Cora Lee Khambatta

Cora Lee KHAMBATTA
Interview Date: November 11, 2024
Interviewer: Randy NORTON
Transcriber: David MacKinnon
Editor: Elizabeth Lewis

This interview transcript is the property of the Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project.
Not to be reproduced without permission.

START OF INTERVIEW
NORTON: This is Randy Norton. I am at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop [CHAW] at Seventh and G [Streets] SE, Washington, D.C. on November 11, 2024. It’s about quarter after one. I am interviewing Cora Lee KHAMBATTA. Good afternoon.

KHAMBATTA: Good morning, good afternoon, yes.

NORTON: Let me just ask you basic stuff to start with. Where are you from?

KHAMBATTA: I was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska on a homestead farm. Our family went out to the west. My sister’s turned it into an organic seeds company now. I grew up in Scottsbluff and went to high school. [My dad and I] played the cello. Accompanied my dad playing the violin when I was in grade school. [My dad also played the saw for my grade school.]

NORTON: So your dad was a musician as well?

KHAMBATTA: Yes. He had gone to engineering school and had been a cellist, but he had to come back early to our farm because they had a dairy and his father died, so he had to. He was lost to engineering. He loved music and we sang in choirs all the time he was living, I was growing up there.

NORTON: You said you graduated from high school in Scottsbluff?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right.

NORTON: What happened after that? Where’d you go?

KHAMBATTA: I want to Grinnell College which is in Iowa. Liberal arts with a major in piano. My third year I went to Italy and studied with [the piano virtuoso and instructor] Rio Narfdi of the [Conservatory di] Firenze.

NORTON: I won’t ask you to spell it yet but I suspect the transcriber will want you to do that.

KHAMBATTA: Okay. Then I came back, graduated from Grinnell. Then we were doing the Peace Corps stuff at that time.

NORTON: Were you in the Peace Corps?

KHAMBATTA: Grinnell had its own Peace Corps. They chose, I think, seven people out of my graduation class. Sent us all over the world. They sent me to India because there was a place in Ahmednagar, India, inland from Bombay [Mumbai] where they wanted a pianist or an organist. So I went to Ahmednagar, India, where Ghandi was imprisoned in 1949. I went there to play a pump organ in the chapel.

NORTON: You had to use your feet to make it work, right?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right. That was my job. Then I taught English to the girls on the campus.

NORTON: When did you graduate from Grinnell?

KHAMBATTA: 1961.

NORTON: And then went straight over to India?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right.

NORTON: Can you spell the name of the town you were in?

KHAMBATTA: A H M E D  N A G A R. There was an individual who was in charge of that area whose name was Aspy KHAMBATTA. He decided that for some reason he was enamored with me or he wanted a trip to the United States, I’m not sure which [laughs]. But, in any case, I met my husband in Ahmednagar.

NORTON: How do you spell his first name?

KHAMBATTA: A S P Y.

NORTON: When you say he was the head of that area, what does that mean?

KHAMBATTA: He was called a collector but it was like functionally a mayor.

NORTON: Of the town?

KHAMBATTA: Of the town. So all of the passports came across his desk.

NORTON: How long were you there?

KHAMBATTA: For basically one year.

NORTON: When did you get married?

KHAMBATTA: He decided he wanted to come to the United States and he wanted to study at Syracuse Maxwell Graduate School. I helped that process and that took me to Syracuse to get my master’s in elementary education. We were there together for some time and it was in that period … let’s see, Cyrus was born in ’67. It was probably around ’67 that we were married and it didn’t last too long [laughs]. Lasted long enough for Sarah and Cyrus to be born.

NORTON: Cyrus was born in 1967 you say?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right.

NORTON: How about Sarah, when was she born?

KHAMBATTA: 1970.

NORTON: Were you all still up in Syracuse when both of them were born?

KHAMBATTA: Actually no. By that time, he had graduated from actual graduate school. He wanted to come back here. We came back and lived in McLean for a while.

NORTON: You say here, the D.C. area.

KHAMBATTA: In the D.C. area. We lived in McLean and he was applying for government jobs and he worked for the Friendship House in D.C.

NORTON: Which was not far from here at that time.

KHAMBATTA: For a period of time. Then he worked for the government, [a] civil service job for a number of years. Somebody helped him get a job. But the marriage did not work out. By the time when I was pregnant with Sarah, he asked me to leave. So I was on my own [from then on].

NORTON: But you’d been living in McLean until then?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right.

NORTON: What happened when he asked you to leave?

KHAMBATTA: When he wanted to work in this area because he wanted to be in government, I applied to D.C., Alexandria, and Arlington schools for a position as a teacher ,which I had the qualifications for. I decided Arlington gave me a very good response so I ended up being in Arlington.

NORTON: Had you ever been to the D.C. area before you came down here being married?

KHAMBATTA: No [laughs]. I don’t remember being here anyway.

NORTON: Well, that’s fine. Certainly not for any period of time.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah.

NORTON: You got a job with Arlington. You remember when that was?

KHAMBATTA: Probably is around 1975. Creative drama. I had a classroom [in] 1968 and ’74, then I took a sabbatical and went to Greeley, Colorado, University of Northern Colorado. I was at that time interested in theater and creative drama. I had been in Arlington. They had done something really interesting which they have never supported since. They hired me as a drama, creative drama, music teacher. So I gave musicals like crazy for those three years and I wanted to get more training. So they hired me in the University of Northern Colorado to be the creative drama teacher for the lab school and then I took my doctoral classes for curriculum and instruction because that’s where my master’s was up to that time.

NORTON: You got your master’s at Syracuse, right?

KHAMBATTA: [I received my master’s in] Elementary education [at Syracuse], so [studying for post graduate] doctor’s in curriculum and instruction made sense. But my interest was in creative drama, so they hired me for the lab school [laughs].

NORTON: And when you say they hired you for the lab school, is that the Lab School here [in D.C.] or is that the lab school out there?

KHAMBATTA: Out there.

NORTON: In Northern Colorado.

KHAMBATTA: Connected with the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley.

NORTON: You were there for a couple of years, sounds like?

KHAMBATTA: Basically, one full year, like summer to summer. Then I had to come back after the sabbatical.

NORTON: You went back to work in Arlington?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right.

NORTON: What type of school were you teaching? Were you teaching grade school, high school?

