To celebrate the Guthrie Theater’s 50th Anniversary in 2103, Polly has selected and compiled essays from major players in all the major disciplines whose talents and work are the true fabric of the theater and from community leaders who provide support. The book, Guthrie Theater: The First Fifty Years, will be available from the Guthrie Gift shop on August 1st, 2012.

Polly has written two plays, A London Concerto, delving into experiences of her life in London, and Butterfly Tattoos, focusing on sex exploitation of young girls.

Polly has three sons and five grandchildren. She attended Smith College, Northampton Massachusetts and graduated from Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis where she lived and brought up her family.

She became the first woman chairman of the Guthrie Theater Foundation Board from 1972-75. Joining the staff, she was Director of Development from 1975-1982. During those years she was also a Director of the St. Paul Companies, Inc. and the Tonka Corporation.

In 1984, Polly remarried and moved to London to live with her English husband, David Grose. While there she was the administrator of the U.K. program of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Minnesota and a member of the Fulbright Commission.

Following her husband's death in 2002, Polly came back to her native land and a condominium overlooking Lake Minnetonka in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. She enjoys vigorous tennis and bridge, and visits to her children and grandchildren on the West Coast.

Titles

• Thomas Janney
• Hannah
• Phineas and His Cousins
• Polly's memoir, A London Scrapbook, uses her British husband's Victorian scrapbooks to inspire the theme and ignite the memories of her twenty years in London. The publisher is Beaver's Pond Press and the price is $16.95 plus tax and postage.

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