Tragedy and Comedy in New England

Last Act

2010-12-29T07:27:00.000-05:00

Ruth Gordon in her autobiography remarks on the poignant cry of the stage manager when places for the final act of a closing show is announced to the players. Instead of calling “Act Three”, he calls, “Last Act”.

This is the last act for “Tragedy and Comedy in New England”, though not entirely a farewell. Though I will not be continuing this blog due to a work load that requires more of my attention elsewhere, I will continue to post on the history of theatre in New England on my other blog, “New England Travels”. I hope you can join me there. In the meantime, I will leave this blog up as it is for the near future, but will disable further comments.

Let’s not ring the curtain down; let’s just move the show to a different stage.

Off Topic - "Meet Me in Nuthatch" Review

2010-12-22T07:50:00.000-05:00

Book review blog, “MotherLode” has recently reviewed my novel “Meet Me in Nuthatch”, available as an ebook through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Panned in Boston - John Philip Sousa's "Desiree"

2010-12-15T07:26:00.001-05:00

These were hard times in the theatre in December 1884, at least in Boston’s Bijou Theater for one particular production called “Desiree”. Featured actor De Wolf Hopper got off lightly by the critic, “in spite of his exaggerations, he is a true comic artist and made all the success.”

This unnamed critic reporting in Byrne’s Dramatic Times called the play “a wearisome affair, well calculated to please Philadelphia and Washington, but devoid of any merit so far as the libretto is concerned. Some extremely pretty and fascinating music is saddled to the worst rot imaginable.”

One may ponder if the audiences of Philadelphia and Washington are less apt to spot “rot” than a New England audience, but one has to admire the old world flourish of condemnations like “rot”.

“It is a little bit the worst stuff presented in the name of comic opera for some time.”

He saves his best stuff for the heroine: “Miss Rose Leighton was, on the other hand, the worst. What possible excuse she had for appearing is beyond me.”

He liked the costumes.

“Desiree” was a comic operetta whose score was composed by the famous “March King” John Philip Sousa, with libretto by Edward M. Taber. Perhaps the above critic’s opinions were not unfounded, as the libretto was later revised by Jerrold Fisher and William Martin. It had premiered several months earlier at the National Theater in Washington.

De Wolf Hopper, a 6-foot, 5-inch mountain of a man, which in theatre terms made him more appropriate for comic roles than heroes, later went on to fame delivering recitations of the poem “Casey at the Bat”, which he also occasionally did for curtain calls. Perhaps that might have saved the play here.

Curtail Call, Arrested in Hartford

2010-12-08T07:40:00.000-05:00

George and Sarah Bartley, players on the English stage from the late 1700s through the early 19th century, came to America on tour in 1818. It was a great success for them, but one episode in Hartford, Connecticut put a dent in their shiny newfound fame and fortune.

They took the stagecoach from New York City to Boston, and stopped in Hartford for a rest. According to Curtain Time - The Story of the American Theater by Lloyd Morris (Random House, NY, 1953), some prominent citizens in town invited them to present readings from plays and recitations. It wasn’t every day famous theater folk came to town. Probably because they had no theater. There were reasons for that, as we shall see.

The ballroom of Hartford’s “principal hotel” made do, but, this being New England, several more puritanical town fathers voiced opposition and demanded that the Attorney General of Connecticut “enforce the ‘blue law’ prohibiting theatrical performances and circuses.” Theatre, as we know, is a vice.

The Attorney General duly forbade the landlord of this establishment to hold his planned entertainment, but the landlord did not tell Mr. and Mrs. Bartley. So, on went the show in theatre tradition, and the thoroughly confused couple were immediately arrested after their bows, which the author notes was after midnight.

Bail was set at $500, more than a princely sum in the new republic, but fortunately, their hosts paid the bail. The court eventually let the Bartleys go, likely skedaddling up the Old Post Road with fresh horses. One hopes they had a better reception in Boston.

Upcoming Plays - December

2010-12-01T07:34:00.000-05:00

At the Hartford Stage, Hartford, Connecticut: “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, adapted and directed by Michael Wilson. Runs through December 31st, 2010

At the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Center for the Arts, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: The National Theatre of London presents “Hamlet” December 9th.

“Nicholas Hytner, the National's artistic director, crafts a Hamlet for our time with Rory Kinnear, son of the late comic actor Roy, as an everyman melancholy Dane. A Hamlet for the Whatever generation, Kinnear's ‘performance is superb in its resonance and intelligence’- Libby Purves, The Times He's a ‘thrilling Hamlet in a hoodie’ - Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph. Come see what the British critics are raving about. Simulcast from the National Theatre of London.”

At the Merrimack Repertory Theater, Lowell, Massachusetts, “Beasley's Christmas Party”, adapted by C.W. Munger, from the story by Booth Tarkington. Runs through December 19th.

“From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Magnificent Ambersons comes this story of a curious journalist and his extremely eccentric next door neighbor who is planning a most unusual Christmas party. Magically and imaginatively delivered, it is a distinctly American and spiritually uplifting holiday story for the whole family filled with humor, heart and hope.”

The Portland Stage, Portland, Maine is also performing Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” December 3rd through 24th.

“Travel back in time to Victorian England where ghosts, time travel, and memories help a cold and lonely old miser regain his heart. Our adaptation remains remarkably true to Dickens' original book. Dickens' story seems best told in his words, allowing audiences to hear the richness of his language, and to experience the story of Scrooge's encounters with the spirits of past, present, and yet-to-come in the way that the author intended.”

The Shubert Theater of New Haven, Connecticut presents “Sister’s Christmas Catechism” December 3rd through 5th.

“The Mystery of the Magi's Gold…

“It's "Forensic Files goes to Bethlehem" in this holiday mystery extravaganza, from the author of Late Nite Catechism, as Sister takes on the mystery that has intrigued historians throughout the ages - whatever happened to the Magi's gold? ("We know that Mary used the frankincense and myrrh as a sort of potpourri - they were in a barn after all.")

Retelling the story of the nativity, as only Sister can, this hilarious holiday production is bound to become a yearly classic. Employing her own scientific tools, assisted by a local choir as well as a gaggle of audience members, Sister creates a living nativity unlike any you've ever seen. With gifts galore and bundles of laughs, Sister's Christmas Catechism is sure to become the newest addition to your holiday traditions.”

Off Topic and Off Blog - Interview

2010-11-24T07:32:00.000-05:00

John Hayes of “Robert Frost’s Banjo” recently ran interview with me on my novel “Meet Me in Nuthatch.” Have a look here. And for those in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving.

Maude Adams' Boston Box-Office Bonanza

2010-11-17T07:34:00.000-05:00

(This portait photo of Maude Adams, taken when she was about 20 in the early 1890s, is in the public domain.)

In 1901, it was reported of actress Maude Adams, “Miss Adams’ receipts last week in Boston were the largest in the history of Boston theaters or anywhere -- $23,000.” Not bad when you think most ticket prices were probably around fifty cents.

This quote chronicled in “Curtain Time - The story of the American Theater” by Lloyd Morris (Random House, NY, 1953), though a cold, if impressive fact, barely scratches the surface to describing the popularity of Maude Adams.

Born in the 1870s, she toured in stock since her early childhood, and by the turn of the century was at the top of her game. The works of J. M. Barrie were paramount in her repertoire (his “What Every Woman Knows” was written for her), and she is noted as the first American actress to play Barrie’s “Peter Pan” in 1905. It was the highpoint of her career, an enormous success in an era where theatre was the primary entertainment and had no competing media.

Author Lloyd Morris notes, “Miss Adams was…winsome rather than pretty, slight, frail and girlish. Her lilting speech and muted laughter, the delicacy of her treat, the graceful swiftness of her movement, gave her a quality that soon was described as ‘otherworldly’. Though intensely feminine, she made a curious impression of elusiveness, as if she had an elfin strain.”

Such qualities gave magic to anyone playing Peter Pan.

“Millions of Americans saw Miss Adams on stage, rejoiced in her performances, cherished a sense of genuinely personal relationship to her. Yet, paradoxically, only a handful of people really knew her. Frohman (producer Charles Frohman) believed that the illusions of the theater would be shattered if the public saw his stars off-stage, or knew too much about them.”

Intriguing, and somehow sad. So much devotion, so many box office receipts, to be really known by only a handful of people.

The Audience That Wouldn't Leave

2010-11-10T07:35:00.000-05:00

Sometime in the mid-1800s, when theatre was hundreds of years old and yet still, seemingly to our modern sophistication, still in its infancy, “Oliver Twist” was presented in Lowell, Massachusetts. The play, based upon the Charles Dickens novel, must have been a hit, because the audience did not want to leave.

According to the “Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes”, a book on American theatre stories by Olive Logan, (Parmelee & Co., Philadephia, 1870), after the play ended, the audience stayed in their seats, looking, perhaps expectantly, at the drawn curtain.

It is a painful moment in theatre when the audience walks out before the play is over, but perhaps merely awkward when they choose not to leave at all.

At last, the stage manager came out in front of the curtain and handled the problem, as stage managers are supposed to do, with absolute authority, and if possible, tact. He announced,

“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to inform you that the play has terminated. As all the principal characters are dead, it cannot, of course, go on.”

That seemed reasonable to the audience, who finally went away.

"Claudia" at the Court Square Theater

2010-11-03T07:39:00.000-04:00

“Claudia” came to the Court Square Theater in Springfield, Massachusetts for three performances in March 1943. The play had just closed on Broadway the month before after a successful run of almost two years. The lead in that Broadway production, Dorothy McGuire, was whisked off to Hollywood to make her first motion picture. Phyllis Thaxter played the irrepressible young bride, Claudia in this road production.

This show also featured Donald Cook and Frances Starr reprising their Broadway roles. Both stage veterans with long careers, Mr. Cook also appeared in films, including the 1936 “Show Boat.”

Rose Franken, author of the play, directed both the Broadway and road shows.

Upcoming Plays

2010-10-27T07:36:00.000-04:00

Upcoming plays for November:

At the Hartford Stage, Shakespeare’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” featuring Kate Mulgrew and John Douglas Thompson currently runs through November 6th.

At the Majestic Theater, West Springfield, Massachusetts, “Escanaba in Love” by Jeff Daniels runs October 29th through December 5th.

The Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the east coast premiere of “Four Places” by Joel Drake Johnson through November 7th.

“This honest, compassionate and profound drama evokes the most familiar and heartfelt aspects of family relations. Two middle-aged siblings take their mother out to lunch where the conversation turns from routine banter to life-changing revelation. The indelible characters are both marvelously funny and devastatingly human as they lead one another to a place where forgiveness and understanding are tested, but love is still possible. (Contains Adult Language and Suggestive Dialogue).”

The Vermont Actors Repertory Theatre presents “The Savannah Disputation” by Evan Smith November 17th through 20th.

“The theological back-and-forth shines a light on the combatants’ personalities, so we get a glimpse into, if not the souls, then at least the hearts and minds of four people who are secretly grappling with doubt, fear, loneliness, and regret about paths not taken. Along the way, there are plenty of laughs…In other words, faith is a complicated business-and even sometimes, as DISPUTATION shows, a funny business, too.” -Boston Globe “Smith’s script is, above all else, VERY funny; it’s comedy rooted in situation and character in the best way…blissfully entertaining. But at the same time, Smith never shies from the important subjects at the heart of his play…This is a play filled with heady and fascinating theological and philosophical debate.” -NYTheatre.com”

At the Huntington Theater in Boston, The Shirley, Vermont Plays presents “Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker, directed by Melia Bensussen, through November 14th.

See you next week.

2010-10-20T07:28:00.000-04:00

No post today. See you next week.

"Meet Me in Nuthatch" - A Novel

2010-10-13T07:40:00.000-04:00

This is to announce my book.

"Meet Me in Nuthatch", a novel of humor, warmth, Christmas tree farming, dressing up like it was 1904, and selling your small town to a theme park conglomerate is now issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle, and on Smashwords, available in a variety of formats.

Here’s the blurb:

A publicity stunt to attract tourists to a small dying town (population 63), results in the entire community turning the clock back to 1904. It is local Christmas tree farmer Everett Campbell’s idea, after watching the film “Meet Me in St. Louis,” his young daughter’s new favorite movie. What begins as half practical joke and half desperate ploy initiates the rebirth of Nuthatch, Massachusetts. Tourists do come, along with the media. Everett’s resentful teenaged son rebels at living in the pretend past. His wife, a medical transcriptionist who works at home, a self-employed and self-professed loner, has panic attacks when tourists stop to take her picture. The town’s unofficial historian, a genteel septuagenarian, supports Everett’s scheme, but for personal gain.

To Everett’s dismay, his campaign to save their community results in also attracting representatives of a chain of theme parks who want to buy Nuthatch 1904. Everett now stands to lose his town in a way he never imagined, and the community is divided on which alternate future to choose. On the sidelines but ever encroaching toward the center is a local drug dealer, the longtime enemy of Everett and his best friend Bud, who discovers a new opportunity to threaten them and exploit the town, or its new owner.

The novel is mainly humorous, a bit poignant, a little sad, briefly scary, incidentally educational, and so gosh darn entertaining if you like that sort of thing.

You do not need a Kindle or other e-reader device, as both Kindle and Smashwords versions can be downloaded to your computer. It sells for $2.99.

MEET ME IN NUTHATCH is available here on Amazon, and also available on Smashwords.

Hal Holbrook Recording Found - Valley Players, Holyoke, Mass.

2010-10-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

A collector of old audio recordings recently contacted me about a reel-to-reel tape he discovered in a flea market in North Carolina some years ago, which features actor Hal Holbrook that was labeled: " Holbrook - recording made in Guilds living room 176 Lincoln St, in late winter 1957 of publicity material prior to his performance of Mark Twain tonight at the Mt. Park Casino to open the Valley Players 16th season".

We discussed the Valley Players of Holyoke, Massachusetts in this previous post. Hal Holbrook was among the most notable young actors who graduated from his summer stock performances there on Mt. Tom to a long career on stage, film, and television. The recording appears perhaps to be either commercial spots or recorded interviews meant for publicizing the one-man play he created, “Mark Twain Tonight”. The Guilds were Carlton and Jean Guild who founded the Valley Players in 1941.

Mr. K. Morgan found this tape with others which also includes recorded material by Orson Welles and others. He is offering these tapes to anyone who wants them, free of charge, because he does not want these tapes to be lost if they are of historical significance or value to someone. He is offering as well to digitize the material, so no worries about not having a reel-to-reel player.

If anyone is interested in this audio material, please contact Mr. Morgan at: kensunm@gmail.com.

Our thanks to Mr. Morgan for respecting this material as part of our shared cultural heritage. As we’ve seen regarding the discovering of old film, it is often the private collectors who find and protect lost material, and we owe them a lot.

The Little Theatre of Fall River, Massachusetts

2010-09-29T07:35:00.000-04:00

Theatre is a magical part of community life. Large cities boast theatrical venues as part of their urban charm. Regional theaters and summer stock companies are extolled as among the virtues of vacation destinations.

And then we have the largely un-sung but enormously important community theatre world of semi-professional and amateur meeting after work for the challenge and the fun.

One such company, or community we may call it because that’s what it really is: The Little Theatre of Fall River, Massachusetts.

Like many community theatres, this organization was for decades essentially nomadic, performing plays in any local venue that was available and it could afford. Even today, the Little Theatre splits its time between the renovated old firehouse, pictured above, and a community college auditorium.

Have a look at the group’s website for a fun history of the intrepid players. I especially love the description of how early productions at the Women’s Club allowed for no wing space and how stage right opened right out to a fire escape, and how audiences had to wait patiently while sets were changed. The writer notes, “The casts and stage crews were hardier then, as were the audiences.”

The Little Theatre performed “Pygmalion” and “Pride and Prejudice”, all manner of historical costume dramas many smaller groups tend to shy away from these days for their difficulty and expense. Impressive, when you consider this group was formed in 1936, the middle of the Great Depression.

Their next production is “Rent” to be performed at the Margaret L. Jackson Performing Arts Center at Bristol Community College in Fall River. The show runs October 7th through the 10th. Have a look at the Little Theatre website here for details on show times.

Lizzie May Ulmer on Tour

2010-09-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

This ad from Byrnes’ Dramatic Times announces the beginning of a new season with Lizzie May Ulmer in the lead of “Dad’s Girl”, a part she would play in traveling stock for several weeks, if not years, to come. Her tour had its ups and downs.

The play, as the ad tells us, was written for her by Mr. E. J. Swartz, who was a well known journalist as well as playwright of the day. The play opened in Boston in August of 1884. We might assume that the North Scituate, Massachusetts address for G. T. Ulmer, the company’s actor/manager, could be the Ulmer summer digs, in this era before summer stock in small towns.

The play is set in New England, and a famous scene takes place on Nantasket Beach, that finger of sand that stretches out into Massachusetts Bay, just north of North Scituate.

Miss Ulmer plays Malvina Hoskins, a New England girl adopted by a grizzled adventurer from the wild West. “Dad” has made his pile and is settling down in the refined East with his tomboy charge. The ad calls it a “New England Ideal Play” and we can also assume that stereotypes abounded.

Following the play on a few stops around the country through newspaper reviews, we glimpse the astonishingly hard life the stock players had. Not only did they have to brave audiences and critics, but endured a rigorous schedule of arduous traveling.

After two weeks in Boston, the company headed for the Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York City. The New York Times of September 5, 1884 referred to Miss Ulmer as “a young actress seeking a ‘metropolitan reputation’ in a “felicitously entitled ‘Dad’s Girl’.” The slightly condescending “your playing with the big boys now” attitude fails to note that Lizzie May Ulmer had already trod the boards in traveling stock for many years, and had already had her portrait painted by Nelson A. Primus in Boston. Painted in 1876, her portrait is now part of the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Primus was one of the eminent African-American artists of his time.

The painting shows a dark-haired young woman, quite girlish, with an almost impish expression on her face that may have served her well in the number of child waifs and ingénue roles for which she was famous.

In “Dad’s Girl” her robust curiosity and courage helps to solve several thefts and murders. Oh, and she falls in love with a Good and Honest Man.

The review in the New York Times on September 9th hammers both the play and the actress.

The central figure in a not-over ambitious drama entitled “Dad’s Girl” cannot be said to have achieved brilliant success. To what extent this is owing to the deficiencies of Mr. E. J. Swarz’s remarkable picture of New England life, and in how great a degree to the actress’s own shortcomings cannot yet be decided. Miss Ulmer’s character is that of a slangy young woman whose heart is in the right place. If we are not mistaken, the same character has been seen before in various guises. The play is utterly improbable and is devoid of literary value. Two murders and any number of thefts are connected with the plot of “Dad’s Girl”, and its most striking scene is a view of Nantasket Beach at night, with not a soul in sight to enjoy the dazzling effect of the light of a monster moon falling upon a placid sea. Mr. Leslie Allen played a conventional old man in a conventional manner, and Mr. George C. Boniface imparted some interest to the character of an unaccountable idiot.

Still, he hands a valentine at the end:

“Last night’s audience found a great deal to admire in Miss Ulmer’s acting.”

Either the play improved, or the critics’ mood did, by the time the company reached Charlotte, North Carolina two weeks later. The Daily Mirror of October 4, 1884 noted of the September 22nd performance, that “Dad’s Girl” played to “crowded houses. Miss Ulmer has made herself a favorite, and she will always be assured of a good house here.”

On the way to Charlotte, they stopped for five days to perform at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.

However, when they played in Pittsburg the following February, The Sporting Life newspaper of Philadelphia reported:

A great misfortune occurred to Miss Lizzie May Ulmer at Pittsburg, PA on Wednesday night when she was playing in “Dad’s Girl.” At the close of the performance she fainted, and on regaining consciousness she was found to be totally blind.” This was said to be a relapse from a long illness she had in St. Paul.