KHAMBATTA: I started teaching in the elementary school, that’s where my training was, but I ended up teaching in middle school and I did some teaching in high school, but mostly in elementary school.

NORTON: When you came back from Northern Colorado what were you doing? What were you teaching?

KHAMBATTA: I was back in Arlington teaching music but interested in creative drama. That is the point where I think that I was looking out for possibilities and I really do not remember how, but I was connected with Jean Lewton.

NORTON: Huh. So you were just looking for possibilities and Jean Lewton was…

KHAMBATTA: She [was] a basic founder [administrative director of CHAW from 1975 to 1982] and they were at the Presbyterian Church [Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church at Fourth Street and Independence Avenue SE] in the chapel. My first work with CHAW was teaching creative drama. Our first performance was Japanese Trio which we did and then I think very shortly after that Aesop’s Falables. I remember in the chapel for some reason there were termites on the floor where we were working, on the floor…

NORTON: The Presbyterian Church?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah [laughs].

NORTON: Aesop’s Falables just so we’re right, it’s just like it sounds, right, not Aesop’s Fables?

KHAMBATTA: It’s Aesop’s Falables. I mean the wolf was very angry about how the world was treating him and he was saying, this is a falable.

NORTON: I see, I see. So yes. Who wrote it? Do you know? Do you remember?

KHAMBATTA: I would have to look that up. [Book by Ed Graczyk, music by Shirley Hansen, lyrics by Marty Conine and Ed Graczyk.]

NORTON: That’s fine. I was just curious. You’re now teaching in Arlington but you’re looking for more creative drama kind of stuff and you run into Jean Lewton who was later divorced and became Jean Kling. So you first met her over at the Presbyterian Church.

KHAMBATTA: Some how or other I connected with her and ended up…

NORTON: What did you do over there?

KHAMBATTA: At the Presbyterian Church I was teaching creative drama and there was some guy from Baltimore who was teaching piano. Since I had a piano background, they got me starting to teach piano. We were over there but, in the process, we started cleaning this building up [current location of CHAW, 545 Seventh Street, SE].

NORTON: This is the building here at Seventh and G.

KHAMBATTA: At CHAW.

NORTON: The old…

KHAMBATTA: Navy.

NORTON: It was the Marines, I think.

KHAMBATTA: French, B.B. French School.

NORTON: B.B. French School, yes. So you were teaching creative drama and some piano?

KHAMBATTA: Yes.

NORTON: During all this process had you met Sally, Sally Crowell?

KHAMBATTA: I’m sure I did, but I don’t know exactly when. I do know that she had something to do with Aesop’s Falables because she produced it. That we did at Eastern Market. [See the interview with Crowell on this website.]

There was another thing that I have a vague memory about that, a production of Our Town at Eastern Market somehow connected with CHAW, probably Sally’s mentor from Howard University. I have a vague recollection. I met him but I think he directed it. Somehow, I got connected, maybe they needed a crowd [NORTON laughs], or I don’t know exactly what.

NORTON: Do you remember what you did in that show?

KHAMBATTA: I have no recollection. I presume it was crowd, you know, Our Town. My memory is not very good, but I don’t have a visual memory at all of that.

NORTON: Wait a minute. We’re taking about Eastern Market. That’s in what they call the North Hall now, I think.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. There was a part of the Eastern Market that was dedicated to performances. We did a number of performances there.

NORTON: Is that where you started doing performances, at least from your point of view?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah, the early Aesop’s Falables was there.

NORTON: What part did you play in Aesop’s Falables?

KHAMBATTA: I was the director. It was a children’s production. I brought children from all over the place and we did that.

NORTON: When you say from all over the place?

KHAMBATTA: I drove somebody from Arlington in town to do that production. Sarah and Cyrus and a bunch of community people were also in it.

NORTON: Your two kids?

KHAMBATTA: Sarah and Cyrus. Cyrus was the wolf and Sarah was the ant and I still have her ant’s costume made by my neighbor in Arlington.

NORTON: What do you remember after that? Just sort of walk through.

KHAMBATTA: Okay. We started here [CHAW] and we cleaned up here and then I was interested in creative drama, so I went to Maryland [University of Maryland] and was doing more research in Maryland about creative drama. I was a part of the drama department and I did a lot of children’s drama in Maryland which again I pulled kids from all over the place to do at Maryland. But it was a master’s in creative drama, a master’s in drama that I got from…

NORTON: Out of Maryland. You were doing work out there. When you say creative drama, what do you mean?

KHAMBATTA: Creative drama is like you have a bunch of kids and you get together and tell them a story and you acted everybody as the wolf and everybody does all of the movement for the wolf and how the wolf sounds and how would the wolf interact with other wolves and then you create a protagonist where the wolf is going after another character. So you have them divided into pairs and everybody does it together. Then you keep doing this and developing skills until they can produce some kind of a story.

NORTON: Themselves, the kids?

KHAMBATTA: Themselves.

NORTON: Meanwhile while you are over at Maryland are you still working at the Arts Workshop?

KHAMBATTA: I think so. And I think I was still teaching in Arlington but I’m not absolutely sure. I may have taken another sabbatical.

NORTON: Yeah because it looks like, yes, that you seemed to be off from ’78 to ’79 which is when you were at the University of Maryland according to your…

KHAMBATTA: Right, okay, right. I had an assistant…

NORTON: We’re referring to your resumé here, yeah.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. And I was also teaching an adult class in communications at Maryland.

NORTON: What was involved in that?

KHAMBATTA: Speech giving. Developing your thesis. Developing your project. Developing what you’re going to say, beginning, and your middle and how you support it, and then how you finish it.

NORTON: You get done at Maryland and what happened?

KHAMBATTA: So after Maryland, what year are we?

NORTON: It looks like ’79. It looks like you went back to…

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. I was teaching, directing [at] Arlington public schools. From ’79 to 2002 when I retired, I was teaching from kindergarten to high school, doing a lot of musical productions. I did Charlie Brown at H-B Woodlawn [Secondary Program, 1601 Wilson Blvd., Arlington]. I can’t remember some of the others at H-B Woodlawn. South Pacific I think I did at the H-B Woodlawn. That’s where I got some of my shoulder problems from playing the piano too much [NORTON laughs]. I was saying I was doing too much. That period was…

NORTON: Because then you were also working over here too.

