In 1965 alumnus R. L. Maples (attended 1928–32) and his wife, Wilma, of Gatlinburg, gave the university an outdoor theatre in Gatlinburg. Maples had built the mountainside theatre in 1955 for the staging of Chucky Jack, a play about Tennessee’s first governor, John Sevier. The grand opening performance was in 1956. The theatre was named for Chucky Jack’s author, Kermit Hunter, who had also written the pioneering outdoor drama at Williamsburg, Virginia, The Lost Colony. Chucky Jack closed in 1959, and six years later Maples gave the theatre to UT. The property was valued at $300,000 at the time it was given to UT and included the 2,600-seat theatre with three stages, concession area, parking area for more than one thousand cars, and approximately 20 acres of land.
In summer 1966 UT’s Carousel Theatre opened the summer stock theatrical training property with a three-week run of Annie Get Your Gun, directed by James Frederick Fields, who would direct the summer productions until 1977. Students participating in the Hunter Hills program were eligible for eight hours credit in Outdoor Repertory Theatre. In the initial offering, Joan Long played Annie, and Woody Harrison played Frank Butler. The production was scheduled for 14 performances, but was extended six nights before the production returned to campus as Carousel’s fifth summer play of the season. More than ten thousand persons attended the Hunter Hills version, even though rain cancelled three performances.
The university renovated the performing area in 1968, installing two revolving stages and two elevated stages, increasing the total number of stages from three to seven, as well as revamping and upgrading the lighting. The UT Theatre Department used the theatre for summer productions routinely until 1978, when the theatre was closed. Chancellor Jack Reese told the Daily Beacon: “We’re in such a tight financial situation. I couldn’t justifiably authorize funds for Hunter Hills. Expensive physical rehabilitation needs to be done.”
Occasional productions continued until UT razed the theatre in 1987. The land was subsequently sold to Gatlinburg.