When “Dad’s Girl” came back to New York, this time playing at the Third Avenue Theatre. The New York Times noted:

This was her first appearance in several weeks, as her season was interrupted at Pittsburgh some time ago by sickness. She performed her part with considerable dash and spirit, and evidently pleased the audience, which was large enough to fill half the house.

Dash and spirit, but only a half-full house. So goes another year of bringing Nantasket Beach in all its moonlit glory to every great city and whistlestop.

Upcoming Plays for September and October

2010-09-15T07:38:00.000-04:00

Here are some upcoming plays for September and October, 2010:

At the Barrington Stage, Pittsfield, Massachusetts: Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

Directed by Julianne Boyd, the show runs October 6, 2010 - October 24, 2010.

“The Crucible was written in response to Joseph McCarthy’s blacklisting of Americans suspected of being Communists in the 1950s. Set in 1692, The Crucible focuses on the witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts where a community is engulfed by hysteria after a group of teenage girls, accused of witchcraft, begin naming names. A timeless classic and one of the greatest plays of the 20th century.”

At the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stockbridge, Massachusetts:

The world premiere of “No Wake” written by William Donnelly, directed by Kyle Fabel.

“An estranged couple struggles to cope with the death of their daughter in William Donnelly’s world premiere play. Edward and Rebecca have moved on since their divorce- she to a new husband and he to a series of failed relationships. However, when an unexpected tragedy brings them back together, they’re forced to navigate a web of grief and guilt that leads to tears, laughter, and, ultimately, hope. At once deeply touching and filled with humor, ‘No Wake’ takes an honest look at the grieving process and the unexpected consequences it can bring.”

At the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, “Carnival!” runs through September 18th.

“The magical and heart-warming tale of a naïve young woman who eagerly joins a traveling circus. Surrounded by a riot of acrobats and jugglers, music makers and clowns, she is dazzled at first by the troupe’s manipulative magician. In the end she finds happiness with a disillusioned puppeteer who can only express himself through his delightful puppets. Based on the film “Lili” and with songs like “Love Makes the World Go Round” and "Her Face," Carnival! casts a romantic spell over the entire audience.”

Music and lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Michael Stewart.

At The Hartford Stage, Hartford, Connecticut, William Shakespeare’s “Antony & Cleopatra” will be presented from October 7th through November 7th.

Directed by Tina Landau

“Joining critically acclaimed Shakespearean actor John Douglas Thompson as Mark Antony is the incomparable Kate Mulgrew (Broadway’s Equus, TV's Star Trek: Voyager and Ryan’s Hope) as Cleopatra, returning to Hartford Stage for the first time since her memorable portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Tea at Five!”

The Ivoryton Playhouse in Ivoryton, Connecticut presents “Driving Miss Daisy”
September 29th through October 17th.

The Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Massachusetts presents “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” runs through October 17th.

The Merrimack Repertory Theater presents “The Complete World of Sports (abridged)” by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, featuring the Reduced Shakespeare Company runs through October 3rd.

“The “bad boys of abridgement” sprint through the world of sports at record-breaking speed in this brand-new championship comedy. From the earliest cavemen playing “Neanderthal in the Middle” to your own kid’s soccer practice, it’ll be a marathon of madness and mayhem as the entire history of world sports explodes in a tour de farce of physical theatre.”

The New Repertory Theatre of Watertown, Massachusetts presents David Mamet’s “Boston Marriage” in the Charles Moseisan Theater through October 3rd.

“In this biting comedy by David Mamet, Anna and Claire, two “women of fashion” who have long resided together, scheme to obtain the objects of their desire. Anna maintains their upper-middle class Victorian lifestyle as the mistress of a wealthy man who provides her with a healthy income and a distinctive emerald necklace for her companionship. When Claire’s attentions stray from Anna, Anna devises the “perfect plan” that grows in outlandishness, even as it backfires and the innocent parlor maid gets caught in the crossfire.”

The North Shore Music Theatre of Beverly, Massachusetts presents “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” September 21st through October 10th.

“Based on the popular 1988 MGM film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS centers on two con men living on the French Riviera – the suave and sophisticated Lawrence Jameson, who makes his lavish living by talking rich ladies out of their money; and a small-time crook named Freddy Benson, who, more humbly, swindles women by waking their compassion with fabricated stories about his grandmother’s failing health. After meeting on a train, they unsuccessfully attempt to work together only to find that this small French town isn’t big enough for the two of them. So they make a bet: the first one to swindle $50,000 from a young heiress, triumphs and the other must leave town. What follows are a series of schemes, masquerades and double-crosses in which nothing may ever be exactly what it seems.”

Book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek.

Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” starring Christopher Lloyd plays at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, Vermont September 28th.

At the Portland Stage, Portland, “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps”, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the novel by John Buchan runs September 28th through October 4th.

“Mix an Alfred Hitchcock classic with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of vintage Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps, a fast-paced whodunit for anyone that loves the magic of theater. This Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning treat is packed with nonstop laughs, over 150 characters – played by a talented cast of four – handcuffs, missing fingers, and some good old-fashioned romance.”

The American Repertory Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts presents “Cabaret” through October, featuring Amanda Plummer at The Emcee. Book by Joe Masteroff

The Huntington Theatre presents “Bus Stop” by William Inge, directed by Nicholas Martin September 17th through October 17th at the Boston University Theatre.

“A snowstorm strands a bus outside of Kansas City, and its passengers — including a stubborn, lovestruck cowboy and the nightclub singer he hopes to marry – seek shelter and warmth at a roadside diner. The motley crew spends one night together, filled with bluster, heartache, and laughter, searching for love in this classic American comedy.”

The Ridgefield Theater Barn of Ridgefield, Connecticut presents Neil Simon’s “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” Directed by Matt Austin, the show runs through October 2nd.

“The story revolves around the escalating problems of a middle-aged couple living on Second Avenue on the Upper East Side of New York City. Mel Edison has just lost his job after many years and now has to cope with being unemployed at middle age. An intense summer heat wave and a prolonged garbage strike just exacerbates his plight to no end as he and his wife Edna deal with noisy neighbors, loud sounds emanating from Manhattan streets up to their apartment and even a robbery of their apartment during broad daylight. Neil Simon walks a tightrope between comedy and drama in this bittersweet production.”

The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Weirs Beach, Laconia, New Hampshire presents “Love Letters” by A. R. Gurney, staring Broadway veteran Carolyn Kirsch, October 8th through 10th.

“Letters exchanged over a lifetime between two people who grew up together but went their separate ways teach us what is implied is as revealing and meaningful as what is actually written.”

Vermont Actors' Repertory Theatre Play Writing Contest

2010-09-08T07:23:00.000-04:00

The Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre are now opening their “Fifth Annual Nor’Eastern Play Writing Contest”.

Sponsored by the Killington/Rutland Holiday Inn,

“This is the fifth year of world premiere staged One-Act Play performances to be presented in the Brick Box at the beautiful Paramount Theatre in downtown Rutland, Vermont. The Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre in its exciting fifth season is again presenting the Nor’Eastern Play Writing Contest with showcase productions of the three winning scripts on May 06 and 07, 2011. This contest features the work of three outstanding regional playwrights. Each script goes through a rigorous screening process of two panels in a blind reading. The scripts with the highest scores are submitted to the final reader who selects the three scripts to be showcased.”

Entry information is available at www.actorsrepvt.org or can be requested by writing to:

The Nor’Eastern Play Writing Contest
Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre
PO Box 580
Rutland, Vermont 05702

Or by emailing at: actorsrepvt@aol.com

"Finian's Rainbow" at the Ivoryton Playhouse

2010-09-01T07:44:00.001-04:00

Go see a play or musical at the Ivoryton Playhouse in Ivoryton, Connecticut.

What follows is a review of their recent production of the musical “Finian’s Rainbow”, but the upshot is: go to the Ivoryton Playhouse. You will be delighted. You will likely even be amazed.

To be sure, New England summer theatre has its own particular charm, as I’ve stated often enough, I suppose, in this blog. Upon entering the Ivoryton Playhouse with its worn wooden floors, its simple seating chairs, and the rustic quality that is genuine, borne of decades, and not manufactured to be retro and decorative, one might lower one’s expectations for a performance that is, like the theater, serviceable, and good enough.

On the contrary. The show was as good as any I’ve ever seen in any theater, including Broadway, and better than most of them. It may be that the simple and whimsical nature of this show, “Finian’s Rainbow”, about a rascally Irish immigrant and his daughter, and a buffoonish leprechaun, and a flock of good-hearted villagers seeking redress from the local villain lends itself beautifully to this small-town theater.

Certainly, the minimalist and somewhat cartoonish set designed by Tony Andrea implies that we are required from the outset to suspend disbelief. However, the creative scrim effect and the lighting brings a poignant “reality” to the fairy tale, the way an impressionistic painting makes us recognize what we already know and wonder about what we had missed.

Another terrific illusion is created by the effect of the dual pianos in the pit, which give a richness that makes a larger combo or orchestra surprisingly unnecessary. The fabulous voices fill in the rest.

R. Bruce Connelly (whom your children will probably not recognize out of his costume as Barkley the dog on Sesame Street), is delightful as the rogue Finian, who steals a leprechaun’s pot of gold to put into action his own unique theory of economics.

Kathleen Mulready plays his feisty daughter, Sharon. She has a beautiful singing voice, with comedic timing that makes her at times appear as roguish as her troublesome father. She is well-matched with John Rochette, who plays Woody, the villager’s hero and best hope for defeating their oppressors. With his masterful baritone and striking good looks, Rochette’s scenes with Ms. Mulready, particularly during the number “Old Devil Moon” are sensual and moving.

Michael Nathanson is hysterical as Og the leprechaun, and Patryce Williams as one of the townsfolk steals the show in her featured number “Necessity.” Both these actors give strong, likable performances that fairly leap off the stage. The rest of the leaping is left to dancer Tessa Grunwald as Susan the Silent, who expresses herself wistfully in ballet.

Larry Lewis likewise plays a memorable Senator Billboard Rawkins, the villain of the piece who, after a little magic, has a change of heart. One note about Jamison Daniels, who plays the Sheriff when he’s not doubling as one of the townspeople: that high-pitched whine he uses as the sheriff that sounds like a teenaged boy’s voice changing is a hoot.

Costumes by Pam Puente, are evocative of the lazy summertime small town South, though Sharon’s dress stands out from the garden of small print dresses and aprons on the other ladies by its colorful stripes suggesting a rainbow.

The entire cast, including a good-sized ensemble, sings together with terrifically tight harmony and vocal precision. And the voices are beautiful. Director Julia Kiley and musical director John S. DeNicola are to be commended, as well as choreographer Schuyler Beeman for the cohesion in this production. It is fine-tuned and glorious to behold.

This is why I say this production is as good or better than others I’ve seen. There is always something overdone or underdone, even if in a small way, that happens in many theatre productions. Not this time. There’s nothing slipshod, uneven or out of place about this show.

There is a façade of simplicity, even nostalgia that remains and beguiles. Perhaps it is because there is not a lot of technical trickery, bells and whistles or eye candy to distract, thereby letting the pure and undiluted talent stand on its own merit. This is after all, summer theatre in a small town.

Perhaps it is because this show innocently harkens back to a time when tobacco was a time-honored crop and the dangers of its use in smoking were if not unknown, were at least not discussed. This production slings a modern-day joke into the dialogue, and thereby a connection to modern sensibilities, by having the townsfolk hack in a hearty community cough when discussing their treasured tobacco crop, on which they pin their hopes for economic independence.

Perhaps it is because this show reflects a time when we innocently thought racism could be vanquished merely by standing up to it. There were also chuckles from the audience when the bigoted Senator moans, “Ever since my family came to this country, we’ve had trouble with immigrants.”

In today’s political climate when racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry can so strongly surface over an argument, particularity when that bigotry is being manipulated and exploited, we might wonder if an innocent show like “Finian’s Rainbow” is out of date.

Somehow, here at the Ivoryton Playhouse, it is not out of date. It is surprisingly relevant and provides a bond not only to our cultural past, but our theatrical heritage. A painted wooden stage. A little puff of smoke from dry ice. Lights up. Lights down.

On the walls, a gallery of 8 x 10 photographs of some of the famous actors who played here. There are a number of them; after all, plays were first produced here in 1930 (the building dates back to 1911). Some of these actors were already famous when they played here, summers ago. Some were newcomers, like young Katharine Hepburn, who appeared in several shows in the summer of 1931.

Go see a play or musical at the Ivoryton Playhouse. It’s not just theatre in the summer anymore, but a produces a year-round schedule of professional theatre. For more on the rest of the 2010 schedule, have a look at this website. “Finian’s Rainbow” runs until this Sunday, September 5th.

Another Booth in Another Play at the Tremont

2010-08-25T08:35:00.000-04:00

When “The Bonnie Brier Bush” played in at the Tremont Theatre in Boston, “These familiar characters were greeted as old friends by the audience.”

This from the New York Times on the opening of J. H. Stoddard’s play based on the novel by Ian Maclaren. It was August 26, 1901, 109 years ago tomorrow.

I would say it seems like yesterday, but it doesn’t.

The play is described as being somewhat similar to J. M. Barrie’s “The Little Minister”, in that it takes place in the Scottish countryside, a love story between a young lord and a village girl, where scandal sends them away from the village (at least until Act IV), and a secondary romance between another lady and the minister.

Charles Hutchinson and Irma La Pierre played the leads, with the supporting cast including Sidney Booth, Gertrude Bennett, Stoddard in the role of the angry father who drives his daughter away from home, and Reuben Fax in the comic role of village tippler.

A quartet singing the old Scots song “Annie Laurie” brought what must have been folksy poignancy to what the New York Times reported called an “idyllic piece.” This was still an era of specialty acts punctuating the plots of plays. It was still the era of the four-act play.

This play went on to Broadway the next month, with a run of only a couple of months. Sidney Booth, incidentally, who played the minister, made a number of appearances on Broadway, and was a member of that famous acting family, the Booths. He was the son of actor Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., and the nephew of both actor Edwin Booth and actor and assassin John Wilkes Booth. (See this previous post for more on the Booth brothers’ personal and professional turmoil at the time John Wilkes Booth murdered President Abraham Lincoln.)

Have a look at this previous post for more on the Tremont Theatre.

Clare Boothe Luce Plays Stamford, Connecticut

2010-08-18T07:01:00.000-04:00

“No good deed goes unpunished” is a line often attributed to Clare Boothe Luce (and others), and might well be pasted on a review of her performance in George Bernard Shaw’s “Candida.”

At the time she played this role at the Strand Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut in August of 1945, she was also a member of Congress, a Representative of the Fourth Congressional District of Connecticut.

She had a varied career as a playwright (“The Women”), she wrote for Vogue and was an associate editor for Vanity Fair, was a correspondent to Life (her husband’s magazine), and wrote the screenplay for the 1949 movie “Come to the Stable.”

But way back she wanted to be an actress, had a few early stage experiences, and evidently decided it was not too late, despite her workload as a Congresswoman, to trod the boards again.

Critic Lewis Nichols of the New York Times remarked in his column on August 6, 1945, with a tartness Luce might have appreciated were the jibes not directed at her:

It was generally agreed after the first performance tonight that the Representative of the Fourth Congressional District of Connecticut deserved full credit for trying, she probably need not cause Katherine Cornell too many uneasy moments…

What the audience saw was a production of “Candida” which was word-perfect but lacked warmth…

Opening nights are trying affairs even to the experienced, but with all allowances for summer and a debut, Mrs. Luce seemed stiff and detached.

Mr. Nichols, evidently more intrigued with her connections than her acting prowess, notes others in the opening night audience included Brigadier General Elliot Roosevelt, son of the late President, who attended with his wife Faye Emerson. Financier Bernard Baruch, Connecticut Governor Raymond Baldwin, “who amiably vaulted a row when put into the wrong seat”, as well as actresses Margaret Sullivan and Betty Field.

Congress would re-convene soon, and the end of World War II was close at hand. One imagines there would not be too many more opportunities for playacting.

"A Funny Thing Happened" - by Lester Colodny

2010-08-11T08:11:00.000-04:00

And now for something completely different.

Monty Python fans will recognize that catch line, but it happens to be the theme in the rollicking life and roller coaster career of Lester Colodny, whose new memoir, “A Funny Thing Happened - Life Behind the Scenes: Hollywood Hilarity and Manhattan Mayhem”, attempts to chronicle all the weird and wonderful events, and characters, that have crossed his path in the entertainment field.

Recently published by SciArt Media, written by Mr. Colodny with Susan Heller, the book opens with the horrific and classic barrel of monkeys story, a true event of a simian takeover of the set of NBC’s “The Today Show” during which Colodny was the show’s writer and associate producer.

Mr. Colodny kindly granted me a phone interview and discussed his long and varied career as a writer of plays, ad copy, of news précis, and screenplays. He stumbled into acting and stumbled into Mae West, touring with her show “Diamond L’il”. He worked as a literary agent, a talent agent, and director of television commercials. He won an Emmy Award for a special with Jack Benny he wrote, directed and produced. He won several “Clio” awards for his unique “Xerox” commercials.

Now, at 85 years old, Lester Colodny is enjoying a new endeavor as a director of community theatre plays in Connecticut.

“One of the things that irks me is I think I’ve missed my calling,” he says, having discovered a “natural affinity for directing.”

He has worked with the Ridgefield Theater Barn, directing Christopher Durang’s farce, “Beyond Therapy” in 2009 as noted in this previous “upcoming plays” post. A month later he directed “Jake’s Women” for the Town Players of New Canaan, Connecticut, and a few months ago worked with Curtain Call in Stamford on “Driving Miss Daisy.”

“Really fine professionals have come and told me that my shows are good or better than many of the shows on Broadway.”

Mr. Colodny is currently in rehearsal with the comedy “Enter Laughing” by Joseph Stein, adapted from the novel by Carl Reiner, which will be produced by the Westport Community Theatre from September 24th through October 10th.

“We get a pretty good turnout,” he said, noting that in the past he had also directed some community theatre in New York, Illinois, and in California.

Lester Colodny brings with him a lifetime of experience, including a brief stint on Broadway when a play he wrote starring Joan Rivers opened and closed with in a week, “a tremendous flop,” he says.

Throughout the course of his varied careers of wearing many hats, Lester Colodny worked with, partied with, or clashed with many famous names in the entertainment business, which are recounted in his new memoir, “A Funny Thing Happened.” We discussed this last week in this post from my New England Travels blog.

For more on his adventures in film and television, join us next week at Another Old Movie Blog.

For more on Lester Colodny’s book and to order your copy, have a look here at the SciArt Media website. SciArt Media is a new publishing company in New Hampshire, which specializes in books by New England authors.

Upcoming Plays for August 2010

2010-08-04T07:31:00.000-04:00

The following plays are upcoming for August, 2010:

At the Acadia Repertory Theatre of Mt. Desert Island, Maine:
“FALLEN ANGELS”, August 3rd through 15th. A hilarious comedy of middle-aged women behaving badly by Noel Coward.

Followed by:
Agatha Christie's “MURDER ON THE NILE” August 17th through September 5th.

Arundel Barn Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine presents: “Shout - The Mod Musical” August 3rd through 14th.

“The sensational sounds of the 60’s British Invasion! Savor the memories of Gen X in this blast from the past with a platinum pop score featuring These Boots Were Made for Walkin’, I Know A Place, Only Want To Be With You, Wishin’ & Hopin’, Don’t Sleep In the Subway, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, & many more! You’re all invited to tap, clap and shout!”

Followed by:
“Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits - A Mocument in Musical Theatre”
August 17th through 28th

“It’s the hottest ticket in town to Broadway’s greatest musicals as they meet Broadway’s greatest satirist in an hilarious, loving tribute to musical theatre’s sparkling shows and stars. Featuring whimsical glimpses of Hairspray, Spamalot, Rent, Fiddler, Momma Mia, Chicago, Les Miz, Chorus Line and many more!”