KHAMBATTA: All the time. Basically, we kept on doing productions all the time through that whole period, even before. I mean, let’s see, 1981, I know we did Guys and Dolls here.

NORTON: Right. When you say here by that [you mean it] was over at Hine Junior High [School, once between Seventh and Eighth Streets on Pennsylvania Avenue SE], right?

KHAMBATTA: Right.

NORTON: So how did that happen?

KHAMBATTA: I think Our Town I remember something about and then [The] Fantasticks, Sarah was in that. Then Guys and Dolls in 1981. That was when Jim Vance [Emmy-winning news presenter at WRC-TV] was Sky Masterson. That’s when he told me when I directed him [that] not even his mother talked to him the way I was talking to him in directions. I thought, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing?” But we went to a party after we all finished and he plopped this hat on my head that I’m wearing.

NORTON: And the one I took a picture of. Hopefully it will turn out right.

KHAMBATTA: Uh huh. When it came time to leave, I said, “Uh uh, you’re not taking it off my head [laughs].” He just smiled.

NORTON: How did he get involved? That was before I got involved.

KHAMBATTA: Sally, Sally, Sally, Sally, okay?

NORTON: Do you remember how she managed to talk him into it?

KHAMBATTA: I have no idea, but she was able to. He liked CHAW, as you remember. He made a statement about CHAW being a place where a janitor’s kids were with senator’s kids all together in the same building doing activities together. He liked that about CHAW. So I don’t think it was impossible to convince him, you know. And also it was a chance for him to do something a little bit different in front of the community as a well-known…

NORTON: Newscaster, yeah.

KHAMBATTA: …TV newscaster. Yeah. I think he enjoyed it. He also enjoyed his little drinks on the side which meant, you know, we had to keep him in tow.

NORTON: You were the director of Guys and Dolls?

KHAMBATTA: Right.

NORTON: Were you also the director of The Fantasticks?

KHAMBATTA: I believe so.

NORTON: Your daughter was in that one. Sarah was in that one, right?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right, she was the lead in that.

NORTON: Guys and Dolls. What was involved in directing Guys and Dolls?

KHAMBATTA: Umm. I think that starting with Aesop’s Falables, I made complicated stage directions for myself, so that I would know how to talk to the actor about presenting where they were, making it natural entering and exiting. When you exit and when you enter and how you relate to people on the way. That’s essentially what I remember.

A little later on while we were doing productions, and I don’t remember which one it was, but we had to talk about the sets. One of the times that I remember Jim Mayo, very well. He was always involved in the sets. I said, “Can we make sets that will just revolve?” Were you a part of that? [Laughs.]

NORTON: I remember I had to revolve a lot of sets, so we blame you, right for the revolving set?

KHAMBATTA: You blame me, because he came up with the sets that you just had to turn around.

NORTON: They were perfectly great once you got them there, but they were heavy as the dickens and to get them over there, over to Hine. So, yes.

KHAMBATTA: I had nothing to do with that [laughs].

NORTON: Other than talking to Jim Vance tougher than anyone but his mother did or even tougher than his mother did, what else do you remember about directing Guys and Dolls?

KHAMBATTA: Not very much.

NORTON: Okay. What was your next thing at the Arts Workshop?

KHAMBATTA: Damn Yankees. I’m even more vague with Damn Yankees. I know there was a lot of football, there was a lot of singing.

NORTON: Baseball.

KHAMBATTA: Sorry, baseball. I do know the difference.

NORTON: Yes, I know you know the difference. I just was in it.

KHAMBATTA: [Laughs.] I really don’t have a recollection about specifics with that. Then Oliver. Music Man was there but I don’t think I had anything to do with Music Man, or if I did, I maybe was singing. Sally would get us in a group of people. We’d sit down and we’d say, “Okay, I directed the last one so it’s your turn to direct it and it’s my turn to act. Or it’s your turn to act,” and so forth.

NORTON: Do you remember who the group of people were?

KHAMBATTA: Not really, but Sally was there. Raye I know was there.

NORTON: That’s Raye LeValley. [See her interview on this website.]

KHAMBATTA: Raye LeValley was there. I would imagine at some point Charlotte was there, Charlotte Floyd.

NORTON: Charlotte Floyd, okay.

KHAMBATTA: Jean Lewton Kling. Steve Johnson, did I say that? [See Johnson’s interview on this website.]

NORTON: He was. Wasn’t he in at least some of these shows? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah, oh yeah. And Jim Vance. I’m sorry, Jim Mayo. But he was always in the kind of the backdrops so it wasn’t in the beginning process.

NORTON: How about Phil DeSellem because I know he was in Damn Yankees with me?

KHAMBATTA: And he was in Glass Menagerie with me.

NORTON: When was that? Do you remember?

KHAMBATTA: Glass Menagerie has to be somewhere around here [shuffles through papers]. That was towards the end. Glass Menagerie was in 1983. Two years after Guys and Dolls. But there was Biography in that same year. I think I had like 81 pages that I had to memorize.

NORTON: You were in the cast of Biography?

KHAMBATTA: That’s what I recall. That’s for adults, yeah. Free to Be You and Me was in 1976. That was even before 1981. That was before.

NORTON: Well, I say it’s ’76. That was based on my research but I think that’s right.

KHAMBATTA: If it were in the ’76 that would have gotten all of us together.

NORTON: What was involved with Free to Be You and Me?

KHAMBATTA: Free to Be You and Me was a lot of singing, a lot of music. They even got me to play the bass drum [laughs]. I know nothing about the bass drum.

NORTON: And your daughter Sarah was in the one too, right?

KHAMBATTA: I don’t think she [was]. She remembers seeing us.

NORTON: Okay. Putting it on.

KHAMBATTA: Seeing us act and rehearse. That’s what she remembers. She wanted to come back and see the tall trees where the Children’s Theatre-in-the-Woods was at Wolf Trap.

NORTON: So, it was in Wolf Trap that you all put it on?

KHAMBATTA: That’s correct.

NORTON: Was it put on around here at any point or was it all at Wolf Trap?

KHAMBATTA: I don’t remember.  I’m sure they may have taken it into the schools but I couldn’t go into the schools because I was teaching during that day. If they took a part of it into the schools which was very likely, maybe that’s why I was playing the bass drum in Wolf Trap on the stage.

