Kate Shaffmaster, director of plays at Allens Lane

Kate Shaffmaster, 92, who directed plays in Philadelphia for more than 40 years, died Wednesday, Feb. 9, at home in Mount Airy.

Mrs. Shaffmaster first appeared onstage at age 8 in a church production in West Virginia. "Thereafter she was sure what she wanted to do with her life," said a daughter, Lisa.

By the time Mrs. Shaffmaster and her husband, Frederic, moved to Mount Airy in 1951, both were experienced thespians, having performed in community theater and radio drama and having produced operas including The Marriage of Figaro while living in Cincinnati.

In 1953, the couple and an interracial group of neighbors organized the Allens Lane Arts Center. According to the center's website, the founders were concerned about community tensions in Mount Airy and felt that increasing access to the arts would bring people together as well as develop talent.

Mrs. Shaffmaster began directing plays at the center. She always viewed theater as a catalyst for social change, her daughter said. Her productions of Cry, the Beloved Country and A Raisin in the Sun in the early 1960s reflected the struggle for civil rights and offered opportunities for local actors in a changing community.

For 15 years, plays were staged in the center's auditorium.

Then, in 1968, Mrs. Shaffmaster established the Cafe Theater of Allens Lane. Patrons sat at candlelit tables and were encouraged to bring food and wine. An open discussion with the cast and director followed the play.

Mrs. Shaffmaster directed four or five productions a year. Casts included actors with visions of Broadway and moonlighting computer programmers and homemakers.

She told The Inquirer in 1986 that she objected to the word hobby as a description of the amateurs' theatrical work.

"It is so much more than that because of the sacrifice these people make to practice their art," she said. "It is a way of life, because there really isn't much time for anything else when you are doing shows. The theater becomes your family."

Members of Mrs. Shaffmaster's own family - her husband, two sons, and two daughters - were part of her theater, acting, collecting tickets, building sets. In 1978, Lisa Shaffmaster was a principal in the Cafe Theater's production of Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, the story of a racially mixed marriage.

Mrs. Shaffmaster also directed plays at other venues, including Rap Master Ronnie, a satiric musical about Ronald Reagan, at the On Stage Theater in Center City in 1987.

She produced more than 100 plays at the Cafe Theater before it closed in 1987. Besides directing, she taught acting at the Allens Lane Art Center, the Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Temple University, the Lighthouse Arts Camp in Philadelphia, and in the Philadelphia school system. She also gave private lessons.

After Cafe Theater closed, she continued to teach and direct. Until the early 1990s, she directed Shakespeare in the Park productions at Spring Garden College.

Born Catalina Morris in West Virginia, Mrs. Shaffmaster was adopted by George and Ida May Harshberger after her mother died in the flu epidemic of 1918.

She earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Fairmont State College in West Virginia.

She and her future husband met at a radio station in Fairmont. Though she had been engaged to a medical student for two years, it was "love at first sight," she later told her family. She and Frederic married 21/2 months later.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Shaffmaster is survived by sons Frederic Jr. and Eric; another daughter, Kristina Meredith; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2002.

A memorial service will be held at a future date.

Memorial donations may be made to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 612 Arbutus St., Philadelphia 19119.