At the Barnstormers Theatre of Tamworth, New Hampshire:
“The Ghost Train”, August 10th through 14th.

“Ernest in Love”, August 17th through 21st.

“The Mystery of Irma Vep”, August 24th through 28th.

Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stockbridge, Massachusetts presents:

“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, directed by Eric Hill.

Followed by:

“A Delicate Balance” by Edward Albee, directed by David Auburn.

“Agnes and Tobias, a 50-something couple, want nothing more than to be left alone. However, they are saddled with Agnes’s alcoholic sister. When their daughter returns home as a result of her fourth divorce and their best friends seek asylum from some unnamed “fear”, tensions fray and every relationship in the house threatens to fall apart. An examination of the intricate web we all create among our friends and family and how easily it can all fall apart, A Delicate Balance sings with Albee’s trademark lyricism and insight. This Pulitzer Prize-winning piece is poignant, incisive, and funny.”

At the Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Massachusetts:
“Grey Gardens - The Musical”, August 9th through 21st.

“This Tony winning musical is based on the famous documentary by the Masles brothers documenting the rise, fall, and independent spirit of "Little" Edie Beale, first cousin to Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Some people said Little Edie was odd, others that she was a fashion genius ahead of her time. Hilarious, touching, and original.”

The Dorset Theatre Festival, Dorset, Vermont presents:

“MURDER ON THE NILE” by Agatha Christie, through August 15th.
“DTF once again plays host to Dame Christie in this classic mystery sure to please old and young alike. Join in the fun as you travel down the Nile on a paddle steamer with a cast of characters guaranteed to keep you guessing. One of Christie's best “who dunnits” simply packed with murder, intrigue and fun for all.”

Followed by:
“THE NOVELIST” by Theresa Rebeck, August 18th through 29th.
“A country home. A weekend away from the city. A brilliant novelist and his bitter son. A nubile and cunning young female assistant enters the picture and events explode in this fierce and funny contemporary drama which explores Chekovian territory in a contemporary American setting.”

Hackmatack Playhouse of Berwick, Maine presents:
“Carousel” through August 14th, “Rodgers and Hammerstein's dramatic story of the Maine coast, a carnival barker, a mill worker and the power of love. It features many famous of R&H songs including: ‘If I Loved You’, ‘You'll Never Walk Alone’, and ‘June is Bustin Out All Over’.”
Followed by:
“Hello Dolly”, August 18th through August 28th.

"Grab your hat, Fellas; Find her an empty lap, Fellas, Dolly is back in town!" In the first act someone asks Dolly, "What do you do for a living?" Dolly replies "Some people sew, some paint... I meddle". Come join in all the fuss and fun as you enjoy this most delightful of musical comedies.”

Ivoryton Playhouse, Ivoryton, Connecticut presents the musical “Finian’s Rainbow” August 11th through September 5th.

Mount Washington Valley Theatre, North Conway Village, New Hampshire presents
“THE FULL MONTY” through August 14th. “The story of six out of work, and out of shape, steel workers, who decide to put on a strip show to make money and earn back their manhood, is poignant, funny, and the bare-it-all ending…well, you’ll have to come and see!”

At the Newport Playhouse, Newport, Rhode Island:
“Don’t Dress for Dinner” August 5th through September 5th. “Bernard packs his wife off to her mother’s and is planning the weekend with his mistress. He asks his best friend to be his alibi. What could possibly go wrong?!”

North Shore Music Theatre, Beverly, Massachusetts presents:
“JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT” August 3rd through August 22nd. “Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's entertaining family musical retelling of the biblical story of Joseph, his devoted father, his jealous brothers, and his incredible series of adventures. Filled with spectacular costumes and high energy dance numbers, the story is told through a variety of musical styles - everything from country to calypso to rock 'n' roll.”

The Peterborough Players, Peterborough, New Hampshire presents:
“Tartuffe”, the classic comedy by Moliere, opening tonight and running through August 15th.

The Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit, Maine presents:

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Sunset Boulevard” with Stephanie Powers,
July 28th through August 14th. Book and lyrics by Don Black & Christopher Hampton
Based on the Billy Wilder film. Direction by Shaun Kerrison, choreography by Tom Kosis, musical direction by Ken Clifton.

Theatre By The Sea of Matunuck, Rhode Island presents:
“The Full Monty”, August 6th through August 29th. Music & lyrics by: David Yazbek, book by Terrence McNally.

At the Weston Playhouse, Weston Vermont:
AUGUST 5 - AUGUST 21, 2010
“Damn Yankees” runs August 5th through 21st. By George Abbott & Douglass Wallop, Richard Adler & Jerry Ross.

“Nothing says summer fun like baseball. And Damn Yankees takes you out to the ballpark in true Broadway style. In this classic musical from the creators of The Pajama Game, middle-aged Joe Boyd sells himself to the devil – and to the machinations of a temptress named Lola – in order to see his favorite team win the pennant. A sure-fire winner the whole family will love, this perennial favorite includes such stellar songs as ‘Heart’ and ‘Whatever Lola Wants.’”

Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut presents:
“I Do, I Do”, August 10th through 28th. Book & lyrics by Tom Jones, music by Harvey Schmidt. Directed by Susan H. Schulman.

Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, Massachusetts presents:
“Our Town” by Thornton Wilder through August 8th.

Followed by:

“The Last Goodbye: A Musical
Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet”, August 5th through 20th. Conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel; music and lyrics by Jeff Buckley; orchestrations, music direction and arrangements by Kris Kukul; directed by Michael Kimmel; choreography by Sonya Tayeh.

The Winnepesauke Playhouse, Laconia, New Hampshire presents:
“Dr. Cook’s Garden” by Ira Levin, through August 14th. “Greenfield Center is a very fortunate town. There are no mean people and the residents seem to enjoy exceptionally good health. The local populace attributes this to God's ever watchful eye and benevolent stewardship of their little hamlet. However, a young doctor soon begins to suspect that other forces are at work in this thriller of ethical proportions written by the author of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.”

Followed by:
“Crossing Delancy” by Susan Sandler Aug 18th through 28th. “A charming romantic comedy about old world traditions and new world desires. Isabel is a modern young woman who lives alone and works in a bookshop. When she isn't visiting her Grandmother, Bubbie, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, she pines for a handsome author. But Bubbie and the local matchmaker, Hannah, have found a "good catch" for Isabel: Sam, the pickle man. Will Izzy choose love in the old world or the new in this romantic comedy?”

Intermission

2010-07-28T07:13:00.002-04:00

See you next week.

Hollywood Actors in New England Summer Stock 1950

2010-07-21T07:23:00.000-04:00

Over on my Another Old Movie Blog tomorrow, we’ll be discussing the 1950 film “Summer Stock” with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. Pretty much an overgrown “let’s put on a show” movie with grownups instead of kids, the simplistic plot paints a charming scene of what you can do with a New England barn besides keep cows in it.

Since enough New England summer stock companies began, or still play, in barns, summer theatre is sometimes called the Barn Circuit. Today, in conjunction with the movie “Summer Stock”, we’ll have a look at a couple of New England summer theatres, one of them started in a barn, that featured Hollywood actors in the summer season of 1950.

This information comes from two very interesting books, “The Cape Playhouse” by Marcia J. Monbleau, (Raymond Moore Foundation, Dennis, Mass., 1991), and from “The Ogunquit Playhouse: 75 Years” by Carole Lee Carroll, Bunny Hart, and Susan Day Meffert (Back Channel Press, Portsmouth, NH, 2007).

In the summer of 1950, Paulette Goddard appeared at the Cape Playhouse on Cape Cod, Massachusetts in “Caesar and Cleopatra.” The following show featured Shelley Winters in “Born Yesterday.” Later on that summer, Luise Rainer appeared in “Lady from the Sea”. Brian Aherne starred in “Dear Brutus.” Sylvia Sidney appeared in “Goodbye My Fancy.” The season concluded with Francis Lederer in “The Silver Whistle.”

Meanwhile, up in Ogunquit, Maine, among the Hollywood film colony appearing that summer was Stuart Erwin in “Harvey.” Leo G. Carroll starred in “Once an Actor.” Edward Everett Horton starred in “His French Wife.”

These and other plays that season also featured theatre veterans, some up and coming TV stars (like Imogene Coca), and many young apprentices to the acting craft.

Heat Wave on Stage in Ogunquit

2010-07-14T08:23:00.000-04:00

Reminiscent of our recent heat wave, Ruth Gordon remarks on a week’s engagement in Ogunquit, Maine where she appeared in “Saturday’s Children” in July 1936.

From her autobiography, “My Side” (Harper & Row, NY, 1976):

Hottest July day on record, read the headline in the Portland paper. The matinee had been a boiler, ladies sweated, fanned, sweated. On stage, we sweated.

Ah, those simpler, more rugged days, or How Air Conditioning Has Changed Theatre.

Photographs of the signboard outside the playhouse taking in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s plainly stating the theater is AIR CONDITIONED, under Elaine Cancilla starring in “Can Can”, and Michael Constantine ahd Lawrence Pressman staring in “A Walk in the Woods” and “Yes, There Were Giants” with Kitty Carlisle, John Raitt and Jo Sullivan. You can find these, and a marvelous historical retrospective, in the excellent book “The Ogunquit Playhouse: 75 Years” by Carole Lee Carroll, Bunny Hart, and Susan Day Meffert (Back Channel Press, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2007).

Ruth Gordon also appeared in this play at the Cape Playhouse in August 1935, see this previous blog post.

Off Topic - "Interfacing"

2010-07-07T07:09:00.000-04:00

A brief plug for “Interfacing”, my short story, previously published in print and online magazines, is now available in e-book format from Smashwords.

It’s humor. It’s about communication. It’s about 2,000 words. It’s about 99 cents. If you don’t own an e-reader like Kindle or Nook, etc., you can still download it here and read it right off your computer. Here’s the blurb…

Susan, saved by her Heimlich maneuver-performing dog from death by choking, must remain silent until her infected throat heals. Shutting up has never been easy for her. Her job as a customer service supervisor, and her already strained marriage are on the line. Susan must learn to communicate before she goes crazy, or kills somebody, or both.

North Shore Music Theatre Returns

2010-06-30T06:43:00.000-04:00

(NSMT photo)

In an economy where many theatre companies are struggling, or closed, the resurrection of the North Short Music Theatre is a hopeful anomaly.

Founded in 1955, this award-winning theater of Beverly, Massachusetts closed last year, deeply in debt. William Hanney, who also operates the Theatre by the Sea in Rhode Island, as well as a chain of movie theaters in New England, bought the NSMT and is giving it new life for this season, beginning this week with “Gypsy”, which runs during July, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in August, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” from late September through early October, and “A Chorus Line” in November. “A Christmas Carol” will be brought back in December, directed by former artistic director Jon Kimbell.

For details on the upcoming season and more on the North Shore Music Theatre, have a look at this website.

Upcoming Plays - July 2010

2010-06-23T07:35:00.000-04:00

A full and busy summer ahead of us with upcoming plays for July:

At the Acadia Repertory Theater of Mt. Desert Island, Maine -- “SHIPWRECKED!” by Donald Margulies runs July 2nd through 18th.

“The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougement (as told by himself). Thrill to this 19th-century adventurer who is either the best storyteller or biggest liar in history!”

The Arundel Barn Playhouse of Kennebunkport, Maine is currently running Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” through July 17th.

The Barnstormers Theatre of Tamworth, New Hampshire presents “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, July 6th through 10th. Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Burt Shevelova and Larry Gelbart.

Following week, it’s the suspenseful “Wait Until Dark”, by Frederick Knott, July 13th through 17th.

The Barrington Stage Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts is currently running “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” through July 17th. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond. Musical Direction by Darren Cohen, directed by Julianne Boyd

Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stockbridge, Massachusetts will present “The Guardsman” by Written by Ferenc Molnár, July 13th through 31st. Directed by John Rando.

“Terrified that his wife is bound for infidelity, an actor decides to test her loyalty by doing what he does best: putting on a character. And so begins The Guardsman, a hilarious tale of treachery, deception, and assumed identities that has inspired three separate films. The actor’s charade grows more and more complicated as he realizes that the Guardsman is a harder role to tackle than he ever could have imagined. Witty, charming, and delightfully clever, The Guardsman is packed with twists from beginning to end.” Cast includes 2007 Tony winner Mary Louise Wilson.

The Cape Playhouse of Dennis, Massachusetts is currently running Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” through July 3rd.

Also, “Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings” runs July 5th through July 17th.

The Dorset Theatre Festival of Dorset, Vermont will present Noel Coward’s comedy “Fallen Angels” July 14th through July 26th.

The Gloucester Stage Company of Gloucester, Massachusetts will present “Tender” a new play by Kelly Younger, directed by Eric C. Engel July 8th through 25th.

“The family home, wallpapered with a lifetime of I.O.U’s, is about to go into foreclosure and Christopher, the Patron Saint of Travelers, is on standby. All that is tender is not green in this humorous and heartbreaking family drama by one of America’s emerging playwrights. Tender was developed with support of New Repertory Theatre, Watertown, MA.”

The Hackmatack Playhouse of Berwick, Maine will present “Leading Ladies” July 14th through July 24th, a comedy by Ken Ludwig (Moon Over Buffalo, Lend Me a Tenor) “features two down-on-their-luck actors with a scheme to dress as ladies in hopes of inheriting an elderly woman's money. Romantic entanglements, mistaken identities and comedy abound!”

The Ivoryton Playhouse of Ivoryton, Connecticut presents “The Buddy Holly Story” July 7th through August 1st.

The Mount Washington Valley Theatre of North Conway Village, New Hampshire will present the musical comedy “Singin’ in the Rain” July 13th through 24th.

The New Bedford Festival Theatre of New Bedford, Massachusetts celebrates its 20 year anniversary with the production of “Gypsy!” July 16th through 25th. “Based on the memoirs of entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee, GYPSY tells the story of Rose who is determined to make her daughters stars of vaudeville and in doing so looses one and makes a star of the other while leaving her own ambitions and dreams unfulfilled.”

The New Century Theatre, Northampton, Massachusetts, is also celebrating its 20th anniversary, and presents “To Forgive, Divine” July 1st through 10th. Written and directed by Jack Neary, “Father Jerry Dolan, a genial parish priest, dealing as best he can with the pressures and responsibilities of a job not often appreciated for its demanding workload, finds himself at the center of a challenging and unexpected situation. With great humor and an understanding of what happens when life's choices go awry, TO FORGIVE, DIVINE's story soars.”

And NCT follows with their next show, “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage, July 15th through 24th. “In the early 1900s, a gifted African-American seamstress creates intimate apparel for New York Society Ladies and Prostitutes alike. Her life becomes romantically intertwined with her clientele, challenging the sexual taboos of the age.”

The Newport Playhouse of Newport, Rhode Island is currently producing “Suitehearts” by William Van Zandt and Jane Milmore through August 1st.

“A young couple checks into a New York hotel for a romantic weekend. An older couple has inadvertently booked the same honeymoon suite! After they scuffle over the accommodations, no one is where or with whom they should be. With plenty of sight gags and one liners, this play will have you laughing all the way through!”

The North Shore Music Theater of Beverly, Massachusetts celebrates its grand re-opening with the musical “Gypsy!”, starring Vicki Lewis.

The Peterborough Players of Peterborough, New Hampshire will present “Freud’s Last Session” July 7th through 18th. This is the New Hampshire premiere of the new play by Mark St. Germain.

The Summer Theatre of New Canaan, New Canaan, Connecticut presents the Lerner and Loewe musical “Camelot!” July 18th through August 2nd.

The Ogunquit Playhouse of Ogunquit, Maine currently presents Rogers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” through July 24th, starring Rex Smith.

Theatre by the Sea of Mantunuck, Rhode Island is currently producing the musical “Hello, Dolly!” through July 11th.

The Weston Playhouse of Weston, Vermont will present the Vermont premiere of the mystery comedy, Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” July 15th through 31st.

The Westport Country Playhouse of Westport, Connecticut presents “Happy Days” by Samuel Beckett, with 5-time Tony nominee Dana Ivey.

“From the Nobel-Prize winning author of Waiting for Godot—recently revived on Broadway to wide acclaim—comes a play of luminous beauty and rare power. Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, the story of a woman's cheerful optimism in the face of a trifling universe, is among the most inspiring and exhilarating explorations of what it means to be alive.”

The Williamstown Theatre Festival of Williamstown, Massachusetts presents “Samuel J. and K” by Mat Smart, directed by Justin Waldman, July 7th through 18th.

“Samuel J. surprises his adopted brother, Samuel K., with a trip back to his birth country of Cameroon for college graduation—but Samuel K. has no desire to face a place and a past that abandoned him. Samuel J. and K. challenges the traditional definitions of family and asks if a place we’ve only imagined can become home overnight.”

The Winnepesaukee Playhouse of Laconia, New Hampshire presents “Scotland Road” July 7th through 17th.

“The Titanic meets The Twilight Zone…A beautiful young woman is found floating on an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic. When she is rescued, she says only one word: Titanic. Trouble is, it’s 1992. Who is this woman and how is she so well-preserved? Is this all an elaborate hoax or are supernatural forces at work? One of the world’s foremost Titanic experts is determined to find out in this intriguing mystery that may leave you asking if anyone is really who they say they are.”

Valley Players - Summer Stock on Mt. Tom

2010-06-16T08:03:00.000-04:00

Summer stock sometimes provides the audience a chance to see young actors and actresses rising in their profession before they become famous. Sometimes it provides a chance to see veteran actors and actresses whose career high points are long past. They may be guest actors that week, or part of the stock company.

Summer stock is probably the most egalitarian environment for theatre there is.

About a year ago, we took a look at the Valley Players of Mountain Park, whose theater perched atop Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In its day, from 1941 to about 1962, it was considered the largest summer theater in New England.

Here we have a look at another play produced by this company, the comedy “Three on a Horse.” It was August, 1942, World War II not a year old and many summer theaters were adversely affected by gas rationing since they were out in the country, for the most part beyond the reach of trains and trolleys.

Joseph Foley starred, and founders of the Valley Players Lauren Gilbert, his wife Jackson Perkins, and Jean Guild were also in the cast. Directed by Dorothy M. Crane, another colleague made this an almost entirely home-grown production, where administrative staff doubled as actors.

We can look at the cast for a good example of some actors on the rise (though who never became household names), and veterans whose career peaks were behind them.

Alfred Paschall played a supporting role. I think he was the same actor who played a handful of minor Shakeapearean roles, usually in the ensemble, on Broadway from the late 1930s to early 1940s.

Willard Dashiell, an older actor in another supporting role, had a handful of minor Hollywood movie credits in silent films, his last film role as a “businessman” in the 1934 film “War is a Racket”. He appeared on Broadway throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Evidently at the time, Mr. Dashiell was living in the area. The program notes of him, “We consider ourselves very fortunate that an actor of such wide experience and fine reputation lives here in this community and can take part from time to time in our plays.”

Frank Rollinger, in another supporting role, played summer stock and regional theater, including in the company of the famed Pasadena Playhouse. He also did some radio shows, including appearing on “Suspense”

John McQuade, who plays the role of “Patsy”, was beginning his career, which would soon involve a number of television roles in TV’s Golden Age, including “Studio One”, “The Philco Television Playhouse” and “Robert Montgomery Presents.”

He had a handful of roles on Broadway through the 1940s, including a couple of stints at what may have been the same Shakespearean productions the above-mentioned Alfred Dashiell appeared. His final Broadway appearance was in 1963, though his TV career lasted longer. He also toured with Maurice Evans and Dame Judith Anderson in “Macbeth”

The Valley Players played an important role in the formative years in the careers of many actors, but like most summer theaters, flew by the seat of its pants. You could buy reserved seats tickets in downtown Holyoke at the Park Pharmacy on Dwight Street, or in the Highlands section of town at Martin’s Pharmacy on Hampden Street. You could also call Dickinson’s Drug store in Northampton at telephone Northampton 3466 for reservations. Probably the reason why drug stores filled in for the box office is that most people did not own a phone at this time to call for reservations, and getting up the mountain, in wartime with gas rationing, was not always convenient. The neighborhood drug store served as a command post for all things vital, prescriptions, news from the front, casualty lists, and theater tickets.