NORTON: Was it right on the main stage at Wolf Trap or is there another theater out there?

KHAMBATTA: The Children’s Theatre-in-the-Woods. There’s a main theater which you go to see main shows. But you go down and back around to theater in the woods. It’s just really precious. I have pictures that we just took when we went out in June.

NORTON: With Sarah?

KHAMBATTA: July, with Sarah, because she wanted to see it again. She remembered us acting on that stage.

NORTON: Well, that’s great [laughs]. You were director of Oliver right?

KHAMBATTA: I was director of Oliver and I remember working a lot with the children and thinking, “Oh, I can use this in my schools.” [Laughs].

NORTON: Use what, the show or the…

KHAMBATTA: The music. It was great music. Then I remember Mister Bumble. Bill Matuszeski I believe. {See his interview on this website.]

NORTON: Yes, he was.

KHAMBATTA: I remember Raye was in that. She played opposite Bill?

NORTON: I think that may be right.

KHAMBATTA: I loved what they did.

NORTON: Then there was; I remember because I had very small part. I got punched by Bill Sikes. But Linda, my wife, was Mrs. Sourberry and Walter Graham was her husband, the undertakers in the thing, so I remember that part. The interesting thing about that as I remember, they would come down and do it at Market Day or whatever they would have a Eastern Market. They would come and do a little section of the show to try to…

KHAMBATTA: Snippet of the show. To get more people to [come]. Where did we produce that?

NORTON: It was at Hine, I think. It was at Hine, I think. Almost…

KHAMBATTA: We did a lot of rehearsing here.

NORTON: Yes, a lot of rehearsing here and some over at Christ Church I suspect too in the parish hall. Yeah.

KHAMBATTA: Then, that’s 1976, Free to Be [You and Me]. Then there’s a bunch of children’s shows. Sacramento Fifty Miles. I remember Cyrus being in that. That was a show we did here, I believe.

NORTON: Here at the Arts Workshop, okay.

KHAMBATTA: I don’t remember The Wizard of Oz. I’ve produced The Wizard of Oz before. I don’t remember producing, having anything to do with it here, or Peter and the Wolf. Runaway Snowman I have the script so it’s probably me.

NORTON: Okay, you were probably the director. That would be ’86 or so?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah.

NORTON: It looks like they put it on again.

KHAMBATTA: No, ’83.

NORTON: Oh, ’83, okay.

KHAMBATTA: Then Aesop’s Falables in ’87. That’s ’87? I thought we did that earlier.

NORTON: That’s possible. You understand that these dates are not necessarily…

KHAMBATTA: I thought that was one of the earlier things we did because Sarah was [involved.] When was [The] Fantasticks produced?

NORTON: Well, Fantasticks has been produced at various times. It was ’78, ’84, ’87.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. She would have been a teenager when she played it and she was born in’70 so ’84 meant she was 14, that’s more likely than the earlier one. Yeah. They were both involved in theater.

NORTON: Both Cyrus and Sarah.

KHAMBATTA: And Sarah. Cyrus wrote a script for the D.C. Theater Project that they had and we produced it here and presented it in that theater project, D.C. Theater Project.

NORTON: Meanwhile, are you still teaching while all these shows are going on? Were you still teaching?

KHAMBATTA: Lord, yes. I don’t know how [laughs] it was possible, but I did it.

NORTON: What were you teaching? You were still teaching over in Arlington?

KHAMBATTA: Yes.

NORTON: You taught over there until 2002, right?

KHAMBATTA: That’s correct. One of the reasons that it was probably possible because I was teaching music and I didn’t have a lot of papers to grade. I had a lot of preparations to make, but I didn’t have papers to grade. That saved my [laughs] time.

NORTON: [Laughs]. What were you doing at the Arts Workshop in terms of the faculty?

KHAMBATTA: I was teaching creative drama and piano. Then later on I started teaching Orff Schulwerk which is groups of instruments, xylophones, percussion instruments of all kinds. It’s Orff Schulwerk.

NORTON: How do you spell that?

KHAMBATTA: O R F F  S C H U L W E R K. Orff Schulwerk.

NORTON: They were the ones that sort of founded this type of music.

KHAMBATTA: That’s right. I got training in Denver. I can’t even remember when and then I continued my training. It was written here [that] I got my Orff Schulwerk training here at George Mason University. So I was working in Orff Schulwerk for a long time. Jumping ahead to just before COVID which would have been 2018…

NORTON: Nineteen probably.

KHAMBATTA: …something like ’18, ’17, 2017, 2018 we started a teaching a group of students who were from the Capitol Learning Academy here, it was a [Montessori] school that was started.

NORTON: Do you remember where it was?

KHAMBATTA: They were located [at 725] Eighth Street SE.

KHAMBATTA: Their kids came here for music and I did Orff Schulwerk, movement, drama and they did art and they did dance here.

NORTON: When did that go on?

KHAMBATTA: COVID came and we continued it all the way through, at least I continued it. I was teaching music through Zoom. So I collected a bunch of drums, took them to their teacher and they kept a drum for every student. Then I provided them each with a recorder, because Orff Schulwerk teaches recorder. And I provided them all with rhythm sticks. We would do these things and I would pull up YouTube visuals and get them interested in something like the bird song and then I would try to get them to play the recorder [laughs] just…

NORTON: That it sounded like the bird song.

KHAMBATTA: “How many times did the bird make a sound and can you do that on the recorder?” It was like I was pulling things out of a hat and doing things technologically that I was incapable of doing [laughs].

PAUSE IN THE INTERVIEW

NORTON: You were teaching over in Arlington until 2002, right?

KHAMBATTA: Uh huh.

NORTON: Did what you taught over there change over the years or was pretty much the same?

KHAMBATTA: It started in the classroom. That’s where my training was. I was teaching third and fourth grade in one school and I went another school and taught first grade and then I taught fifth, first job as fifth grade. One kid was obstreperous in that he almost took over the whole classroom, started a fire in the class. I mean, those were the days. And there is a reason for that.

Then I started getting into music. It’s when Sarah was born. That kind of started a whole new thing. I enjoyed it. There was a principal who wanted me, as a classroom teacher, from the very beginning. I’m sorry, sorry I’m [rambling] on.

