Classic American Tales’ (CAT) artistic director, Gayle Stahlhuth, is presenting a free lecture as part of Cape May MAC’s “Lunch and Learn” series. Beginning with Our American Cousin in 1865, the musicals of Harrigan and Hart, and on to the Provincetown Players, Why Marry? The first Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1918, and the rise of Eugene O’Neill, George S. Kaufman, and Jerome Kern, Stahlhuth intends to touch on various highlights of an incredible blossoming of the American Stage.

Stahlhuth, who founded the nonprofit CAT in the spring of 2023, was the producing artistic director of the Equity professional East Lynne Theater Company for 23 years and was associated with the company for 40 years. Aside from her producing, acting, and directing careers, she has lectured on various eras of American theater history at schools, museums, libraries, and as part of Road Scholar and Chautauqua programs throughout the country, quite often in conjunction with her performing one of her one-person shows on another night. The National League of Professional Women honored Stahlhuth in 2016 for her work as a theater professional, and she is listed in the newest edition of The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (2008).