Attendance was heavier on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, “and the call for tickets has become so great on Wednesdays and Saturdays that you will be wise to reserve your seats for those nights at least two or three days in advance.”

It was an 8:30 curtain on weeknights, 2:30 on the Wednesday matinee. You could purchase autographed pictures of the company in costume at 65 cents each.

For more on lead actor in this production Joseph Foley and the Valley Players, have a look at this earlier post.

Note: Program and vintage postcards are from the author’s collection, special thanks to Gail Watson.

Lunt and Fontanne - the New England Tour From Hell

2010-06-09T07:18:00.000-04:00

Husband and wife acting team Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, famed for appearing in witty, sophisticated comedies, toured New England in “I Know My Love” in the summer of 1951. Apparently, it was The Touring Production from Hell.

Fresh from its run on Broadway at the Shubert Theater from November 1950 through June of 1951, the play, directed by Mr. Lunt, was set in Boston from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Lynn Fontanne has an interesting Broadway credit of being the one who designed and “executed” a hat she wore onstage.

It seems that when the play went on tour their luck ran out. From the book of theatre “incidents” by Brad Schreiber, “Stop the Show!” (Thunder’s Mouth Press, NY, 2006), an entertaining collection of theatre stories, “I Know My Love” first encountered problems in Hartford, Connecticut, when a robbery backstage occurred.

On to Springfield, Mass., where actress Esther Mitchell, one of the original Broadway cast members who played a maid, got smacked on the head by a prop box. She suffered a concussion.

On to Portland, Maine. Star of the show, Miss Fontanne, tripped on the hem of her dress while exiting her hotel, and fell. She broke her arm. According to the book, her husband, Mr. Lunt, was so rattled by this he just ran off. Ever the trooper, Miss Fontanne tied her broken arm up in a scarf and found herself a doctor. That night on stage, she wore her arm in a sling. Her husband apologized for momentarily losing his senses and his nerve.

The show went on, continuing the tour westward, but did not leave their bad luck in New England. Appearances in Pennsylvania and the Midwest were hampered by severe snow, staff illness, and a railroad strike.

In 1964, two years before they retired from acting, Lunt and Fontanne were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom award by President Lyndon Johnson. Perhaps it should have been a Medal of Honor for conspicious courage. Except for that moment in Portland when Alred lost it.

(The photos above are in public domain, from the Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.)

Jane Cowl at the Court Square Theater

2010-06-02T07:04:00.000-04:00

Jane Cowl, actress, playwright, and “Juliet” of a generation, toured with “The First Mrs. Fraser” at The Court Square Theater in Springfield, Massachusetts, April 1948. You might recall the darling diva from our earlier post about her blowing up at an incompetent young Jimmy Stewart and getting him fired. Here, she’s all composed and playing the grand lady of stage at the end of her career.

Born in 1884, this Boston native was one of the great stage actresses of her day, who performed in a few silent films, originated the role of Dolly Levi in Thornton Wilder’s “The Merchant of Yonkers”, and during World War II headed New York’s Stage Door Canteen.

She was in her mid-60s when she appeared as Janet Fraser in this comedy by St. John Ervine, which was revived on Broadway in November 1947. Unfortunately, it played only 38 performances through December before producer Gant Gaither sent it on the road.

The play was actually made into a film in 1932 with Dorothy Dix in Jane Cowl’s role. Also in the cast of this play was Reginald Mason who came with Miss Cowl from the original New York cast, and had Broadway credits as long as your arm.

This play capped the 1947-48 season at the Court Square, and was also a kind of cap to Jane Cowl’s stage career. She died two years later.

Upcoming Plays for June 2010

2010-05-26T07:47:00.000-04:00

This month we note the beginning of the summer theatre season in New England. Go, and enjoy.

At the Arundel Barn Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine: The New England premiere of “Nunset Boulevard: Nunsense at the Hollywood Bowl” June 8th-26th.

More unholy hijinks from the Little Sisters of Hoboken as they bring us their 7th heavenly gig – this time in Tinseltown. The Little Hobos raise comic mayhem and tons of ‘Nun fun’ in this perfect 300 game! Nunsense is habit-forming, and it would be a sin to miss the latest Nunsense nonsense!

At the Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield, Mass. from June 17, 2010 - July 17, 2010: “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond. Musical Direction by Darren Cohen, directed by Julianne Boyd.

At the Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Massachusetts:

“Tea at Five” starring Stephanie Zimbalist as Katharine Hepburn, running June 7th through June 19th.

At the Gloucester Stage Company, Gloucester, Massachusetts: “Table Manners” by Alan Ayckbourn runs from June 17th through July 3rd. Directed by Eric C. Engel, the cast includes Steven Barkhimer, Lindsay Crouse, Paula Plum, and Richard Snee.

Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick, Maine presents Rogers & Hammerstein’s musical “Cinderella” runs from June 24th through July 10th.

At the Ivoryton Playhouse, Ivoryton, Connecticut, the perennial favorite, “Arsenic and Old Lace” by Joseph Kesselring, from June 9th through June 27th.

A delightful evening of murder and mayhem with eccentric aunts, crazy nephews and bodies in the basement!

At the Mt. Washington Valley Theatre Company in North Conway, New Hampshire: Meredith Wilson’s delightful “The Music Man” from June 30th through July 10th.

New Century Theatre in Northampton, Massachusetts: “Noises Off” by Michael Frayn, directed by Sam Rush, runs June 17th through 26th.

NOISES OFF peeks backstage at the ridiculous antics of the cast and crew of NOTHING ON. We follow the English company from dress rehearsal to the end of the ten week run, each act revealing more hilarious cast drama, missed cues, and slamming doors, while the show is constantly upstaged by the noises off in the wings. The 1982 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy winner, this is the ultimate backstage farce. Join some of the original cast as we kick off our 20th year with a sidesplitting comedy that must be seen to be believed.

At The Newport Playhouse in Newport, Rhode Island: “Suitehearts” runs June 24th through August 1st.

A young couple checks into a New York hotel for a romantic weekend. An older couple has inadvertently booked the same honeymoon suite! After they scuffle over the accommodations, no one is where or with whom they should be. With plenty of sight gags and one liners, this play will have you laughing all the way through!

The Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire presents:
“Once in a Lifetime” by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman runs June 9th through 13th.

Ascending Stars Project - Some of the area’s best high school actors will work alongside professional actors and be directed by Artistic Director Gus Kaikkonen. Once in a Lifetime is a rollicking tale of three down and out troupers who decide to head for Hollywood and try their luck with the newly invented talkies.

The Summer Theatre of New Canaan in New Canaan, Connecticut presents Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” in a “modern day highly charged adaptation in our new intimate outdoor protected theater.” Preview June 18, 7:30 pm, show runs from June 19th through July 11th.

At The Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut, George Gershwin’s classic “Porgy and Bess.”

The drama of love, murder, and hope on Catfish Row springs to teeming life in a dazzling 75th anniversary tour of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess coming to The Bushnell June 8-13 in a brand new production with riveting choreography and glamorous costumes. Approved by the Gershwin Estate, produced by veteran opera impresario Michael Capasso, General Manager of New York’s Dicapo Opera Theatre, and in association with noted producer Willette Murphy Klausner, (Three Mo’ Tenors). Porgy is directed by the brilliant African American Charles Randolph-Wright (Mama I Want To Sing). Don’t miss this celebration of America’s most beloved opera, with a stellar all African American cast of sensational performers.

At The Huntington Theatre, Boston University, “Prelude to a Kiss” by Craig Lucas, directed by Peter DuBois running currently through June 13th.

A whirlwind romance. A storybook wedding. A kiss for the bride that suddenly changes everything. Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza, Longtime Companion) explores the enduring power of love and the nature of commitment in this breathtaking and life-affirming comedy directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois.

At The Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine “The Drowsy Chaperone” runs from June 9th through June 26th.

Be transported to a magical, wonderful world in this new musical comedy that was the darling of the Tony Awards, winning the most statues in 2006, including Best Sets and Costumes, which will be featured in the Ogunquit Production!

It stars Bravo’s top-rated celebrity, Carson Kressley along with Georgia Engel reprising her Broadway role! Georgia is best known as Georgette from the smash TV hit “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

The hilarious show-within-a-show begins when a die-hard musical fan plays his favorite cast album, a 1928 smash hit called “The Drowsy Chaperone” and the show magically bursts to life. Audiences are instantly immersed in the glamorous, hilarious tale of a celebrity bride and her uproarious wedding day, complete with thrills and surprises that take both the cast and the audience soaring into the rafters. Don’t miss the show critics announced as “delightful and sparkling entertainment!” You’ll be over the moon!

Emmy-winning television star, celebrity stylist, author and fashion designer, Carson Kressley is about to make his theatrical debut at the Ogunquit Playhouse, alongside twice-Emmy nominated actress Georgia Engel, in the multi-Tony Award winning musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone”. Kressley is cast as the “Man in Chair,” an obsessive fan of old musicals who imagines performers coming to life in his shabby apartment whenever he plays one of his favorite cast recordings. Throughout the show the musical bursts to life as the Man in Chair continuously brings the audience in and out of the fantasy.

At The Ridgefield Theater Barn in Ridgefield, Connecticut, “The Memory of Water”, written by Shelagh Stephenson, directed by Sherry Asch runs June 4th through June 26th.

After years of separation, three sisters come together for the funeral of their mother, finding that each of their memories of events in their lives are very different. These different recollections force them to confront their perceptions with introspection and humor. The play asks searching questions, such as who are we without our memories. While it remains firmly in the genre of family comedy, what makes this play so captivating, is the way it reveals emotional pain and complexity beneath the outward facade.

At The Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut - “Dinner With Friends”
runs June 1st to June 19th.

Karen & Gabe and Beth & Tom, couples who have been friends for years, participate in all the familiar and comfortable rituals of shared vacations, good conversation and great food—so when Tom abruptly walks out on Beth, it threatens more than just their marriage alone. A Pulitzer Prize-winning play that explores the difficulties of divorce, even when it isn’t your own.

At the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, Massachusetts: “It’s Judy’s Show:
My Life as a Sitcom” runs from June 23rd through July 4th. Written by Judy Gold and Kate Moira Ryan, with original music by Judy Gold, lyric by Kate Moira Ryan and Judy Gold, additional material by Eric Kornfeld and Bob Smith. Directed by Amanda Charlton.

Building on the success of her show 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, funny-woman Judy Gold returns to the stage in this hilarious look at her amazing life through the lens of the classic sitcoms of her youth. With multimedia, original music, laughter, and love, Judy shows us how she balances family and ambition in a world where she sometimes does not fit.

At The Winnepesaukee Playhouse at Weirs Beach, New Hampshire - “Educating Rita” by Willy Russell runs June 23rd through July 3rd.

Tutor becomes student in this endearing comedy. Professor Frank Bryant withdraws from his students and passes his days in his stuffy office clutching a bottle of whiskey. That is, until the arrival of spunky hairdresser Rita whose thirst for knowledge turns his world upside down.

Theatre by the Sea in Matanuck, Rhode Island presents “A Chorus Line” June 4th through June 20th. Music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, book by James Kirkwood & Nicholas Dante, conceived by Michael Bennett.

On a bare stage, casting for a new Broadway musical is almost complete.
It’s what they’ve worked for — with every drop of sweat, every hour of training, every day of their lives, it’s the one opportunity to do what they’ve always dreamed of - Not to be the star, but to get a job on the line. From funny to heartbreaking, these 17 dancers share the stories of their lives and when they’re done, so is the audition, and the final chorus line is chosen. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Musical.

If you happen to see any of these shows, come back and give us your review.

Nor'eastern Playwrights' Showcase - Vermont ART

2010-05-19T07:32:00.001-04:00

Last week I was privileged to take part in the Nor’eastern Playwrights’ Showcase at the Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre in Rutland, Vermont. As any playwright can tell you, work-shopping a script directly with the input of the director and actors is an enormously beneficial and inspiring experience. We writers have a tendency to hole ourselves up in our caves too much. The creative and emotional stimulation of an experience like this is enough to make an introvert like me weep with the relief of an exile suddenly stumbling upon her lost tribe.

The intensive rehearsals were held Thursday and Friday, and the show was put on at the Paramount Theatre Brick Box in Rutland on Friday and Saturday. Along with my one-act play, “In Memory of Trixie Gazelle”, two other one-act plays were produced. These were “The Bad Habit” (soon to be published by Original Works Publishing) by Constance Humphrey Egan, and “The Revision” by Alan L. Steinberg. I was very impressed by the other two plays and so was the audience.

I’d like to thank ART’s producing directors for this opportunity: Ilene Blackman, Sandra Gartner, and Peter Marsh, and especially the director of my play, Bonnie Pritchard, whose insight was very important and truly helpful to me.

I’d like to acknowledge the cast, who were so kind, and so terrifically funny: Winnie Denis, Wheaton Squier, John Papais, Sandy Gartner, Tom Smith, and Laura Steere.

The Holiday Inn Rutland/Killington provided complimentary accommodations for the out-of-town playwrights, and many thanks to the staff and management for their support of the Vermont Actors' Repertory Theatre.

Thanks also to the audience, not only for their warm reception and their participation in the question-and-answer part of the evening, but just for risking a dime on something new and unknown. That’s a pretty brave thing these days.

If you happen to stumble upon an ad for some new play, musical, or one-acts at a theater, or community center, or barn in your hometown this summer, you might want to take a chance on something new and unknown, too. You and me, we need to climb out of our comfort zones once in a while. You never know. You might find your lost tribe.

Review: "The Fantasticks" at The Majestic Theater

2010-05-12T07:39:00.000-04:00

The Majestic Theater of West Springfield, Massachusetts is currently featuring “The Fantasticks”, which runs through May 23rd. This unique musical, noted as much for its longevity on Broadway as for its simple staging, launched the careers of many young actors and actresses in its record-breaking 42-year run.

The simple allegorical story, featuring elements of traditional musical theatre, commedia dell'arte and vaudevillian gusto, begins and ends with the iconic “Try to Remember”, sung here by William Thomas Evans, who plays The Narrator and sometimes bandit, El Gallo. He has a smooth and reasonant baritone, and masterfully commands the stage with his voice and his sly comedic timing.

Emily Reed plays The Girl, and P.J. Adzima plays The Boy, who fall in love. Both Ms. Reed and Mr. Adzima are high school students, but display mature talent that promises a bright future. Ms. Reed’s high soprano, with a delightful vibratto effect, adds a distinctive sound to the otherwise all-male cast. Mr. Adzima’s dark-rimmed glasses, his haircut, and street clothes drew one in immediately to the era of the early 1960s that gave birth to “The Fantasticks.” His infectious grin seems innocence captured.

Mitch Giannunzio is The Boy’s Father, and James Emery is The Girl’s Father, at times comrades in a plot to trick their children into marrying, and other times enemies. The gentlemen play well off each other, as well as harmonizing, sharing with each other their frank irritation and expaseration with their children.

John Thomas Waite stands out at The Old Actor, a flamboyant, befuddled thespian, whose faithful sidekick is Roger Patnode as deadpan The Man Who Dies. Their slapstick episodes brought laughter from the audience, and also much guessing as to how they made their entrances and exits from a trunk.

Tom Knightlee plays The Mute, deftly on hand in all scenes to provide props and create the mood, or a wall, when needed.

The show is directed by Rand Foerster, with Amy Roberts-Crawford as the musical director. Set designer of the traditional minimalist set invoking a traveling actor’s wagon was Greg Trochlil. Costumes, particularly effective and evocative from pirate costumes to Shakepearan ensembles, to the color combinations of the fathers and their children, were by Elaine Bergeron.

For more on The Masjetic Theater and this delightful production, have a look at this website.

On the Boards and Riding the Rails

2010-05-05T07:43:00.000-04:00

Playwright and Connecticut native Eugene O’Neill probably arrived in Provincetown, Massachusetts on the tip of Cape Cod by train when he first met up with the Provincetown Players. He wrote in his Nobel Prize autobiographical note that as the son of a stage actor:

First seven years of my life spent mostly in hotels and railroad trains, my mother accompanying my father on his tours of the United States….

In celebration of National Train Day this Saturday, we might observe that for much of the 20th Century, theatre was brought to most small towns and large cities by train. When Gertrude Lawrence played the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, or when Dion Boucicault played at the Boston Museum, they arrived by train. When Joseph Cotten played at the summer theater in Surrey, Maine, a young apprentice named Henry Fonda picked up his trunk at the railroad depot.

Much later on theaters which had been habitually been built close to train stations developed into large entertainment complexes built by interstate highways, but our formative years of theatre in this country have a lot to do with train travel.

Ruth Gordon, in her My Side - The Autobiography of Ruth Gordon (Harper & Row, NY 1976) recalls the amazement on first taking the ultra swank Twentieth Century Limited from New York to Chicago, a step up from the days of rattling train coaches and butcher boys hawking sandwiches in the aisle,

“Memories of damp linen handerkerchiefs on our faces to keep the cinders off were a thing of the past.”

We have another more whimsical episode on the train called the Twentieth Century Limited when John Barrymore rode the rails to his next gig (referred to last year in this Another Old Movie Blog post). Biographer John Kobler writes in his biography of John Barrymore, Damned in Paradise - The Life of John Barrymore (Athenaeum, NY 1977):

“Ensconced in his stateroom aboard the eastbound Twentieth Century, John sent for two Pullman porters, old friends from previous trips. Handing one of them a book, he explained, ‘Now, this is really the skull of Yorick and you are the grave digger.’ And to the other, ‘You are Polonius.’ Fed his cues in this fashion, he rehearsed himself all the way across the continent.”

This Saturday marks National Train Day, sponsored by Amtrak. For more on National Train Day, have a look at this website.

Baseball Fan Ethel Barrymore at the Court Square Theater

2010-04-28T07:33:00.000-04:00

April 28th fell on a Wednesday in 1943, as it does this year. For one day only, Ethel Barrymore and the New York cast of “The Corn is Green” played at the Court Square Theater in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The play had been the triumph of the 1940-41 Broadway season. John Mason Brown of the New York Post described opening night, when “The bravos which filled the theater at the final curtain were deafening and prolonged. There was every reason for them because Ethel Barrymore gives the finest, most thoughtful and concentrated performance she has given in many years.”

Miss Barrymore played 461 performances in the role on Broadway before starting her nationwide tour, and by this time travel was subject to wartime restrictions.

After the war Ethel Barrymore returned to Hollywood and a busy second career as a character actress. Since baseball is a recurring theme on my other blogs this week, Another Old Movie Blog, and New England Travels, we might mention here that Ethel Barrymore was an avid baseball fan. Author Hollis Alpert in “The Barrymores” (The Dial Press, New York, 1964) notes that while on movie sets, in between takes she would “hurry to her dressing room, where she would listen to ball games on her radio. She rooted less for single teams than for individual players, and when there was not a major league game to listen to would settle for the Coast League games.”

At this stage of her life, she preferred freelancing rather than signing on with a single studio. Her reasoning was, “The first thing I know they would be lending me out for a lot of money and a couple of outfielders.”

Grace Kelly Tours in Boston

2010-04-21T07:39:00.000-04:00

Grace Kelly appeared as an ingénue in the play “To Be Continued”, which opened in Boston April 8, 1952.

She began her auspicious acting career in summer stock and regional theatre, and eventually had a crack at the Great White Way. Her experience there was brief, and nothing compared to the meteoric rise in fame she would achieve in Hollywood.