NORTON: That’s all right, no, that’s all right.

KHAMBATTA: From the very beginning I was teaching classroom and the principals always wanted me to do something in music because I collected my kids in my classroom and taught them recorder. I had a group that was called Almost Acapella from the very beginning. Even when I retired in 2002, they sang for the whole retirement event of Arlington County.

I was always doing music, so I was saying, “I’m doing double duty. Why am I teaching classroom and music? I can just teach music.” So then I started teaching all my music.

NORTON: When was that? Do you remember?

KHAMBATTA: I really don’t know.

NORTON: But it changed over. You had been teaching just the regular classroom classes and then you sort of over the time as you described, you ended up teaching just music.

KHAMBATTA: Right.

NORTON: Okay, okay. How about the Arts Workshop? Had things changed in terms of what you were doing here?

KHAMBATTA: Creative drama and piano. Then the Orff Schulwerk work came in as another facet. I was teaching an after-school program. The problem with the after school program [is] you can’t get kids learning at a high enough level because they come in and go out and they’re never here and you can’t rehearse. So when we had this group, this Capitol Learning [Academy], where they were a captured group every, twice a week for a period of time …

NORTON: Did you go over there then?

KHAMBATTA: No, they always came here. You could get something done. Get a high level of training for some of the kids. Some of the kids didn’t ever respond. Now I’m basically kind of encouraging people to come and teach.

NORTON: Teach where, here?

KHAMBATTA: Teach here. There’s a guy who moves some pianos. Amy [Moore] wanted to move some pianos out.

NORTON: Amy’s the CHAW director at the present time?

KHAMBATTA: Present CHAW director. There was an acoustic piano that the tuners said we could no longer tune. So I found a new, good, a grand piano, touch piano for downstairs, although I don’t like the sound, downstairs to take the place of the acoustic. It was the acoustic piano here that one of the parents donated to [CHAW], a little Steinway acoustic piano. Really sweet piano. They wanted to get rid of that. So I arranged with Schaeffer’s [Piano Company] to get those pianos taken out and a new piano brought in for downstairs. And this very likeable young man, well, in his 40s, was a part of the group and I…

NORTON: Part of the group that was moving the pianos.

KHAMBATTA: Moving the pianos. I had an interaction with him and thought, “Oh.” And I thought, “He would be a good person to be around CHAW.” So they hired him … during the summer he was part of a whole summer program and now he’s teaching drumming. His name is Alexander Prince, but he lives in Baltimore, so it’s so far away. He can’t do a lot more.

NORTON: This whole time have you been living in Arlington the whole time?

KHAMBATTA: Same house. Once in [the] 1970s when Sarah was three years old, I went together with a young couple to buy a house. Then subsequently I bought them out and I am still living in that house.

NORTON: Going back to the Arts Workshop. Looking at your resumé here that you’ve given me it says that you were the department chair [of] private instruction here from ’75 to 2010, it that right? What was involved in that?

KHAMBATTA: That was organizing the recitals that we would have four times a year and I tried to get repertoire classes when Phil DeSellem was here [as a piano teacher]. He loved the repertoire classes and we’d come and have repertoire classes together and all of the kids would talk about each other’s’ music. That’s something that I continued to this day. It’s one of the very, very good things that we do. But a repertoire class followed by a recital.

NORTON: What does repertoire class mean?

KHAMBATTA: It means [students] get together and talk about [each other’s] repertoire [with directed conversations about the qualities of the music and how to present their music to others]. I don’t know if anybody ever uses that term. That’s what I use.

NORTON: Okay. You do that as well as playing it, right?

KHAMBATTA: So everybody, the one group of kids, gets together and they take turns playing just like they do in the recital. It’s kind of helping them, enabling them to feel more secure when they play recitals.

NORTON: You say they have been having four recitals here a year since what?

KHAMBATTA: Until COVID or for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember when we started but I have been doing the national Piano Guild [a division of the American College of Musicians] in this building for 40 years.

NORTON: Four zero years?

KHAMBATTA: I didn’t realize that.

NORTON: What’s the national Piano Guild?

KHAMBATTA: That is where once a year an adjudicator is chosen by the Piano Guild’s center, which is actually in Texas. They’re international. They choose an adjudicator. I apply. I’m the chair and I apply for this building to be sponsoring the Guild and I have to clear that though Danny [Cackley] who is now the building coordinator.

NORTON: He’s the one down in Texas?

KHAMBATTA: He’s Danny Huber.

NORTON: Oh here, I’m sorry. Right, okay. Yes.

KHAMBATTA: I put it through Danny here and through Texas. I made those arrangements. Make the dates. So they arrange for an adjudicator to come. It could be anywhere in the United States. They come from all over. Usually from Pennsylvania or Maryland or Virginia. We’ve had people from Georgia. We’ve had people from Colorado, from Texas. We used to have several people from Texas. New York. Over the years we have an adjudicator come. Each student plays their whole program. I usually have my students as much as possible do ten pieces. That means throughout the year they’re learning their pieces and at the end of the year they say, we look at their list and we say, “Which of these would you like to do for your National Guild in March?” Then we start producing and reviewing those on a rotational basis until they feel comfortable with them and are ready to play for [the Guild].

NORTON: You say that you’ve been putting these adjudications or auditions on for 40 years.

KHAMBATTA: I saw a date when I started it and I said, “My gosh, that’s 40 years ago.”

NORTON: Right. How often do you have one of these things every year?

KHAMBATTA: Once a year in June.

NORTON: Every year except, did you do it during COVID?

KHAMBATTA: Yes, because I got COVID [both laugh]. No, we did [it] online. We arranged for, at that time, a person I knew very well [who] could do camera and was able to put connection on. We did it live. I don’t remember exactly how we did it. They arranged that in Texas. The adjudicator was from Pennsylvania and then we had a location here [where] we did it.

NORTON: If you know, how many locations do they have all around the country where they put on these things?

KHAMBATTA: I don’t remember. It’s gotten lower recently, but like 600.

NORTON: Wow.

KHAMBATTA: I mean they’re all over the country. I have a book that gives me a list of all of the places. Every state in the United States and outside the United States. They even had some in China for a while. I don’t know if they’re still doing that. But every state has numerous [locations]. Virginia has numerous locations where they do the Guild.

