing things not only for the program but the building itself. He’s the person who is putting sand and salt out on the sidewalk. He’s sweeping up the popcorn. He’s doing everything he needs to do to make the show, the building, the whole theater program look the best and operate as smoothly as possible. He is the face of the Beaty Theater. He makes it all happen.”
If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.
Sam Walton
At some point early into Farmer’s role as the installation’s theater producer, he fell in love with the process.
The theater quickly became a passion of mine, he said.
“You learn in the line of fire,” Farmer said. “So, I developed that passion, and now you can’t drag me away from it.”
He stayed engaged in the fight even after a brief retirement back in 2012.
“I never left [the theater],” Farmer said. “I came back and volunteered every day.”
Beaty Theater is considered a community theater because it does not pay actors and relies on volunteers who work days, nights and weekends.
The theater averages between 32,000 to 34,000 hours of volunteer labor a year, and the program has had many volunteers who have earned a President's Volunteer Service Award for volunteerism, Farmer said.
“I’ve got over 27,000 myself over the last 30 years,” Farmer said.
Farmer has also drawn upon another skill from his life experience to positively impact theater production, namely set construction.
Farmer has been painting since he was a kid and painted houses as a second job in the military, he said.
“They’d build a house, and they’d subcontract me, and I’d go in and paint it in the evening,” Farmer said.
He painted every single set piece his volunteers built for the 180 plays he’s produced, he said.
“He has become the master charge scenic painter for productions,” Foster said. “He’s the person who puts color on everything.”
Farmer does it all with a limited budget and the expectation that the theater will fund itself.
Community theaters pay peanuts on contracts for costume design, set design, light design, sound design, choreography or musical directory, Farmer said.
“They do it for the love of it, and I am indebted to them for their service,” Farmer said.
Some who have volunteered their time at this installation’s theater have moved on and upward to Broadway, Farmer said.
“We’re about as professional as you can get,” Farmer said. “This is almost like a minor league. You’ve got scouts who are looking for talent; if they see it, they’ll take them.”
The productions get better every year because of technological advances, he said.
“When I first started here in ‘95, we had little handheld microphones we’d hang from the light fixtures up above or tape it onto the side of the stairwell,” Farmer said. “Now, everybody’s on their wireless mics. We can operate as many as 40 to 50 at one time with no feedback which is pretty darn good.”
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”
Helen Keller
The productions bring in audiences both from within FGAV and from outside the base’s gates.
For service members on-post who attend, Farmer sees a parallel between their turnout and his first experience with the theater.
“For many Soldiers, this is the first exposure to theater or the arts culture that they’ve had, and it’s good for them,” Farmer said. “It opens their eyes. Most of them haven’t even witnessed it in school, especially now when they’ve taken a lot of those departments out of school.”
Farmer said that he always stands at the back of the auditorium, listens to the comments made and notices the smiles on people’s faces.
“Some of them even sing the songs as they’re walking out of the theater,” Farmer said. “That’s good that they can leave whatever troubles they had before they got to the theater. They can leave them at the front door and for that brief couple of hours, can just escape all the stress that they’re dealing with during the day or week.”
Farmer considers the installation theater as the goodwill ambassador for the community.
“This brings people in,” Farmer said. “We get them from all over the country to come in and see these plays, especially if they have a relative in it, and this is their first look at a military base.”
Farmer strongly believes that the base theater contributes to the Army’s recruiting effort because young actors and their parents are exposed to the military lifestyle.
“I think the theater provides a chance for the community to appreciate the military’s presence and see a little bit of what Fort Gregg-Adams is all about, the size, the scope,” Foster said.
Farmer described the surrounding theater community itself—from Richmond to the tri-cities (Hopewell, Petersburg, Colonial Heights)—as tight-knit.
“You have to be because you are reciprocal in costuming, prop set pieces,” Farmer said. “No one can afford to do it on their own. We’re always borrowing and swapping.”
The Beaty Theater has supported every high school theater in the tri-cities area and some colleges too, Farmer said.
Beaty Theater is only one of two Army installation theaters that are still in existence today in the U.S., Farmer said. The second is at Fort Eisenhower, a dinner theater.
“Lee Farmer probably has a lot to do with this theater remaining in operation,” Foster said. “He’s a great ambassador. What I observe is when we have a new garrison commander, Lee lets that leader know who we are and what we do.”
Farmer wouldn’t take credit for the theater’s longevity or success and credits the theater community as a whole.
“I’ve been blessed with people in the tri-cities theater community who will bend over backwards to help you,” Farmer said. “Likewise, I help them with sets, costumes, whatever I can do.”
Perhaps the installation, the local theater community and service members on post whose readiness is enhanced by what FMWR provides are blessed, in turn, with the service Farmer provides.
“The program is so fortunate to have Lee at the helm,” Foster said. “He has been and continues to be the backbone of the whole operation.”
Leave it to an old NCO—continuing his role as the backbone of the Army—to ensure readiness in service to the Soldiers who support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
“I’ve said this ever since I became a civilian, that ‘I live for a reason, and that is to support that green suiter,’” Farmer said. “Without them none of us have a job.”
| Date Taken: | 03.13.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2025 10:44 |
| Story ID: | 492728 |
| Location: | FORT GREGG-ADAMS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | COLONIAL HEIGHTS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | HENRICO, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, US |
| Hometown: | ROCKY MOUNT, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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