Her first attempt at Broadway was in November of 1949, when she appeared at the Cort Theatre in a revival of “The Father”, which starred Raymond Massey. Her role was “The Captain’s Daughter”, but her nameless role earned her the praise of reviewer Brooks Atkinson, who noted,

“Grace Kelly gives a charming, pliable performance of the bewildered and broken-hearted daughter.”

The play did not run long, and her next big break at storming Broadway was “To Be Continued”, where she played the equally anonymous-sounding “A Young Woman”. After its tryout in Boston, the play moved a couple of weeks later to the Booth Theater in New York on April 23, 1952. (Have a look here for our recent post on Edwin Booth, for whom that theater was named.)

Here her performance again was noted as promising, but the play closed within weeks.

It was back to her hometown of Philadelphia that summer, where she played starring roles at the Playhouse in the Park. But, also that summer, "High Noon" was released, and in the autumn came her role in the film “Mogambo”, and the rest, as they say, is history. Her career as a stage actress never took off as she had hoped, but other achievements she could not have imagined were on the horizon.

Have a look here at Grace Kelly's performance in "The Country Girl" (1954) from Monday's post on my Another Old Movie Blog.

Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth

2010-04-14T08:01:00.001-04:00

Ford's Theater, April 1865, Library of Congress, in the public domain.

On this day, April 14, 1865, Good Friday, Edwin Booth, who came to be one of the most famous and important American actors of the 19th century, was in his dressing room at the Boston Theatre putting on his makeup for that evening’s sold out performance.

Edwin Booth, Libarary of Congress, public domain.

He was 31 years old, rising in his profession, heir to his famous actor father, Junius Brutus Booth, in the family trade. Only the previous Sunday Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse and the horrific Civil War was close to an end. It seemed that week as if the nation, both bloody, torn halves, were taking a much needed deep breath, and relishing a moment of peace. The North was celebratory, and in Washington, D.C., like the fans of Edwin Booth in Boston, President Abraham Lincoln was going to take a diversion from his troubles at the theatre.

Playbill for "Our American Cousin", original in the collection of the Libarary of Congress, reprinted National Park Service.

Laura Keene’s troupe staged the popular comedy, “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. She was a notable stage actress of her day, had toured in previous years with Edwin Booth, and managed her own theater, one of the first American women to do so.

A former member of her acting company, Edwin’s younger brother John Wilkes Booth, showed up at the theater that night as well, entered the President’s box, and shot him in the head.

Much has been written about the tragedy, but for the moment let’s turn our attention to Edwin Booth in his Boston dressing room, focusing himself on his upcoming performance, completely unaware that his life had changed forever because of his brother’s crime.

An interesting account of this event, and the rivalry of both brothers, is discussed in the book “Good Brother, Bad Brother - The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth” by James Cross Giblin (Clarion Books, NY, 2005).

The morning after the show, Edwin was woken by his valet with the heart-stopping newspaper headline.

The manager closed the theater, partly out of respect for the deceased President, and partly for the safety of Edwin Booth and the cast. Actors, always considered on the fringes of respectable society, were now suddenly suspect as anarchists. Edwin was chief suspect of them all, for being the brother of an assassin.

The New York Herald front page, April 15, 1865.

Edwin had intended to return to his home in New York, but federal marshals detained him in Boston for questioning about his brother’s activities. They continued to forbid him to leave the city until several prominent people, including the Governor of Massachusetts, vouched for him. On Easter Sunday afternoon, he was allowed to leave, and took the five and a half hour train trip to New York City.

Edwin, who as a boy accompanied his father on tour and spent a fair amount of time dragging him out of saloons as his nursemaid, made his own debut just before turning 16 years old in 1849, in Boston, when his father was playing at the Boston Museum. Have a look at this earlier post about the Boston Museum.

Junius Brutus Booth, Library of Congress, public domain.

His father Junius encouraged Edwin to take small roles, and in a couple of weeks that September Edwin graduated to a larger role in “Othello” opposite his father in Providence, Rhode Island. A couple of years later, he took over his ailing father’s role in “Richard III”.

It was a long, arduous apprenticeship in small theaters, saloons, and open air performances in mining camps out west. When Edwin returned to Boston, the city of his debut, in April of 1857 playing the villain Sir Giles Overreach in the melodrama “A New Way to Pay Old Debts”, he was again, just as in his Shakespearean roles, treading on a path his father had already made famous. Junius Brutus Booth cast a long shadow.

But Edwin, through diligence, and a new way of performing that was more natural and less dramatic and showy than men of his father’s generation, won over dubious audiences and critics.

The Boston Transcript noted that the play was “Quite a triumph for young Booth…It brought back the most vivid recollections of the fire, the vigor…which characterized the acting of his late, lamented father.”

Louisa May Alcott, future famous author of “Little Women” went one better when she wrote in her journal, “Saw young Booth in Brutus…and liked him better than his father.”

Boston audiences were enthusiastic. They were less so when Edwin’s younger brother John Wilkes Booth arrived in town in 1862. Author Mr. Giblin quotes a Boston drama critic:

We have been greatly pleased, and greatly displeased…In what does he fail? Principally, in knowledge of himself -- of his resources, how to husband and how to use them…He ignores the fundamental principle of all vocal study and exercise: that the chest, and not the throat or mouth, should supply the sound necessary for singing or speaking.

John Wilkes Booth played the Boston Museum as Romeo on May 3, 1864, with Kate Reignolds as Juliet. Orchestra seats went for 50 cents. John Wilkes Booth was apparently not the accomplished actor that his brother Edwin was, but he cut a dashing figure. Both brothers were likely uncomfortable with comparisons, but comparisons were always made, against their father and against each other.

In November 1862, Edwin played a month-long engagement in Boston, and the Boston Post offered this comparison of the acting style of the brothers:

Edwin has more poetry; John Wilkes more passion; Edwin has more melody of movement and utterance, John Wilkes more energy and animation; Edwin is more correct, John Wilkes more spontaneous; Edwin is more Shakespearean, John Wilkes more melodramatic; and in a word, Edwin is a better Hamlet, John Wilkes a better Richard III.

From the end of September 1863 to the end of November, John Wilkes Booth toured in Boston for two weeks, then to Providence, Rhode Island, then to Hartford, Connecticut, briefly to New York, and then back to New Haven, Connecticut. At this point he was plotting against the Union and smuggling drugs like quinine to the South.

In April of 1864 he returned for a four-week run in Boston in 34 performances in 18 different plays, the lead in them all. He began to have vocal strain, which would contribute to a downslide in his acting career, but was more interested in revenge at this point in his life.

In March, 1865, John Wilkes Booth played Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. for the last time in the melodrama “The Apostate.” He played the villain, Pescara, and received an enthusiastic reception from the audience. According to author Giblin, “Apparently the warm welcome did not make much of an impression on John. At the end of the play, he ignored the crowd’s applause and declined to make a curtain call.”

That same night, Edwin performed Hamlet in New York City, then headed for Boston. The brothers were on the outs with each other at this time, not over their acting rivalry, but over politics. Edwin supported the North, and John Wilkes, supporting the Confederacy, avoided his brother.

Laura Keene, Library of Congress, public domain.

There is a famous quote by film actor Spencer Tracy to the effect that actors should stay out of politics and pointing to John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of Lincoln as an example. Remembered less is the fact that it was an actress who provided the first comfort to the dying President, when Laura Keene, star of “Our American Cousin”, still in her costume and stage makeup, brought a pitcher of water up to the box where Lincoln was being attended, and held Lincoln’s head so the doctor could give him a sip of brandy.

Her act of compassion did nothing to rehabilitate the almost poisonous hatred for the acting profession in the wake of the Lincoln assassination. After the funeral, Edwin was back in New York City, kept under house arrest in his home by the police.

John Wilkes Booth was killed when captured resisting arrest on April 26th. Edwin continued to receive death threats and hate mail, with the same unreasonable hatred that spurred his brother to murder the President.

Then as now, political convictions seem to be the only excuse some people need to reveal their inner thug.

Edwin took ads out in newspapers in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia denouncing the assassination and proclaiming his own innocence, “bearing a heavy heart, an oppressed memory, and a wounded name.”

Front page Harper's Weekly, April 29, 1865.

Edwin was subpoenaed as a potential witness in the government investigation of the crime after an initial interview, but was later dismissed. His older brother, actor Junius Booth was held for questioning at the Old Capitol prison, and the entire Booth family came under suspicion, but nobody really knew much about John Wilkes Booth’s political activities, and nothing about the conspiracy to murder.

Edwin finally returned to the stage the following year, in January 1866 at New York’s Winter Garden as Hamlet. Police were stationed outside in case of an expected riot.

Edwin got a standing ovation on his entrance, but as gratifying as this must have been, he took no curtain calls, to avoid the possibility of becoming a target for someone with a gun. He took this play to Boston, and all performances were sold out. He refused ever again to play in Washington, D.C.

In the early 1880s, long after this sad period ended for the country, if not for him personally, Edwin Booth maintained homes in Boston and in Rhode Island. He died in 1893, and is buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts beside his first wife, actress Mary Devlin.

In a coincidental twist of fate, Edwin had rescued Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert, from injury or possible death when he pulled him from harm’s way on a train platform in Jersey City at least a year before the assassination. Edwin Booth in later years felt a little consoled that if his brother had murdered the father, at least he himself had saved the son.

For more on Edwin Booth, have a look at Monday’s “Another Old Movie Blog” for a discussion of Richard Burton’s portrayal of him in “Prince of Players” (1955).

"The Red Mill" at the Court Square Theatre, Springfield, Mass.

2010-04-07T07:32:00.001-04:00

Back on this day in 1948 you could have caught the matinee of “The Red Mill”, which ran from April 5th through the 7th at the Court Square Theatre in Springfield, Mass. Victor Herbert’s operetta first wowed ‘em on Broadway back in 1906 at the Knickerbocker Theatre, and was revived in 1945 at the Ziegfeld Theater.

Buster West adorns the program as you see, a comic dancer who got his start in vaudeville while still a child, and appeared in several Hollywood B-movies showcasing his novelty dancing in the 1930s.

Pat Rooney, Jr., who was actually Pat Rooney, III, son of the famous Pat Rooney, Jr. (who became Sr. after the death of his own father, Pat), joined Buster as a couple of American vaudevillians on the spree in Holland.

Frank Jaquet played the Buromaster. Mr. Jaquet was a veteran of Broadway and Hollywood, where he played a slew of bit character roles, most of them uncredited, including one of the senators in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), and a police desk sergeant in “Meet John Doe” (1941).

“The Red Mill” had “whiskers on it” as they used to say, even in the late ‘40s, so I would imagine a revival today, unless it were a parody of a parody, is unlikely. Typical, though, of the rather wistful post-War nostalgia for a gentler world that brought us the smash “Oklahoma!”

Upcoming Plays for April

2010-03-31T07:46:00.000-04:00

Upcoming plays in April:

At the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut:

Irving Berlin's “Annie Get Your Gun” runs April 16th through June 27th. “Ride along with Annie Oakley, a backwoods gal with a sure-shot and quick wit, as she challenges dashing marksman Frank Butler to be the star of Buffalo Bill’s traveling show. Sparks fly faster than bullets as the competition and romance heat up. Featuring some of Broadway’s greatest songs: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Anything You Can Do,” and “I Got The Sun In The Morning.”

At The Hartford Stage
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, newly adapted by Laura Eason, directed by Jeremy B. Cohen runs April 1st through May 9th.

At The Ivoryton Playhouse in Ivoryton, Connecticut, “Some Enchanted Evening - The Songs of Rogers & Hammerstein” runs April 14th through May 2nd.

At the Merrimack Repertory Theatre of Lowell, Massachusetts,

“The Last Days of Mickey & Jean” by Richard Dresser receives it world premiere, now running through April 11th.

“Mickey, a witty, paranoid fugitive ex-mobster from Southie who is on the lam with his no-longer young, Charleston-native girlfriend, Jean, is forced into an early retirement in Europe. With his Boston Red Sox cap never out of reach, he is out of place and away from the one thing he truly loves: his work. While he searches for a way to get back into business and Jean longs for a “normal" life back in Boston, the dysfunctional couple runs into one hilarious situation after another, learning shocking secrets about each other along the way. The Last Days of Mickey & Jean is a funny perspective on unconventional love, unconditional loyalty and life after retirement.”

At the Portland Stage, Portland Maine, “Mary’s Wedding” by Stephen Massicotte runs April 6th through the 25th.

“A passionate and heart-breaking love story about a young farmer and his bride-to-be who are separated when he enlists in World War I. Mary and Charlie tell an unforgettable story from the quiet after a prairie thunderstorm to the terrors of the trenches in this award-winning drama about two lovers who must surrender their fate to the uncertainties of tumultuous times.”

At The Bushnell of Hartford, Connecticut:

Rodgers & Hammerstein's “South Pacific” runs April 20th through 25th.

“A stunning reinvention produced by Lincoln Center Theater, South Pacific swept the 2008 Tony Awards®, winning seven honors including Best Musical Revival and Best Director for Bartlett Sher. Set on a tropical island during World War II, the musical tells the sweeping romantic story of two couples and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of war and by their own prejudices.” The beloved score’s songs include “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,” “This Nearly Was Mine” and “There’s Nothin’ Like a Dame.” USA Today cheers, “Gorgeous! South Pacific doesn’t just float; it soars!”

At the Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut:

“She Loves Me” runs April 20th through May 8th, book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and directed by Mark Lamos.

“Georg and Amalia are madly in love. They just don't realize it yet. Caught up in a feud at the parfumerie where they work, neither suspects that the other is their anonymous romantic pen pal. This bewitching musical comedy, with a beautiful score and delightful book by the team that created Fiddler on the Roof, still has all the grace, allure and spirit that established it as one of the all-time great Broadway classics.”

Paramount Theater - Boston

2010-03-24T07:35:00.000-04:00

Thankfully, in this era of struggling theaters, one long dormant theater has achieved a remarkable resurrection. Boston’s Paramount Theater re-opened this month as a performing arts center for theatre, dance, and music performances.

Built in 1932, the original Art Deco theater on Washington Street was strictly for motion pictures, fell on hard times decades ago and was closed in 1976.

Have a look here for an article detailing the renovation and reopening of this treasure.

"Our Irish Visitors" in Fall River, 1885

2010-03-17T07:34:00.000-04:00

On this St. Patrick’s Day we note the touring troupe of Murray and Murphy, whose “Our Irish Visitors” played in Fall River, Massachusetts on this day in 1885.

It was a farce, typical perhaps of that era when opinion toward the Irish in America were starting to morph in a painfully slow way from lazy, thieving, drinking, brawling, unwashed undesirables that Need Not Apply to a more benign, if still stereotyped, characterization of charming, harmless, winsome indolence, witty, of a proud people who comically thought well of themselves.

As every ethnic and racial minority knows, equality starts with an open mind, and theatre, when it does not perpetuate stereotypes, is usually quite effective in opening the mind.

One notable who got her start in the cast of “Our Irish Visitors” was Loie Fuller, a pioneer in dance who also invented many stage lighting techniques, apparatus, and garments.

According to “Loie Fuller - Goddess of Light” by Richard Nelson Current and Marcia Ewing Current (Northeastern University Press, 1997), Miss Fuller was the leading lady of “Our Irish Visitors”, and danced and sang in her role. The authors quote the recollections of one who saw her perform some months later at the Boston Theatre in August, 1885:

“…in her skirt and her jersey-like waist, she created excitement, and people flocked in to see what the newspapers called a `sensational dance,' which some even called `daring,' just because the dancer wore no corset, and the muscular sway of her young figure was visible."

So much for Irish stereotypes. After the show’s performance in Fall River, they next appeared in Lawrence, Mass. on the 25th, then hopped over to Newburyport on the 27th.

They seemed to be running out of steam the following March of 1886 in Chicago, when the New York Times noted: “Murray and Murphy in “Our Irish Vistors” have been playing to a good many empty seats at the Columbia”.

Even the luck of the Irish runs out after a while.

If the show did not, eventually, go on, Loie Fuller did. Have a look below at a sample of Loie Fuller’s choreography and invention in her Dance Serpentine, filmed in 1896, a decade later.

The Show Goes On at the Depot in the Blizzard of 1888

2010-03-10T07:29:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow, it will be 122 years since the notorious Blizzard of 1888, which we noted on my New England Travels blog with this post last year. One consequence was a disruption in theatre.

A small troupe called the Hi Henry Minstrels, whose star and owner was cornet-playing Colonel Hiram P. Henry were slated to the play the Opera House in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but the high drifts of snow stranded their train between Northampton and the Mt. Tom Railroad station in Smith’s Ferry. Knowing the show must go on, they walked the rest of the way to town, but first stopping to warm up at the Smith’s Ferry depot.

So relieved to have made it even that far, they broke into song and entertained other stranded folks with their medicine show brand of music. It was customary anyway for the Hi Henry Minstrels to play in the streets in a sort of impromptu parade to get people to follow them to the theater. No such luck this day.

The show did go on at the Opera House, but to a practically empty house. One wonders if they had left a larger audience back at the train depot.

Note: Photo of the Holyoke Opera House from Image Museum website.

Review - "A Man for All Seasons" - Majestic Theater

2010-03-03T08:08:00.000-05:00

“A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt, currently playing at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Massachusetts, is a strong production with flawless acting, and an obvious appreciation for Bolt’s rich and thought provoking script.

Robert Lunde is magnificent as Sir Thomas More, the witty pragmatist with a conscience whose passive defiance of King Henry VIII shook a nation. When the King decides to divorce Catherine of Aragon in his quest for a male heir by yet another prospective queen, Anne Boleyn, and splits with the Roman Catholic Church declaring himself to be the supreme head of the new Church of England and grant his own divorce, Sir Thomas must weigh the politics of self preservation versus the demands of his own beliefs.

The play is rife with sycophants and opportunists, political machinations and religious schisms, and is as relevant to modern society as if it were written yesterday, about today.

Steve Henderson is commanding as the troubled Duke of Norfolk, friend of Sir Thomas who inevitably finds himself on opposite sides. Sam Rush plays a sinister Thomas Cromwell, royal political hit man. His unrelenting vindictiveness, even more than the King’s selfish pleasure, is the main threat to Sir Thomas.

Daniel Rios is memorable in several roles, often humorous, as The Common Man, who finds himself a servant, a jailer, a jury foreman, a boatman, and other “every man” identities through which he can speak directly to the audience as their representative in this remarkable period of history.

Also strong in their roles are Katrina Ferguson as Lady Alice, wife of Sir Thomas, and Keith Bailey, as Master Richard Rich, the most proficient opportunist in the bunch.

The multi-level set designed by Greg Trochlil is evocative of several settings, from great hall to court room, to tavern, to jail. The costumes, designed by Elaine Bergeron, are elegant and detailed to the period and station in life of the characters.

Producing Director Danny Eaton is to be congratulated on this excellent production of this important play.

“A Man for All Seasons” runs at the Majestic through April 3rd.

For more on “A Man for All Seasons” and the Majestic Theater, have a look at this website.

Bogie's Hartford Debut

2010-02-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

New England theatergoers used to have the reputation of “sitting on their hands” or being reserved in their expression of appreciation for a performance.

In the case of “The Petrified Forest” which made its world premiere in Hartford in December 1934, the polite review in the New York Times gave no real indication of the impact the play would have on audiences, such that it lead to the eventual movie stardom of Humphrey Bogart.

“Leslie Howard delighted an audience that filled Parson’s Theatre here tonight at the world premiere of Robert E. Sherwood’s latest play ‘The Petrified Forest’,” began the review of December 21st, “Ably supported by a well-balanced cast of nineteen that included Peggy Conklin, Blanche Sweet, Humphrey Bogart, and Charles Dow Clark.”