NORTON: In your resumé it says you’re the chairman of the National Piano Guild auditions.

KHAMBATTA: That means that I do the arranging. So I’m the one that connects CHAW to Texas. They’re the ones that connect us to the adjudicator and come and give this beautiful certificate. I did it when I was in high school. That’s how I met my first [Julliard] piano [teacher].

NORTON: Way back in Scottsbluff.

KHAMBATTA: Way back in Scottsbluff. I did the National Guild and the adjudicator was from Julliard. She had a camp in Colorado and I got a scholarship to the camp and got training in that camp. She was my first significant teacher for that. In Scottsbluff a couple of teachers, one from Pennsylvania and another from the local area.

NORTON: So you’ve been teaching essentially piano, right, and other instrumental music here for a long, long time.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah.

NORTON: In terms of the creative drama, do you continue to teach that or did you continue to teach that for a time?

KHAMBATTA: I’ve done that more integrated with Orff Schulwerk so we do dramatization with music. That’s what it kind of became.

NORTON: You also teach recorder?

KHAMBATTA: I did. I’m not teaching any recorder right now but Rachael Albrecht took only recorder, not piano. She took only recorder and she said later as an adult [that] we wrote down everything that she learned in a book and she said she still had the book.

NORTON: Does she say whether she can still play it? [Laughs.]

KHAMBATTA: No, she didn’t say that [laughs]. I have no idea. But she remembered it and she said her daughter takes piano somewhere but not here. I remember her father also as Gary Albrecht.

NORTON: Right. The chief of the police at the [Capitol].

KHAMBATTA: He was our savior. He was my savior.

NORTON: Why?

KHAMBATTA: Because he enabled us to get a parking pass. We had like six parking passes for the Workshop. When I came in to teach, I would get a parking pass that enabled me to park on the streets without getting tickets.

NORTON: At that time, I think he may have been just the head of the First District [D.C. Police] over there, but yes not far from here. We talked about [how the] Arts Workshop also put these essentially holiday get togethers, house tour kinds of things. The [CHAW Winter Revelry].

KHAMBATTA: Right.

NORTON: How were you involved in those?

KHAMBATTA: Our students. That gave our students a wonderful opportunity to perform in different houses. They would go and play and be a part of the atmosphere. I got a group from Foxes [Music Company] to come play. The picture that we had looked at was in the home of an actor on Capitol Hill that I can’t  remember.

NORTON: Bob Prosky?

KHAMBATTA: I believe so.

NORTON: Yeah. He was big.

KHAMBATTA: That was in his home.

NORTON: His home was in the Revel[ry] at some point.

KHAMBATTA: Right, yeah. I had this group from Foxes and then I had another recorder group that came, children that performed in the same place. So it gave all kinds of opportunities for performance.

NORTON: It was also nice because it was a very CHAW kind of thing. You don’t just have a house tour but you have performances of various kinds.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. It was community at its best.

NORTON: You are, I mean I guess, you’re the longest serving member of the faculty here at the Arts Workshop?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. Just kind of painful sometimes because you go through so many iterations of managers.

NORTON: Of the Arts Workshop?

KHAMBATTA: And their idiosyncrasies. There were periods that I couldn’t open the door by myself. They wouldn’t give me a key. There were periods that I was very welcome to come in, even though we had a holiday, and teach and close the door behind us, just like we’re doing today.

I remember some of the directors. Jeffrey Watson. He had a deputy who somehow enabled us to get two beautiful pianos for CHAW. So I remember going to search. I went to Rick Jones [Pianos in Beltsville] and we were able to get this piano that we use for all of our performances which is a really decent. Then we have a German tuner who upgraded this piano which made it impressively better. And the one downstairs that was used by Jill Strachan [a former CHAW director] for all Gilbert and Sullivan shows that she did.

NORTON: Were you involved in the Gilbert and Sullivan shows?

KHAMBATTA: I was not involved. I’m not sure exactly why but I certainly was part of that community and that support and her choruses. She did a 40th performance with her choruses and a 40th celebration, I don’t know, 30th celebration. Two of my students, one is now in a master’s program in Boston who performed for those.

NORTON: Do you remember who that was?

KHAMBATTA: The student?

NORTON: Yeah.

KHAMBATTA: Oh yeah. Alejandro Galdo actually was my personal student, scholarship student. It taught him as a scholarship student. There was another one, David Laziter who was a CHAW student and he performed for one of the celebrations that Jill did.

NORTON: Jill, did she teach here as well?

KHAMBATTA: Jill was a director.

NORTON: Oh, she was the director?

KHAMBATTA: Jill Strachan was a director.

NORTON: Predecessor, oh I see. So Amy came after?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah.

NORTON: So it’s fairly recent that she was…

KHAMBATTA: Yeah.

NORTON: And she was director for how long? Do you remember?

KHAMBATTA: I do not, but she did a lot of performances. Constant choral performances on the Hill and through Gilbert and Sullvan. I would say at least maybe five or six years.

NORTON: The Gilbert and Sullivan, [when did they] stop doing it?

KHAMBATTA: I wrote it down somewhere because I couldn’t remember her name.

NORTON: Do you remember how to spell it while we’re asking?

KHAMBATTA: Jill, S T R A C H A N because I’ve never known how to spell it. I learned this morning.

NORTON: Sounds right.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. I have to look it up to find out. Actually, I Googled it to find out when she was … Did I write it down? When she was…

NORTON: Director?

KHAMBATTA: …when that period was. [She was director from 2007 to 2017.] So they were Gilbert and Sullivan. It was 2017 was one of the dates that she produced a Gilbert and Sullivan, so it was around that period.

NORTON: Which is not that long ago. So it was before that she put on Gilbert and Sullivan?

KHAMBATTA: That was the period that she did it. That was one of the Gilbert and Sullivan shows that she did. That’s a period that I had returned to teach for Arlington County. I retired four times.

NORTON: I see. So you’ve been back since 2002 to Arlington?

KHAMBATTA: Yes. I taught in D.C., Eaton, John Eaton [Elementary School].

NORTON: Up in Northwest, right?

KHAMBATTA: About six years. After retiring from Arlington.

NORTON: What did you teach at Eaton?

KHAMBATTA: Music, and we put on shows. Drama of the first … I don’t know, it was something about slavery.

NORTON: You just can’t let yourself rest, right?

KHAMBATTA: I mean, it’s ridiculous isn’t it [NORTON laughs]? But then I went back to Arlington. Oh, I worked with these little kids and it was so much fun. That’s the period when I was doing a Spanish chorus in Arlington. I started that and we brought some of that back to CHAW with the Learning Academy. I did a lot of Spanish and I do Spanish songs with my piano students. So I had a Spanish chorus that grew from 1999 to somewhere around 2016. We took a group in 2011 to Pittsburgh to the national Orff Schulwerk presentation. We had a presentation there. That was I think, 2010, 2011.

NORTON: That would have been your Spanish chorus from Arlington?

KHAMBATTA: That’s right. I had started teaching again in Arlington. Then I retired from there and the principal there went to Loudon County and they needed a teacher in Loudon County at the, what is that town?

NORTON: Leesburg?

KHAMBATTA: No. It’s the richest town in the country. Middleburg. Middleburg Charter School. The principal in Arlington went there and she needed a teacher. So I went out there for four years. I drove out there.

NORTON: While you were still teaching at CHAW, for example, during all this time. How often would you come over here to teach?

KHAMBATTA: Three times a week at least. I’m teaching four times a week, four days a week now. But three days a week.

NORTON: Going back a little bit because I know you indicated to me beforehand that this was important. I think there are a lot of children, not only of the faculty of CHAW but just other kids that went here, that this was a real important place for them. I know your kids sort of reported that to you and you could sort of share that a little bit.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. Like my daughter, they were such a part of CHAW for so long they’d taken so many classes that they started teaching the classes. So Sarah said she was teaching and this kid was, you know, upset rolling back and forth. She pulled him into her lap and he relaxed and she said, “You know, basically that’s what I’m still doing in my career today.”

NORTON: What’s she doing now?

KHAMBATTA: She is coach. She’s a business coach for primarily women to overcome their perceived inadequacies. Transforming Dreams is what her company is called.

NORTON: She actually taught here though for a period of time, here at the Arts Workshop.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. She taught flute. She taught, I can’t remember, Sarah was the name of the [student].  Sarah taught Sarah and I can’t remember the last name of the flute student.

NORTON: Who’s also named Sarah is what you’re saying.

KHAMBATTA: Right. She was also teaching, I think, probably a drama or creative drama group because she was in a group and I assume they were sitting on the floor and that’s what she had training in. Then Cyrus, they had both taken gymnastics as Steve…

NORTON: With Steve, yes.

KHAMBATTA: …with Steve Johnson [who] likes to call it Chinese gymnastics. They took so much of that gymnastics that Cyrus ended up on top.

NORTON: Oh, you’ve got a picture of him with Steve on the bottom and Cyrus is on the top, right?

KHAMBATTA: Steve is in the middle.

NORTON: Yeah, he’s in the middle, right.

KHAMBATTA: And Sarah I think is on the bottom with some of the others.

NORTON: Oh Lord [laughs].

KHAMBATTA: His weight bearing, balancing kind of exercises that he did with kids, is what Cyrus uses in his choreography as choreographer of his dance company.

NORTON: Which dance company is that?

KHAMBATTA: That’s the KHAMBATTA Dance Company located in Seattle, Washington. He goes all over the world. He just was teaching in Seoul, working his group. His dancers went to Seoul and he was working interactively, teaching with a group there. He’s been in India. He’s been in Poland this year, I think. In the past he’s been in Germany and France with his company.

NORTON: So he’s been out in Seattle for quite a while?

KHAMBATTA: He has his company there. The International Dance Festival that he started is in Seattle. But it all started here.

NORTON: At the Arts Workshop.

KHAMBATTA: At the Arts Workshop with his training with Steve Johnson and his drama participation.

NORTON: Do you remember what other shows he was in besides Damn Yankees?

KHAMBATTA: Damn Yankees and Oliver. Sure he was in Oliver. I think his name was on this…

NORTON: Right, on the poster.

KHAMBATTA: …poster with all of your kids and the Matuszeskis, yeah.

NORTON: Since you’ve been here probably the longest of anybody, how has it changed? Is it the same, is it different, is it, you know, today and then?

KHAMBATTA: It was such a holistic kind of phenomenon when we first started.

NORTON: What do you mean by that?

KHAMBATTA: Sally would get groups together then we would do all of these things together. I would say, “Well, I’m not an artist. I can’t do that.” “Oh yes you can.”

NORTON: [Laughs] That’s what Sally would tell you.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. Sally wouldn’t take no for an answer from anyone. That’s part of her success. This holistic kind of program. We started fragmenting, so the arts wanted to have their own set of parameters and the drama wanted to have their own set of parameters.

NORTON: And music.

KHAMBATTA: Suzuki came in.

NORTON: Oh, right.

KHAMBATTA: They kind of pulled themselves apart from the whole program. So Suzuki kind of goes and does their own thing. I mean they’re trying to pull things together but it’s just people in categories. They’re doing some nice things, like during COVID they brought in some neighborhood group to … I don’t know what it’s called, the [Project 500 Initiative] that tries to help community people who need resources. So that was brought in.

But it’s all fragmented. It’s not this holistic kind of thing. I have to make sure that the pianos are taken care of. They need water and I’m the only person that does the watering [a humidifying device that keeps the sound board from drying out]. The building coordinator recognizes that it’s his job but he’s glad that I’ll do it. I mean, it’s just we’re fragmented.

NORTON: When did that start, I mean when did the fragmentation…

KHAMBATTA: I remember when we were over at Christ Church having a discussion about the arts. The art group wanted their own parameters. Their own show.

NORTON: This would be the Art League or whatever it is on Capitol Hill?

KHAMBATTA: Art, right. And that’s the beginning of it. Whenever that started. I don’t even have any idea.

NORTON: I seem to remember also that the Capitol Hill Chorale, which I guess Jeffery Watson was big on too, they have sort of gone off on their own too.

KHAMBATTA: Capitol Hill Chorale?

NORTON: Yeah.

KHAMBATTA: They have a children’s group that has come back again. But there are just all these fragments. There’s nothing to pull it together. There’s nobody whose making an effort to pull it together. Everybody has their job. They’re sitting at their job and they’re doing this and that. There’s no this pulling together.