In the biography “Bogart” by A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax (William Morrow and Company, Inc., NY, 1977), the tryout performance in Hartford is recalled a bit more dramatically, “…the company became aware of how compelling Bogart was as Mantee. Audiences literally gasped when he entered with his two days’ growth of beard and prison pallor, his shuffling gait and menacing mannerisms.”

The play opened on Broadway a couple of weeks later in January 1935. A New England audience seemed to have shucked at least some of its reserve on at least this occasion and picked a winner.

Upcoming Plays February - March

2010-02-17T07:35:00.000-05:00

Upcoming plays for February-March 2010:

At the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Mass. the historical drama about the confrontation between Sir Thomas More and King Henry VIII in “A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt runs February 25th through April 3rd.

At the Merrimack Repertory in Lowell, Mass. “Black Pearl Sings!” by Frank Higgins is currently making its regional premiere and runs through March 7th. “A search for lost African-American folk music leads Susannah, an ambitious “song collector” for the Library of Congress, to Pearl, a woman with a soulful voice, a steely spirit and an incredible history. Featuring many beloved American folk songs and spirituals, the legacy of the past clashes with their hopes for the future, as they journey to find their way out of the shadows and into the spotlight.”

The Portland Stage of Portland, Maine presents “Master Harold ... and the Boys” by Athol Fugard March 2nd through March 21st. “A sometimes comic, frequently searing, and ultimately hopeful coming of age story set during a rain-soaked afternoon in South Africa. Fugard's masterpiece is a powerful examination of the impact of apartheid on the close friendship between young Hally, a teenager from a fractured family trying to find his place, and two black servants.”

The Shubert Theater of New Haven, Connecticut presents the family favorite musical “Annie” March 5th through March 7th.

The American Repertory Theater of Boston presents “Paradise Lost”, by Clifford Odets, directed by Daniel Fish. A multimedia presentation.

The Bushnell of Hartford, Connecticut presents a musical review “Century of Broadway” featuring Jeff Tyzik with Christiane Noll (see my review of Christiane Noll in Broadway Year-By-Year last summer at the Berkshire Theatre Festival) and Doug LaBrecque. “From Gilbert & Sullivan and Irving Berlin, to Rodgers & Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Weber – we invite you to tour the world of Broadway over the course of a century with three of today’s most accomplished artists. Jeff Tyzik is principal pops conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic, Vancouver and Oregon Symphony Orchestras. Christiane Noll made her Broadway debut as Emma in Jekyll & Hyde, received an Ovation Award for her role in the national tour of Urinetown, and wowed audiences in the American premieres of The Mambo Kings and The Witches Of Eastwick. Doug LaBrecque has starred as both The Phantom and Raoul in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera, played Ravenal in the Harold Prince revival of Showboat, and toured nationally with Les Misérables.”

At The Huntington in Boston, "Stick Fly" by Lydia R. Diamond, directed by Kenny Leon runs February 19th through March 21st.

“Sparks fly and long-hidden secrets tumble into the open when the LeVay brothers bring their new girlfriends home to Martha's Vineyard's world of privilege. This smart, moving, and funny portrait of a complex African-American family from acclaimed Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lydia R. Diamond (Voyeurs de Venus) is an of-the-moment look at sibling rivalry and the weight of parental expectations.”

The Westport Country Playhouse presents Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery “And Then There Were None” as its first installment of the Script in Hand playreading series, Monday, February 22nd.

Featuring Playhouse alumni and audience favorites Geneva Carr (How The Other Half Loves), Keir Dullea ((Butterflies Are Free), Beth Fowler (David Copperfield), Charlotte Moore (The Fatal Weakness), Ciarán O'Reilly (The Streets of New York), Joe Paulik (Old Wicked Songs), Jay O. Sanders, Mark Shanahan (Around the World in 80 Days), Doug Stender (A Marriage Minuet), and Paxton Whitehead (How The Other Half Loves).

Nelson Theatre - Springfield, Mass.

2010-02-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

The Nelson Theatre of Springfield, built in 1909, the heyday of vaudeville, was a thriving house in a city with a thriving entertainment industry. We can see by this vintage postcard the Nelson was a feature of Main Street activity in the days when trolleys and horseless carriages competed with horse-drawn wagons and carriages in a chaos of mixed, but slower, traffic.

It became the Fox Theater after World War I, and vaudeville gave way, as so many theatrical houses did, to the movies. By the middle 1930s, it was the Art, and by 1961, it was gone.

The Nelson Theatre had the typical favorable setup of downtown theaters in those days; it was nestled in an area of hotels and restaurants, and only a block or two down from the train station (fortunate both for grand arrivals and quick exits). Despite the collage of conveyances in this postcard scene, it was a walker’s paradise.

Tremont Theatre - Boston

2010-02-03T07:40:00.001-05:00

We recently received a question from Herb about the Tremont Theatre in Boston. Above is a photo Herb sent which he reckoned at being from about 1925.

There were a few theaters in Boston named Tremont Theatre at various times, at least three that I can think of, and perhaps more.

I believe the one in the photo is the Tremont Theatre at 176 Tremont Street across from Boston Common. I think it was built in the late 1880s, and in the mid-1930s started converting from a "legitimate" theater to a movie theater. It was re-named the Astor Theatre in 1947. The Astor Theater went out of business, I believe, in the 1970s or '80s. I'm not sure the building is still there.

However, the Cinema Treasures website has a description of this theater, with many interesting comments from readers sharing their knowledge about its history. If any of you have anything further to add, I’d love to hear from you.

Also visible in the photo above is the Hazel Boone School of Dancing just above the theater marquee. Herb’s family was involved in the operation of the Hazel Boone School of Dancing, and would like anyone with any information or memories to share about it to contact him at this website.

Ada Dyas, Comedienne

2010-01-27T07:44:00.001-05:00

Ada Dyas, comedienne, must have taken the train from Norwalk, Connecticut to reach her stage work in New York. This ad in the Byrnes’ Dramatic Times from the 1880s is ambiguous for its very simplicity. Was she looking for work? Was she merely announcing she had arrived? Maybe both.

Ada Dyas, born in 1843, was an Irish actress who played in “Henry IV” in London in 1861, and would later become famous for her featured or starring roles in comedies. One of these most famous plays was Dion Boucicault’s “The Shaugraun.” We mentioned in this previous post that playwright/actor Mr. Boucicault played at Boston’s Hollis Theater in the late 1880s.

Here is link to a photo of Ada Dyas in “The Shaugraun.” We have another portrait of her as described by novelist Edith Wharton in “The Age of Innocence” (D. Appleton & Co., NY, 1920). In the book, the character Newland Archer is captivated by the scene in the play where Dyas and the hero part in romantic silence.

“The actress, who was standing near the mantlepiece and looking down into the fire, wore a gray cashmere dress, without fashionable loopings or trimmings, moulded to her tall figure and flowing in long lines down her back….” Wharton goes on to describe the famous scene where the actor in silent parting kisses one of the ribbons.

Edith Wharton, less romantically, remarks, “Miss Dyas was a tall red-haired woman of monumental build,” with a “pale and pleasantly ugly face…”

Her ungainly appearance, even more than her talent for it, would have consigned Miss Dyas to the comedienne’s roles. But, in her obituary in the New York Times, March 13, 1908, Ada Dyas is recalled in more dignified terms.

“She belonged to a school of actresses taught to pronounce the English language with marked accuracy.” Truly, a product of a bygone era was Miss Dyas of London, New York, and Norwalk, Connecticut.

Thomas Mitchell Tours in "Death of a Salesman"

2010-01-20T07:32:00.000-05:00

“Death of Salesman” by Arthur Miller was a Broadway hit of 1949. Two years later in November 1950 its Broadway run ended. A few months later in January of 1951, Thomas Mitchell starred as Willy Loman at the Court Square Theater in Springfield, Mass. as the road show toured New England.

Mr. Mitchell, one Hollywood’s greatest character actors who had performed in some of Hollywood’s greatest films, was making the transition in 1951 from films to television roles. The better part of the 1950s he played on TV, but before this transition he had made an earlier one from stage to movies.

Thomas Mitchell had first appeared on Broadway in 1916, and through the 20s had been a stage actor until Hollywood gave him a new career. He was actually the first actor ever to win the three awards: the Tony, the Emmy, and the Oscar.

But from January 8th through the 10th, 1951, he was Willy Loman in Springfield.

One-year blog anniversary.

2010-01-13T07:32:00.000-05:00

This blog was started a year ago tomorrow. Thank you for the pleasure of your company.

Upcoming plays for January 2010

2010-01-06T07:31:00.000-05:00

Upcoming plays in New England for January 2010:

At Boston’s Colonial Theatre:
“Strega Nona” is the musical tale of a friendly magical witch- with a funny name- who strives to cure the ills of her tiny Italian town of Calabria. The baker has bunions ("As big as an onion"), his daughter wishes for witchery, and the local single ladies are always unlucky in love. The town faces real problems when a local lug named Big Anthony sneaks a peek at Strega Nona's magic book and uses Strega Nona’s magical ways for selfish means. When Anthony fools with the magic pasta pot, and can't figure out how to turn it off, pasta threatens to engulf the whole town -- unless Strega Nona can save the day. With an energetic and tuneful score by composer Aron Accurso, this fantastical tale teaches that witches can be good, and that and you can’t judge a pot by its pasta!

At the Hartford Stage:
“Gee's Bend” By Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder runs from January 14th through February 11th.
Directed by Hana Sharif, “Meet the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who sing hauntingly beautiful gospel melodies as they create magnificent handmade quilts. The story of the women of Gee’s Bend, who quilted their way to economic freedom, already has touched millions of people who witnessed their stunning quilt work through a national exhibition tour, and features in Newsweek, House and Garden and Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine.”

At the Majestic Theater of West Springfield, Massachusetts: “Almost Maine” by John Cariani runs January 7th to February 14th. “The story takes place under the Northern Lights on a cold and clear night in the mythical town of Almost. It got its name because it’s, “not an actual town” as one of the locals explains, “since we only almost got around to gettin’ organized.” But the residents there do fall in and out of love in unexpected and hilarious ways. Knees get bruised. Hearts get broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend in this magical play. “ALMOST, MAINE” aims for the heart by way of the
funny bone – and hits ‘em both!”

At the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Mass
“Fabuloso” by John Kolvenbach runs January 7th through the 31st.

“Do you have a friend who is the life of the party? But what if that friend never left and the party never stopped? Teddy and Kate are living a quiet existence in their one-bedroom apartment, until Teddy’s long lost friend, Arthur, appears out of the blue, with his fiancée in tow. A screwball comedy of living life to the fullest. (Contains Adult Situations and Adult Language).”

At Maine’s The Portland Stage:
“The Mystery of Irma Vep” by Charles Ludlam runs January 26th through February 21st.
“A hilariously exaggerated spoof of Gothic horror and Victorian melodrama in which an unsuspecting woman marries a mysterious Lord, only to discover that the presence of his first wife still haunts the manor house. Complete with vengeful vampires and damsels in distress, Irma Vep is filled with witty literary allusions, subversive political jabs and one of the funniest “penny dreadful” plots ever to take the stage!"

At the American Repertory Theatre, Boston, from January 7th through February 7th:

“Gatz”
“One morning in the low-rent office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud, and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is doing something to him.”

“An audacious theatrical tour de force, Gatz is not a stage adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel, but a reading of the entire book – brilliantly brought to life by one of New York’s most exciting and acclaimed theater companies, Elevator Repair Service.

A fully staged theatrical production in which every word of the novel is spoken, verbatim, by the cast of 13 actors, who speak the dialogue of the characters. The actor who plays Nick Carraway speaks all of the narration.”

At The Bushnell, Hartford, Connecticut:

“In The Heights” runs from January 5th through the 10th.
“In The Heights, winner of four 2008 Tony Awards® including BEST MUSICAL, is a sensational new show about chasing your dreams and finding your true home.
In The Heights is an exhilarating journey into a vibrant Manhattan community – a place where the coffee is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music.”

And at Boston’s The Huntington:

The American classic “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller runs January 8th through February 27th. Directed by David Esbjornson at the B.U. Theatre – Mainstage.

See you in 2010...

2009-12-30T07:26:00.002-05:00

Taking the week off. Thanks for the pleasure of your company in 2009. See you in 2010...

Christmas Night Performance in Boston 1941

2009-12-23T07:28:00.000-05:00

Christmas, for actors and actresses, is sometimes a celebration fit in between performances. In December 1941, when Pearl Harbor earlier in the month had already established that this would be the first wartime Christmas, Ruth Gordon played the Majestic Theatre in Boston.

From her “My Side - The Autobiography of Ruth Gordon” (Harper & Row, NY, 1976), Ruth Gordon captures a moment.

“Two days of dress rehearsals and open Christmas night…I hurried out onto Avery Street, deep in slush. No empty taxi, a cold rain beating down, dress rehearsal at two-thirty. I rushed along Tremont Street. No need to dodge the puddles; my feet and legs were soaked. I could feel the cold water squish. Only a few blocks, cross Boylston, then up the alley to the Majestic stage door. Just beyond it and across the alley is the stage door to the Colonial. Had Hazel Dawn ever had to run through rain and slush? I was perspiring from having hurried so. What if I took cold? What if tomorrow my voice was ragged? Or gone altogether? All those lines, all those words, all those changes and cuts and additions!”

Opening Christmas night, peace on earth, and anxiety backstage. Always, for the actor, putting one’s career on the line with every show.

“Backstage was taut with excitement, nerves, good wishes. Actors are great. None of us thought the show would make it, but the good wishes didn’t sound like that. One last sip of water, one last trip to the ladies, one last pat of the powder puff, last prayer to God, then wait in the wings. Deep breath. Cue, open the door On! A burst of applause, the first line.”

The play, which she does not name, got bad notices. As Miss Gordon wrote to Orson Welles afterward, “The Mayor of Boston gave me the key to the city, the pubic gave me the gate.”

The second week of performances was cancelled. They took the show on to Philadelphia. In five months, it was back to Broadway for Ruth Gorden in May 1942 with “The Strings, My Lord, Are False.” Directed by Elia Kazan, it ran 15 performances. The same play? Or another opening, another flop? One hopes her shoes dried out from the icy slush of Tremont Street by then.

Road Show - "Mister Roberts" at the Court Square Theater

2009-12-16T07:31:00.000-05:00

Another opening, another road show. Here we have the program for “Mister Roberts”, which came to the Court Square Theater, Springfield, Massachusetts from December 11th through 16th, 1950, when the Court Square entered the period its last golden years.

Directed by Joshua Logan, the play starred Curtis Cooksey as The Captain, Robert Burton as Doc, and Don Fellows as Ensign Pulver. Cooksey and Burton were veterans, who first trod the boards on Broadway in 1915 and 1916, and Cooksey had appeared in several silent films. Both had worked in early television as well.

Don Fellows came to the road show from the original Broadway hit, where he was part of the ensemble. He had also originated the role of Lt. Buzz Adams in “South Pacific” and appeared in a number of Broadway musicals, films, and television in his long career.

The cast also included a couple of newbies who would one day become famous names, Jack Klugman and Lee Van Cleef.

Out of Town Tryouts - "Last House on the Left" - 1945

2009-12-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

“Last House on the Left” came to Hartford in it’s pre-Broadway tryout in November 1945 with what must have been typical high hopes, but no crystal ball regarding the ultimate success of the show.

This was a comedy-farce written by Jean Carmen and Irish Owen, and directed by Irish Owen, not to be confused with the cult horror movie of the early 1970s with a similar name. Definitely not to be confused with that.

Jean Carmen played vaudeville, radio, and did a lot of B-westerns in Hollywood by the time she trod the boards at the Bushnell for this play in which she also starred with Gene Barry “and a cast of 20.” Her only Broadway stint was as a replacement in “The Man Who Came to Dinner.”

Gene Barry had a lot of stage work under his belt, particularly on Broadway, mostly musicals, and would eventually make his fame on television, especially as TV’s “Bat Masterson.” Barry had just come off of “Catherine Was Great” on Broadway in January 1945 when “Last House on the Left” was in the works.

“Last House on the Left” never made it to Broadway. Barry’s career sailed on, however, and he went back to Broadway in a revival of “The Would-Be Gentleman” at the Booth Theater. It ran three months. Then presumably he joined Irish Owen and Jean Carmen in the eternal search for a new gig.

Theatre as Giver and Wide Receiver

2009-12-02T07:31:00.000-05:00

“Theatre isn’t merely giver; it’s giver and receiver,” so wrote stage director Joshua Logan in his autobiography, My Upside Down, In and Out Life (Delacorte Press, NY, 1976).

Mr. Logan writes of the immediacy of theatre, not just for the actors but for the audience, “feeling yourself played to by live actors, that can be found nowhere else.”

At The Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut, in January 2008, actor Brad Nacht, playing the character Max Bialystock in the road production of “The Producers” interrupted the second act, broke the fourth wall and told the audience, “New England 14, San Diego 6.”

The AFC playoff game was currently under way, and Mr. Nacht was passing along the most recent score to New England theatergoers who would presumably also be New England Patriots fans.

Giver and receiver perhaps may also mean wide receiver in some cases.

“It’s lover and loved,” Josh Logan said of theatre, and sometimes one’s lover strays, or at least one’s attention.

The Patriots currently lead the AFC East, so perhaps January will again bring some compromise to the relationship between audience and actor.

Arsenic and Old Lace at the Court Square Theater, Springfield, Mass.

2009-11-25T07:38:00.000-05:00

“Aresnic and Old Lace” toured New England in 1941, and played two nights and a Wednesday matinee on November 25th and 26th. Featured in the cast was Laura Hope Crews (center, above), who returned to the stage after several film roles, among them the fretful and childlike Aunt Pittypat Hamilton in “Gone With the Wind” (1939). “Arsenic was one of Laura Hope Crews’ last roles before her death the following November in 1942.

Miss Crews and Effie Shannon, who was originally from Cambridge, Mass., played the sweetly sinister sisters Brewster. Forrest Orr, last seen here on tour with “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” played the bombastic and childlike “Teddy” Brewster who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt.

The unique, if, much parodied Hollywood legend Erich von Stroheim played the evil Jonathan Brewster. Mr. Stroheim, actor, writer, and director, must have made an entertaining evil brother Jonathan (the role was originated on Broadway that January by Boris Karloff).

Directed by Joseph Kesslring, the show would become a film vehicle for James Stewart in 1944 (last seen here getting bawled out by Jane Cowl in Boston), and would become for decades to come the favorite chestnut of community theater groups around the country. One wonders if this show is always playing sometime, somewhere, though surely Halloween must be its high season.

This local newspaper ad tells us the tickets went from $1.10 up to $2.75 for orchestra seats, though you could get cheap seats at the matinee for 55 cents.

2009-11-18T07:36:00.002-05:00

Upcoming plays for December:

At the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut: “Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter” December 5th through January 3, 2010.

“As Christmas approaches the world of Frogtown Hollow, Emmet Otter and his Ma can only dream of buying each other gifts. So when a Christmas Eve talent contest is announced, both secretly enter, hoping to win the prize money. In a heartwarming twist on "The Gift of the Magi," Emmet and Ma risk all they have and end up with the greatest grand prize of all. Based on director Jim Henson's television feature, this new theatrical adaptation features a lovable mix of actors and puppet characters from The Jim Henson Company and a toe-tapping score. It's a classic holiday musical for all ages!”

Music and Lyrics by Paul Williams, book by Timothy A. McDonald and Christopher Gattelli. Directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli

At the Majectic Theater in West Springfield, Mass. “Piecemeal - The Frankenstein Musical” running through December 6th. Written by Howard Odentz, this “is the imaginative, dark, and very funny spin on Mary Shelley’s classic novel by re-telling the strange events that lead to the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. Igor, the hunchbacked undertaker’s son, yearns to be a doctor. By chance he meets the young Victor Frankenstein, who is destined to follow in his family’s medical footstep, but whose heart is set instead on a fashion career. He and Igor swap identities. Victor heads off to France to pursue his passion while Igor takes his new name and Victor’s pre-paid admission papers to the University. There he becomes the prized pupil of Professor Krempe, who’s been secretly working on reanimation. Add in a love triangle with Victor’s betrothed, the beautiful Elizabeth Lavenza, and you have “PIECEMEAL.”

At the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Mass., the regional premiere of “Heroes” by Gerald Sibleyras, adapted by Tom Stoppard opens tomorrow, November 19th and runs through December 13th. “Henri, Gustave and Philippe survived World War I. Forty years later, as residents in a veterans’ home and armed only with what is left of their wits and a 200-pound stone dog, they battle old age, nagging war injuries, and a masochistic nun. A heartwarming tale of camaraderie and a moving portrait of the frustrations inherent in growing older.”

At the Portland Stage, Portland, Maine, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens runs from November 27th through December 24th. “Travel back in time to Victorian England where ghosts, time travel, and memories help a cold and lonely old miser regain his heart. Our adaptation remains remarkably true to Dickens' original book. Dickens' story seems best told in his words, allowing audiences to hear the richness of his language, and to experience the story of Scrooge's encounters with the spirits of past, present, and yet-to-come in the way that the author intended.”

The Shubert Theatre of New Haven, Connecticut, which opened on December 11, 1914, is celebrating its 95th anniversary with a special event December 11th, and continue on Sunday, December 13th.

Schedule of Anniversary Events:

Friday, December 11
Guided Tours of the Shubert Theater and Backstage: 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30
Rededication Program: 7:00pm
Followed by screening of "Shubert Moments" and feature film "The Sound of Music"

“The day-long 95th Anniversary Celebratory Events begins on Friday, December 11 with free tours of the theater and backstage areas including the famous “Graffiti Walls” featuring murals of past shows and cast signatures. Tours will run on the hour from 12:30–3:30pm. A rededication ceremony on the Shubert Stage hosted by Shubert staff and City of New Haven officials begins at 7pm, followed by a screening of “Shubert Moments,” a short film highlighting the Shubert’s rich theatrical history, and the feature film, “The Sound of Music.” This film was selected because of the show’s original association with the Shubert Theater – the original stage production of “The Sound of Music” made its World Premiere on the Shubert stage in October, 1959. Having recently marked the 50th Anniversary of its Shubert stage premiere, it is particularly appropriate to include the film version of this beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein classic as part of the Shubert’s Anniversary events.

The celebration continues on Sunday, December 13 with a Free Family Fun Day from 11am–3pm. Kid-friendly events including holiday arts & crafts projects and face painting and refreshments will be available throughout the day in the Shubert lobby. Participants will be entertained with Holiday Carols performed by New Haven youth choirs and a special visit by Santa Claus! Patrons will also be treated to a series of holiday-themed film shorts in the Shubert Theater.”

At The Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut. “Amahl and the Night Visitors” with The Mostly Baroque Players - David Ole Hartman, Conductor and John Tedeschi, Stage Director/King Melchior - present a fully staged performance of the one act Christmas themed opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti. “The story concerns an unannounced visit by the Three Kings to a poor, crippled, shepherd boy and his widowed mother on their way to venerate the Christ Child in Bethlehem.” Starring Toby Newman as the Mother, Johan Hartman as Amahl, Wayne Rivera as King Kaspar, Stewart Battle as King Balthazar and Christopher Stone as the Page.

At Boston’s The Huntington, “A Civil War Christmas” by Paula Vogel will run until December 13th. “It's Christmas Eve 1864. In the White House, President and Mrs. Lincoln plot their gift-giving. On the Potomac, a young rebel soldier challenges a Union blacksmith's mercy. In the streets, a fugitive from slavery searches for her daughter on the night she finds freedom. In this new play with music from Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, these stories and more are woven into an American tapestry, showing us that the gladness of one's heart is the greatest gift of all. This production includes beloved holiday music and will be enhanced by local choirs caroling before each performance.”

Armistice Day - Tremont Theater, Boston

2009-11-11T07:34:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1918, the World War ended by armistice and mutual exhaustion. At Boston’s Tremont Theater, “Tiger Rose”, a melodrama by Willard Mack, produced by David Belasco played to audiences whose number we can only guess.

In late August, early September, a few cases of the mysterious influenza were noted among servicemen at the Chelsea Naval Hospital. Soon, civilians began catching the influenza, and dying. All aspects of daily life were suddenly overburdened with the inability to cope with the sickness. Educators, health care providers, the clergy, the police and fire departments suffered the loss of scores of workers, so that in the end, citizens were told to just quarantine themselves as a best measure of fighting the epidemic. In the last four months of that year, the end of the war, an event hoped and prayed for, seemed secondary to the 22,000 deaths in Massachusetts from the influenza.

One wonders how the theatre was able to cope when schools and churches were closed and the city seemingly locked itself down. The Tremont boasted itself The Safest Theatre in Boston, “Equipped with the celebrated Regan Water Curtains which are positive in their action. Also an Asbestos Curtain” so a program from that era proclaimed. Safe from fire, the theatre’s traditional enemy, but not from the flu.

“Tiger Rose” was about a French-Canadian spitfire, loved by all, particularly the villain of the piece, a Mountie played by the play’s author, Willard Mack. Lenore Ulric, who played Rose, later went on to star in the 1921 silent film.

Willard Mack eventually gave up acting to concentrate on his writing career. In another play he wrote, called “The Noose” in 1926, Willard Mack is perhaps best remembered for plucking a girl out of the chorus called Ruby Stevens. So impressed with her natural talent, he rewrote parts of the play to expand her role, and convinced her to change her name. So, Ruby Stevens became Barbara Stanwyck, and Barbara Stanwyck became a star, first on Broadway in “The Noose”, and then for the rest of her long career in film.

Meltdown in Boston: Jane Cowl vs. James Stewart

2009-11-04T07:32:00.004-05:00

Jane Cowl, one of the most famous stage actresses of the early 20th century, was a Boston native who, while appearing in Boston, may have inadvertently aided the future film career of her bumbling stage manager.

The play was “Camille”, and the bumbling stage manager was James Stewart. The year was 1933, that awful financial and emotional trench we’ve come to recognize as the depths of the Great Depression.

James Stewart had begun his fledging acting career with the University Players on the Cape the year before in 1932 upon his college graduation. After the University Players had a seven-week run with “Carrie Nation” in New York, and then broke up, Stewart managed to catch favorable reviews for minor roles in a few other similarly frustratingly short-lived plays. Needing to feed himself between roles, a common problem for actors it seems, Mr. Stewart accepted a job in Boston as the stage manager of “Camille.”

It might have been a slight detour in his quest to be an actor, but any job in a company with Jane Cowl in it was valuable. Miss Cowl, with only a handful of film credits spread out over many years, made her real home the stage where she not only acted, but wrote plays and also directed.

She was perhaps most famous for playing Juliet. In 1933, between her Broadway stints of engagements of doing the romance “A Thousand Summers” ending in 1932 and the comedy “Rain From Heaven” which went up in 1934, Jane Cowl found herself in the city of her birth to sink her scenery-chewing teeth into one of the most famous diva roles ever written.

During her final, famous, frenzied death scene where she coughs her farewell to her sobbing lover, Miss Cowl’s young stage manager became distracted, and left off following the script.

Stewart, fumbling with his cue book, had heard noises out in the alley. He went to investigate and found a drunk amusing himself by lobbing rocks at the theater building, either at the wall or trying to land them on the roof. Stewart went outside to get rid of him.

Then, realizing in a panic that he had left his post at a crucial moment, ran back to his place in the wings, only to mess up the final curtain. We have at least two versions to consider: in “Jimmy Stewart” by Marc Elliot (Harmony, 2006), Stewart is said to have missed the cue to drop the final curtain just as Jane Cowl dies of tuberculosis, leaving her there hanging. Dead. So to speak.

In “James Stewart: Behind the Scenes of a Wonderful Life” by Lawrence J. Quirk (Applause Books, NY 1997), we are given the further picture of Stewart panicking, rushing back to his post, and ringing down curtain before her death scene was completely over. Jane Cowl, being Jane Cowl, might have taken a rather long time to die.

Cowl was furious, screamed at him, that he had ruined her scene, and had him fired.

James Stewart headed dejectedly back to his shared digs with pal Henry Fonda in New York City, still stinging from his blunder and his return to joblessness. But the darker days of the Depression were coming to a close for Mr. Stewart. He went back to acting, which unlike stage managing does not require one to pay attention every single second, and the following year, to Broadway in “Yellow Jack”, a performance which earned him a screen test with MGM.

Jane Cowl also eventually left Boston and went back to Broadway, where among other roles (as a bit of trivia) she originated the role of Dolly Levi on Broadway in 1938, when Dolly was a minor character in Thornton Wilder's "The Merchant of Yonkers."

Out of Town Tryouts - "Sing Out, Sweet Land"

2009-10-28T07:27:00.002-04:00

One aspect of New England’s rich tradition in theatre lies in its proximity to New York City. We are sometimes the land of the Out of Town Tryouts for new Broadway plays.

This could have been more than unusually daunting back in the day, since New Englanders had the reputation (much more then than now, I expect), of “sitting on their hands” or not being very generous with applause.

However one out of town tryout was well received on November 9, 1944. A brand new musical came to The Bushnell in Hartford called “Sing Out, Sweet Land.” Starring Alfred Drake, who had just enjoyed enormous success starring in “Oklahoma!” the previous year, this new musical was compared to “Oklahoma!” in its folksy examination of American history through popular music.

Among its featured performers was Burl Ives, who sang his trademark “Foggy, Foggy Dew,” “Blue Tail Fly”, and “Rock Candy Mountain.” Negro spirituals, folk music, Tin Pan Alley tunes all flowed through this musical which opened on Broadway the following month, and ran 102 performances, closing in March 1945.

Time Magazine, however, panned the show when it was on Broadway, writing in January 1945, “What should have been an exciting show remains, at best, a pleasant song recital.”

But Hartford loved it, according to the New York Times review of November 10, 1944, which compared the show favorably to “Oklahoma!”

“A delighted audience of more than 3,000” enjoyed the musical parade of history through “energetic singing and dancing.” The book was by Walter Kerr, the score by Ellie Siegmeister. Hartford did not sit on its hands this time, if Time Magazine did.

Upcoming Plays

2009-10-21T07:28:00.002-04:00

At the Goodspeed Opera House of Haddam, Connecticut, the musical comedy “A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” continues through to November 29th.

At the Merrimack Repertory Theatre of Lowell, Massachusetts, “The Seafarer” a hilarious and chilling Irish tale of the sea opened last week and runs through November 8th.

At The Shubert of New Haven, Connecticut, the riotous “The 39 Steps” opens November 5th and runs through November 7th. This Broadway smash is described as what happens when you “mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python.” A cast of four plays over 150 characters.

At the American Repertory Theatre, using the Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Mass., a unique theatre experience in an unusual telling of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

Award-winning British theater company Punchdrunk makes its U.S. debut with “Sleep No More”, an immersive production inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, told through the lens of a Hitchcock thriller.

“The Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Massachusetts, will be exquisitely transformed into an installation of cinematic scenes that evoke the world of Macbeth. You, the audience, have the freedom to roam the environment and experience a sensory journey as you choose what to watch and where to go. Rediscover the childlike excitement of exploring the unknown in this unique theatrical adventure.”

At the New Hampshire Theatre Project in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Edward Albee’s “Seascape” opens November 12th and runs through November 29th. Directed by Blair Hundertmark.

"Oklahoma!" Kicks off Post-WWII Season

2009-10-14T07:36:00.002-04:00

The first post-World War II theatre season in New England got off to a rousing start with what had been a wartime favorite in New York, “Oklahoma!”

This first celebrated pairing of the music and lyrics of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II opened at Hartford’s Bushnell Memorial Hall October 15, 1945, and played for a week. This road company featured James Alexander as Curly, Mary Hatcher as Laurey, former vaudevillian Mary Marlo as Aunt Eller, and Dorothea MacFarland as Ado Annie (who had understudied Celeste Holm in the New York production). Richard H. Gordon played Jud Fry.

While wartime privations continued in Great Britain, and the European continent and Asia would take years to recover from the war’s devastation, Americans were seemingly already shedding the horror of the world’s largest and most terrible conflict, and were moving on to an unknown modern world with a vengeance. An ad in the program for new perfume sold at Hartford’s famed department store, G. Fox & Co. (see more on G. Fox & Co. in my New England Travels blog), called “Yanky Clover” sold with a dress inspired by “Oklahoma!” and its depiction of “box luncheons, picnics under the stars…the romantic, nostalgic feeling of our own wonderful West.” See Toiletries, street floor.

That romantic nostalgic feeling might be fleeting when the new realities of post-war life set in, some exciting, some foreboding. For now, it was “Oklahoma!” in Hartford, where the cheap seats in the second balcony went for 90 cents, and most expensive orchestra seats would cost you $3.00.

Comedy Comes to the Boston Museum

2009-10-07T07:36:00.006-04:00

Back in the days before theatre was acceptable, the Boston Museum on Tremont Street staged dramatic performances such as John Wilkes Booth in “Romeo and Juliet”, as well as other cultural presentations. Calling the theater a museum somehow made it more legitimate, as if Shakespeare performed in a building called a theater would be déclassé.

The Boston Museum was also really a museum, however, with art and natural sciences exhibits. One wonders if any pretense to culture was blown out of the water when The Dalys came to town.

Above is an ad from Byrne’s Dramatic Times of October 18, 1884, announcing the two-week engagement of The Dalys at the Boston Museum beginning November 3rd. Their show was “their now famous athletic comedy” called “The Vacation - or- Harvard vs. Yale”.

Perhaps “athletic” was used for what would later be termed “slapstick”, but this was such a novelty at the prestigious Boston Museum that the ad declared, “The only comedy on earth that ever played an engagement at the Boston Museum in its regular season.” The show had come straight from a brief run at Tony Pastor’s in New York, billed as “the most pronounced hit of any comedy during the present season.”

The Dalys were a popular family of vaudeville performers in the late 19th century. Several siblings entered the business one by one, and eventually formed a troupe that appeared together in plays.

Author William Ellis Horton in his “About Stage Folks” (Free Press Printing Co., Detroit, 1902), gives us a bit of background on the performing Daly family. Brothers William and Timothy were song and dance men, later joining with Mort Emerson and Willis Clark to form the “Four King High Kickers”, which was, according to Horton, “at one time considered the strongest act of its kind in vaudeville.”

The siblings William, Thomas, Robert, and Daniel were joined by Thomas’ wife Lizzie Derious for the comedy “Vacation.” There were other brothers and sisters, either not involved in the theater, like their oldest brother Timothy, who was a prosperous merchant in Boston, or had their own acts, like sister Lizzie who was a dancer and married minstrel show man Billy Buckley.

At the time of Horton’s 1902 book, some 18 years after their appearance at the Boston Museum, we learn that Thomas had died from “the effects of a severe beating given to him by a cowardly set of ruffians” who were the stage hands at the Academy of Music in Chicago. There’s got to be more to that story.

Robert died of consumption, and sister Lizzie, now a widow, performed a dance act with her daughter Vinnie.

All the Daly siblings owned summer homes on Crescent Beach, back in the day before summer stock, when theatre folk took it easy during the summer months. The only “season” was the theatre season. They, or the ad men, called “Vacation” -- “The laughing success of the century.”

Note: the photo of the Boston Museum is from the Library of Congress, now in public domain.

Vaudeville at Poli's Palace - Springfield, Mass.

2009-09-30T07:33:00.011-04:00

Above is the bill of acts for the Poli’s Palace in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1917. At this time, the Poli Palace was a vaudeville theater, but entrepreneur Sylvester Z. Poli was among the first to introduce movies to his theaters. So, right after Evelyn Elkins “singing comedienne” performs live, we are treated to a silent Western “Their Compact” starring Francis X. Bushman.

The flickers and the “legitimate stage” share an audience, and presumably, worlds collide.

Not that vaudeville was ever really considered “legitimate” stage, but Poli, an Italian immigrant who made his fortune through a string of theaters he owned, most located in New England, intended that his vaudeville theaters provide, according to a publication of the day called “S.Z. Poli’s Theatrical Enterprises”, quoted in The Papers of Will Rogers - Wild West and Vaudeville, Volume II (ed. Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000, p. 404) “devoted to progressive and polite vaudeville.”

We can’t be certain how progressive singing comedienne Evelyn Elkins was, but she was probably polite.

Will Rogers toured the Poli chain of theaters in 1908, and came to Sylvester Poli’s Springfield theater in February of that year. The theater was located at 286 Worthington Street, and after having its name changed to the Park Theatre in 1913, was destroyed in a fire in 1914. Poli was already busy building a new theater, called Poli’s Palace, a little farther down the street at 192-194 Worthington. This theater would continue as a vaudeville house, and after some years of sharing its audience with silent films, would eventually be turned over completely to that new medium when the talkies arrived, and Poli merged his chain with the Loew’s Corporation in 1934.

Vaudeville had its own hierarchy of “top banana” comics, and lesser acts that “played to haircuts” (meaning people walked out on them, so all the performers saw was the backs of their heads). There were “small-time” vaudeville theaters and “big-time”. In Springfield, Poli’s would have been considered small-time, compared to the vaudeville acts that were booked for the more prestigious Court Square Theater in town, which would carry an odd week or two of vaudeville in between legitimate stage shows.

The Shuberts, Keith, Albee and William Morris, all top vaudeville bookers who, regulated by the Vaudeville Managers Association, collected acts to run on the country’s regional vaudeville circuits. Springfield’s Pat Shea, one manager on the New England circuit, helped start the United Booking Office, a clearing house for vaudeville acts.

In February 1922, Shubert’s “High Class Vaudeville” played the Court Square Theater, and fifth on the bill was “Whipple and Huston.” Walter Huston, who later went on to movie fame, at this time played in comedy sketches with his wife, Bayonne Whipple.

Over at Poli’s Palace, there were lesser known acts, like the Harvey-Devora Trio, which billed themselves as “Grotesque Singing and Dancing Novelty.” We cannot be certain if “grotesque” was added to attract attention, or was merely an honest assessment of their abilities.

Things were more hopefully put with Bixley & Lerner, who called themselves “The Melba and Caruso of Vaudeville.”

Spectacular acts were saved for last, “show-closers”, and on July 13, 1914, Gilmore & Castle, “Blackface Singing and Talking Comedians” (yes, they could also talk), were followed by show-closer Hassan Ben Ali’s Troupe.

In his American Vaudeville: It’s Life and Times (NY: Dower Pub., Inc. 1968), author Douglas Gilbert noted of the Troupe, “Their handsprings were never springy, and their tumbling was wild, reckless, effortless. American acrobats could never approach them. At the end of the act Ali held the entire troupe on his head, shoulders, and arms. Then, at curtain, they would take off like pigeons, throwing themselves, so it seemed, out into space. The illusion was perfect. This was the best of the alley oops and no act has beaten it since.”

Box seats were 50 cents at the Poli’s Palace (orchestra seats were double that at Court Square), but if half a buck was still too steep, you could sit in the balcony for 10 cents.

Sylvester Poli, incidentally, was among the first theater owners to construct a single cantilevered balcony in this building, built in 1913.

Vaudeville ran with a new bill every week at Poli’s from Labor Day through May 30th, when summer stock would take over. Poli had his own traveling theater group, called the Poli Players, that would tour his theaters. One future film actress to get her start with the Poli Players was Gladys George.

Sylvester Poli, known not only for adding to his chain of theaters, but remodeling old ones, built the Poli Memorial Theater in 1927. The Springfield Republican noted in December 1926, “Modeled, to some extent, after the elaborate Metropolitan picture theater in Boston, its stage and auditorium will be suitable to legitimate productions, vaudeville, and motion pictures.”