NORTON: But you know it takes sort of an extraordinary person to be able to do that.

KHAMBATTA: Oh well, an extraordinary vision and you can’t keep something forever. I mean, Sally’s personality was here and that’s kind of the glue that held everything together for a long time. It does take an extraordinary personality. It would have taken somebody like Sally.

NORTON: Not only you, but Sally was working real hard too. She was trying to do everything at the same time.

KHAMBATTA: Right. At one point Sally asked me to be the educational director and you know, in a sense it’s too bad that I wasn’t capable of doing that. I didn’t think that I could raise my two kids by myself as a director of an arts program section. So I just, unfortunately, just passed that up.

NORTON: As I said when we talked about this preparing for it, I want you to say anything, add anything you want. I’ve pretty much come to the end of my list. I don’t want to leave anything untouched that you want to talk about.

KHAMBATTA: Right. I would like to just look and see if I can, because when you propose that possibility…

NORTON: [Laughs]

KHAMBATTA: I wanted to make sure that we covered certain things. One of those was the house tours which we talked about. Then let’s see, introduce direct impact that CHAW has had on fostering individual growth and creativity and a sense of community. I mean, what CHAW did to create and foster creativity in this community. And it still does to children but not the all-encompassing thing that we experienced for a long time.

NORTON: There were a lot of adult classes at least when I was started out here.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. I mean we have certain people that start adult classes but there’s nothing that really brings them forward. I mean there’s nothing that keeps them going.

NORTON: I took tap dancing. I know there was all different kinds of dancing and stuff. Are they still doing that?

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. Charlotte Floyd was teaching dance, the tap dancing and everybody––everybody–– took her class. All the adults took her class. I took her class. There’s not that same kind of …

NORTON: Do you think it’s because the adults around here are now too busy, that they don’t have the time to take a class like that?

KHAMBATTA: They don’t have the vision. They don’t have the vision. I mean it’s just … Amy is stuck in the back room with all of the details of the history and you don’t see her unless you go up and knock on her door. Catherine is down in her … she’s the educational person.

NORTON: What’s her last name? We can find out. [Catherine Aselford]

KHAMBATTA: Catherine lives in Arlington too and her background is a lot of theater. A lot of this kind of thing but she’s just kind of trying to keep it all coordinated on the computer. Aselford, Aselford.

NORTON: Can you spell that?

KHAMBATTA: A S E L F O R D, CHAW education director. Then we have Brian, I don’t know exactly what coordinator he is [Deputy Director] but he does a lot of the business stuff. Brian Washington. He lives out in Bowie. So it takes a lot of …

I mean, I should talk, I’ve lived in Arlington all my life and I’ve crossed the bridge millions of times, even in 1981 when we had that snow storm. I was coming across the 14th Street bridge and I had just come from school and went to gas station to get chains on my tires because I thought, “Oh, this is going to be difficult.” So I came across and had to go up around about in order to get on the 14th Street bridge. I went across the bridge and as I was going on the other side the plane hit the bridge.

NORTON: It hit the going out side too, didn’t it, as I recall. Well, no, that was the bus lane that it hit.

KHAMBATTA: I thought it hit the going in. Because it hit in the middle. Because it hit the first one and then bounced in the middle between them both.

NORTON: Oh Lord. Yeah, no, that was a day. [On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed in icy conditions into the northbound span of the 14th Street Bridge, killing 78 people.]

KHAMBATTA: That was horrible.

NORTON: Yeah it was.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. And I would have been on the bridge if I hadn’t got chains on my car. My dad was saying, “I know she’s going across the bridge at this time.” He was calling like crazy. Yeah. Let’s see, is there anything. I just want to say something about Raye. She was such a special person.

NORTON: Yes, still is.

KHAMBATTA: Oh well. As our interactions were so incredible. I just had such kind of a spiritual connection with her. She was an artist. Just a beautiful soul. I enjoyed it. One of my favorite things that I did at CHAW was sing a duet with Raye.

NORTON: Do you remember what it was?

KHAMBATTA: I have no recollection of what it was. It was in one of our musicals.

NORTON: You also had the musical revue kind of things.

KHAMBATTA: That’s what it was.

NORTON: They would have those fairly regularly.

KHAMBATTA: Yeah. So we did a duet. And then Steve Johnson and his incredible influence on my kids, both of them, on Sarah and Cyrus. Yeah, individuals like that that we interacted with. Sally was such a go getter, was just completely amazing. Can you imagine all of these people on this Oliver poster? There are so many.

NORTON: And there were also so many on Damn Yankees. You know, I think Oliver may have been the last one that they posted all the names of everybody that was in the show though, on the poster.

KHAMBATTA: Seven times eight is 56, approximately 56 names, and they say “and more.”

NORTON: Well right, in case you forgot somebody.

KHAMBATTA: Right. Gerry Connelly, I didn’t know he [refering to a Virginia congressman] was a part of this but I’ve supported him in his political … is it the same Gerry Connolly?

NORTON: No.

KHAMBATTA: It’s a different Gerry. Okay, that makes sense.

NORTON: No, Gerry Connolly was, you know, he lived over here. He passed away a few years ago, but he was heavily involved with the Arts Workshop. You know, he did a lot of technical stuff, the sound and the lighting and that kind of stuff in a lot of the shows, particularly the ones over at Christ Church which were the smaller shows and the kid’s shows and that sort of thing.

All right. Thank you. I have now, as I say, given you your last chance here to chime in but I really appreciate. This has been a lot of fun. I’ve learned a lot.

KHAMBATTA: Can I just say before you shut it off? We’re still doing piano things. I just had a person, a new piano hiree, [a piano coach], do an adjudication and we’re going to try to do some special things with. Her name is Dr. Kwan.

NORTON: How do you spell?

KHAMBATTA: K W A N. Her name is [Dr. Somruedi Suchitphanit]. I think she’s [Thai]. She wrote a really interesting dissertation. We’re going to try to do some things with her.

NORTON: Here, at the Arts Workshop?

KHAMBATTA: Right.

NORTON: Oh, cool.

KHAMBATTA: So we’re still looking. I’m still looking forward to new possibilities at the Workshop.

NORTON: Thank you very much. I really appreciate this.
END OF INTERVIEW

Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project
Cora Lee KHAMBATTA Interview, November 11, 2024

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