The might be what’s known as having it all, but we never have anything for very long. Vaudeville was dead by 1930, and the talkies carried what would be known as the Loew’s Poli theater for the remainder of the decade and beyond, until that distant day when downtown theaters would be replaced by suburban cinemas.

But for a good while, one could ride the trolley on Main Street, get off on Worthington and walk up to the Poli’s Palace to see Archie Onri “The Original Juggling Genius assisted by Miss Dolly”, and Rohem’s Athletic Girls, which featured feminine exhibitions in “Fencing, Wrestling, and Bag Punching,” or the ever popular Spencer & Williams “Singing and Dancing Duo.”

Later, Loew’s Poli showed first-run MGM films for another generation.

Note: The photos of the exterior and interior of Poli's Palace are from postcards posted on the Image Museum site. The programs and tickets are from my collection.

The File on Esther Zidel

2009-09-23T07:38:00.004-04:00

As mentioned on my "Another Old Movie Blog" this week, I'd like to refer you to another blog called “The File on Esther Zidel.” This blog is comprised of scrapbook photos taken by a young woman named Esther Zidel in the late 1930s and 1940s. The photos are of actors and actresses (stage and screen) she seems to have accosted outside the stage doors of Boston, Massachusetts area theaters. Some dressed to the nines; some, like one of Bette Davis, devil-may-care casual. The more famous actors are easily recognizable, but many others are not.

The photo of James Dunn seems especially poignant to me, strolling alone through the deserted back alley.

See if you can help identify some of these actors, and fill in the blanks.

Upcoming Plays

2009-09-16T07:28:00.003-04:00

Upcoming plays for September and October:

At the Barrington Stage in western Massachusetts:
“Freud's Last Session” is being extended September 23rd through October 4th. The play by Mark St. Germain is suggested by "The Question of God" by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., directed by Tyler Marchant. After escaping the Nazis in Vienna, psychiatrist Dr. Sigmund Freud invites a young, little known professor, C.S. Lewis, to his home in London. Lewis expects to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a recent book but the dying Freud has a more significant agenda. On the day England entered WW II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex and the meaning of life – only two weeks before Freud chose to take his own.

At Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” runs from September 25th through November 29th.

In Ivoryton, Connecticut, the Ivoryton Playhouse presents William Gibson’s classic “The Miracle Worker” September 23rd through October 11th.

At “The Kate”, the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook, Connecticut we have Shakespeare’s “All's Well That Ends Well” on October 1st.

The Legacy Theater Company of Saco, Maine presents “Run for Your Lives” October 9th through October 18th, a series of funny and poignant short works by David Ives, author of "All In The Timing"

The Portland Stage Company of Portland, Maine presents “Third” by Wendy Wasserstein, September 29th through October 18th. From their website: "A liberal university professor finds her seemingly well-ordered life as mother, friend, and daughter thrown into disarray when she accuses a conservative student of plagiarism. Full of the smart dialogue and easy wit that made her famous, Wasserstein's last play is a thoughtful examination of politics, family and the unconscious misconceptions that still divide America."

Hartford, Connecticut’s Bushnell presents Tony winners Roger Bart and Shuler Hensley reprising their roles in the first national tour of the musical “Young Frankenstein” October 6th through 11th, book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, music & lyrics by Mel Brooks. Direction and Choreography by Susan Stroman.

Boston’s The Huntington is currently running August Wilson’s “Fences”, directed by Kenny Leon through October 11th.

The Ridgefield Theater Barn of Ridgefield, Connecticut is currently running “Beyond Therapy” by Christopher Durang, directed by Lester Colodny through October 3rd.

"This comedy/farce involves the unstable lives of two New Yorkers searching for a stable romantic relationship and the 'advice' they receive from their equally unstable psychiatrists. The line between neurosis and insanity blurs as complications....and comedy....inevitably follows."

Connecticut’s Westport Playhouse presents Jane Alexander and Stockard Channing in “The Breath of Life” by David Hare, directed by Mark Lamos September 29th through October 17th. On a small island off the coast of England, two women with a shared history meet for the first time. For twenty-five years, though strangers to one another, Frances and Madeleine were intimately connected in ways they’re only now beginning to understand. Over the course of a single night, as they confront the past, they finally come to terms with the choices they’ve made and the lives they’ve lived.

Opening of "The Kate"

2009-09-09T07:46:00.002-04:00

A couple of days ago, a new theater opened, or re-opened we should say, in New England. We welcome the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center.

Located in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the theater was once the town hall that opened in 1911, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

For many years the building was the home of the Musical and Dramatic Club, showed movies, and the Ivoryton Players moved here for a time during WWII. Ethel Barrymore trod the boards in 1935. By the 1950s, the town offices required more room and theatre was abandoned.

When the town offices moved to a new Town Hall, the historic building underwent, and is still undergoing, a most delightful transformation as the Town of Old Saybrook set upon creating a 250-seat theater, as well as a museum honoring Katharine Hepburn, their most famous resident.

Have a look at the link above and welcome the inaugural season of “The Kate.”

Kitty Carlisle On Tour at the High School Auditorium

2009-09-02T07:39:00.006-04:00

This program for “The Man Who Came to Dinner” is undated, but could have been about 1949, the year Kitty Carlisle toured in summer stock with this now theatre classic written by her husband, Moss Hart, and his partner George S. Kaufman.

Intriguing in this production is the cast of theatre veterans, and the theater: the auditorium of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Trade High School.

This small brick inner city trade school has long been defunct, but evidently had appropriate facilities for what was billed as the Springfield Drama Festival. The Albert Steiger Company, whose flagship department store was in Springfield, also now defunct, (see this article on Steiger’s in my New England Travels blog), took out a full-page ad. The fox furs worn by Miss Carlisle and Miss Libaire came from another local business, Scott Furriers, and the radio equipment for the broadcast scene was provided by the local downtown radio station, WMAS. In between acts we are encouraged to drink Coca Cola, “On sale ice cold in the lobby.”

The program might have the look of a senior class play, but the cast carried a few veterans who’d probably played in more humble venues, and certainly in theaters more grand.

Kitty Carlisle’s career on stage spanned decades, though beyond her few films is probably most remembered for her stint as a game show panelist. She played Maggie Cutler, who is the secretary of the impossible Sheridan Whiteside, played by Forrest Orr. No longer a household name, Mr. Orr made his Broadway debut back in 1907 in the old chestnut, “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines.” His Broadway career continued through the middle 1940s, and he appeared in the original “Philadelphia Story.”

Kevin McCarthy, Joseph Pevney also had long stage careers, and Dorothy Libaire, who played the gold-digger Lorraine Sheldon had a number of films under her belt by the time this gig at the Springfield Trade School came along.

Harold J. Kennedy, who played the prankster Beverly Carleton, also directed the show and co-produced with Harald M. Bromley.

Summer stock requires one to wear a lot of hats sometimes, and demands a lot of versatility, in cast, and in venue, including a high school stage. Now that it’s September and school is back in session, we conclude our posts on summer stock.

Summer Theatre Summary - 1940

2009-08-26T07:38:00.005-04:00

The first summer theater is believed to have begun in the 1890s in Denver, Colorado. But like most new inventions, the public was not exposed to this new entertainment, at least not in very large numbers, for a long while, not until the late 1920s and early 1930s. This is when more people could afford to leave the sweltering cities in the summer. This is when they began to vacation in the country, and this is when the automobile first made that journey a bit easier. This is when those lush and lovely locales in the mountains or by the sea provided theater entrepreneurs the opportunity to push their own unique product to the vacationers.

In June 1940, Theatre Arts magazine celebrated the first decade of summer theatre with an article by author and theater manager, Warren P. Munsell, Jr., who noted, “It is no longer a quaint idea to pop out to the country in July and take in a straw hat show.” He rejoiced that now it was a commonplace thing to do. He noted that “actors, like everybody else, like to get out of the city in the hot weather. Unlike everybody else, in their spare time actors like to act.”

Interestingly, Munsell observed that even at this time, slowly over the preceding decade of the Great Depression, the old-style repertory theater was being altered by the presence of big-name stars from Hollywood. If the audience was asked to pay the enormous sum of $2.75 a ticket to see Henry Fonda live on stage, then by golly, they would expect to see an entire season of big stars rounding out the casts. Munsell notes that such demands by the audience, no longer content with the backwoods repertory, put a huge strain on the theater’s coffers, so much that summer theaters are “generally close to bankruptcy.”

He notes that audiences prefer familiar titles of recent Broadway hits (at the time of this article, it was “You Can’t Take it With You” and “Susan and God”). Giving the public what it wants also extends to what he calls his hesitancy “to offer Oscar Wilde to an audience comprised mainly of farmers.”

He notes comedy is a bigger draw than drama, and notes the risks of trying out new plays as opposed to presenting familiar chestnuts. Except for the price of the tickets, he could be talking about today. Munsell closes his article with a warm summation at which we might smile, “But if, in its maturity, the straw hat circuit seems to have less spontaneity, and to be of less value as an incubator for Broadway plays and Hollywood protégés than before, it has evolved its own special, significant function. It is another outlet for theatre. For summer theatres are supported on the whole by communities a varying percentage of which have no contact with the stage.”

That, too, may still be true, although the big cities are not so far away anymore, just a few exits down the superhighway for most people. But with so many competing sources of entertainment, is live theater likely to be any more popular today for an evening or afternoon’s entertainment than it was in the Great Depression when money was scarce, but many more small communities had a tradition of theatre?

"Singin' in the Rain" - Ogunquit Playhouse

2009-08-19T07:57:00.005-04:00

Ogunquit Playhouse brings to life “Singin’ in the Rain” with elaborate sets, complex technical effects, and a cast whose energy and talent impress and delight. Ogunquit has a huge show in “Singin’ in The Rain,” and a huge hit.

Joey Sorge, Amanda Lea Lavergne, and Jon Peters seem to almost channel Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor of the original film on which this stage musical is based. The 1952 landmark movie has become so iconic that a stage musical must of necessity evoke memories of the film, and for this production we therefore have the iconic Gene Kelly pose on the street lamp, umbrella in hand, by Joey Sorge, the Donald O’Connor inspired frenetic sight gags during the “Make ‘Em Laugh” number performed by Jon Peters, and Amanda Lea Lavergne’s “All I Do is Dream of You” bursting from a cake a’la Debbie Reynolds.

Particularly impressive for the audience to remember is that Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor were not singing at the top of their lungs while doing those impressive dance routines; they were lip-syncing to playback. On the stage, everything is live (though the tinny sound of the mics is somewhat distracting), and Sorge, Lavergne, and Peters don’t have the luxury of mouthing to playback or re-takes. They give it everything they’ve got, and what they’ve got is great. Their soaring voices and snappy tap dancing may have evoked the actors of the original film, but no mimicry was used or needed. They let us know from the start that, though this show might have been inspired by an old movie, this was live theater in all its immediacy and energy, its ability to excite and involve.

Other moments inspired by the film is the scene of the gossamer scarf of dancer Cyd Charisse enveloping Gene Kelly during the “Broadway Rhythm” number, and it is replicated with an interesting and creative variation. In the “Good Morning” number, at the moment Sorge, Lavergne, and Peters leap in unison onto the back of the couch and tip it over, the audience responded with impromptu applause, because that is one of the most memorable moments of that dance number in the film, and they were delightfully surprised to see it replicated on stage.

Amy Bodnar, who plays the ditzy diva Lina Lamont, rates a special mention for her fabulous performance. One would have to go a long way to top the comic antics of Jean Hagen in the original film, but Ms. Bodnar does it. I think whenever I see the 1952 from now on, I will be reminded with a warm memory of Ms. Bodnar’s performance. She is utterly hysterical in each line, each pose, managing to be both exasperatingly haughty and charmingly endearing. She was singled out for a standing ovation at the conclusion of the performance I saw, and well deserved.

Celia Tackaberry, who doubled as Phoebe Dinsmore the much-put-upon vocal coach, and Dora Bailey, the gossip columnist guiding us through the Hollywood premieres, gave us a touch of zany spoofing.

A fascinating, and highly entertaining aspect to this production is the use of silent film style film sequences of the actors shown on a screen in several scenes that meld with the live action and illustrate the sometimes wacky film world of the late 1920s. This was through the efforts of one of the new sponsors of the Playhouse, Video Creations. We see the difficulty transferring the accustomed silent film story to the new and groundbreaking sound film technology, not always with expected results. The “movie” clips were inventive and really funny.

And of course, it rained on stage.

Boy, did it rain. A spectacular special effect, this must have been a terrific challenge, and audience was taken away by it, and Joey Sorge leaped and splashily tap danced through puddles before our eyes. Bradford T. Kenney, Executive Artistic Director and Jayme McDaniel, director/choreographer are to be congratulated for the triumph “Singin’ in the Rain” represents for Ogunquit Playhouse. Musical director for this show is Matthew Smedal, who led the orchestra through the familiar, and some unfamiliar original numbers by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed.

“Singin’ in the Rain” runs at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine through September 12th. Make every effort to see this show if you can; it’s terrific. If you’re lucky enough to catch it, let us know what you think.

Upcoming Plays - August

2009-08-12T07:53:00.005-04:00

Upcoming plays for August 2009:

The Barrington Stage Company of Pittsfield, Mass. is currently running Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” through August 29th.

The Berkshire Theatre Festival down the road in Stockbridge is running “Ghosts” through August 29th.

Across the state and by the sea, the Cape Playhouse will present the Ken Ludwig comedy, “Moon Over Buffalo” beginning August 17th through the 29th.

The Ivoryton Playhouse, in Ivoryton, Connecticut is currently running Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple”, directed by Lawrence Thelen, through August 30th.

New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Valley Theater will present the musical favorite “Hello Dolly!” August 18th through the 30th.

Connecticut’s New London Barn Playhouse cast off last night with the Cole Porter shipboard musical “Anything Goes”, running through August 23rd.

The Weston Playhouse of Vermont gives us “Musical of Musicals - The Musical! for its Vermont premiere. Opening tonight, the show runs through September 6th, with music by Eric Rockwell, Lyrics by Joanne Bogart, book by Eric Rockwell & Joanne Bogart. According to the website: “is a send-up of some of the musical theatre’s greatest composing teams. The time-honored tale of a damsel in distress is told by four actors in five musical styles. From Cats to Mame and from the cornfield to the cabaret…”

The Williamstown Theater Festival of Williamstown, Mass. also opens tonight with “Quartermaine’s Terms”, running through August 23rd. Written by Simon Gray, directed by Maria Aitken, this is “heart-felt 1960s comedy about an endearingly eccentric group of English teachers in Cambridge whose insatiable quest for knowledge has masked their secret longings for passion, romance, and true happiness.”

Lastly, at Maine’s Ogunquit Playhouse, another opening night tonight for the movie-now-stage musical “Singing in the Rain” based on the MGM film starring Joey Sorge, Amanda Lea LaVergne, and Jon J. Peterson, and running through September 12th. Next week, we’ll review this Oguinquit Playhouse production.

Ethel Barrymore and the Democracy of Summer Theatre

2009-08-05T07:32:00.004-04:00

One of the most fascinating and irresistible aspects of summer theatre is the prevailing panache of democracy not clashing, but complimenting stage “royalty.”

Here we have an ad from a Cape Playhouse program from August 1935 announcing the upcoming appearance of the legendary Ethel Barrymore in “The Constant Wife.” Her name is followed by a group of lesser actors, most of whom are probably unknown to most of us today, but who for that moment are noted forever as colleagues of the great Ethel Barrymore.

Ethel Barrymore, Library of Congress photo.

The producer, Raymond Moore, also boldly proclaims with equal enthusiasm, a couple of kiddy shows featuring a magician and some puppets. Ethel had to share the bill with puppets, but probably took it in her stride.

Summer Stock - 1939

2009-07-29T07:31:00.004-04:00

As the lazy summer of 1939 lingered, we would have no way of knowing that the peace, and the familiar world of the present, would be shattered on September 1st when Hitler’s march into Poland started World War II. The beginning of that promising summer in June marked the last summer stock season free of any impending threat of being interrupted due to the war. The only threat to summer theater in New England in those days, as now, were financial.

But Newsweek magazine reported on June 26th that “summer show producers are looking forward to a prosperous season” and in those innocent days, along with the Broadway hits and the Broadway stars, “the usual hatch of untried plays that come to life under a rural moon before braving the harsher lights of Times Square.”

Most summer theaters, then and now, are in rural locations, and that perhaps in itself presents them as old fashioned, from another time, from another more innocent world. In 1939 summer stock had gone from crawling to walking, and was in fine form before the war disrupted many seasons for many summer theaters.

That season Libby Holman and Clifton Webb took “Burlesque” on one-week stands to the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine, then to the Cohasset Theater in Cohasset, Massachusetts, and then down to the Cape Playhouse in Dennis.

Glenda Farrell returned to the stage after five years in Hollywood to appear in “Anna Christie” at the Westport Playhouse in Connecticut. After Westport, Glenda Farrell was hopping down to the Theater-By-The-Sea in Mantunuck, Rhode Island to appear in “Dateline, Geneva,” a new play by Alan Rivkin and Leonard Spiegelglass.

Mitzi Green was to appear in several plays over at the Ivoryton, Connecticut Playhouse. Walter Hampden and Kitty Carlisle appeared at the Cape Playhouse in July with “A Successful Calamity”, a play in this previous post on Walter Hampden’s appearance in Ridgefield, Connecticut in August of 1938.

Over on the other end of the state, Thornton Wilder appeared as the Stage Manager in his play “Our Town” at the Berkshire Playhouse.

Skowhegan, Maine’s Lakewood Theater would present “Indian Summer” with Jessie Royce Landis. Diana Barrymore, the 18-year-old daughter of John Barrymore, would make her stage debut in Ogunquit. Rudy Vallee would appear over at Deertrees Theater in Harrison, Maine.

Newsweek noted that Vermont and New Hampshire summer stock was thriving on “the stages of almost a dozen active cowbarn playhouses.” It might sound dismissive, but it’s really kind of a triumph.

Review of "Sleuth" - Cape Playhouse

2009-07-22T07:30:00.008-04:00

The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts is the oldest continuing summer theater in the U.S. Knowing that, and knowing that Henry Fonda and Robert Montgomery began their careers here in the summer of 1928, along with another first-timer who also ushered, Bette Davis, is part of the experience of attending a play at the Cape Playhouse on a warm summer night.

(c. 1940s photo.)It goes along with the rough broad-beam rafters in the peaked barn-like ceiling above, and the wooden floors, the wooden benches reminiscent of when founder Raymond Moore dragged (not by himself, surely) a former Unitarian meeting house to this sand-and-scrub pine lot along scenic Route 6A. This is no Cineplex, no grand beaux arts palace. It’s what summer theater used to be in an age when the greatest actors and actress of the day spent their summers playing in barns, and boathouses, tents, and old meeting houses.

A peculiar delight to sit on your bench, glance at the heavy rough oak rafters above, at the plush red curtain ahead, and imagine a young Bette Davis showing a perhaps much less-awed audience where to sit. A little of the shine is diminished today when you see a bored-looking young usher jerking his head and telling two elderly ladies with cardigans around their shoulders, “You guys are over here.”

Note to young people ushering, waiting tables, or running checkout stands in stores: ladies are always “Ma’am” and men are always, “Sir”, and should never be referred to as anything else except “ladies” or “gentlemen.”

I feel pretty sure even a tough gal like Bette Davis would have known that.

Another thing while we’re on the subject, the witless and lazy expression, “Have a good one” can be retired at any time.

Now, back to work. The Cape Playhouse just wrapped up its production of “Sleuth” by Anthony Shaffer. Directed by Russell Treyz, the show starred Peter Frechette and Malcolm Gets.

Yoshinori Tanokura designed the multi-level set, which featured a high narrow staircase to an upper level landing, large arched windows, and dark wood paneling, illustrating an ornate English country house. The fire place, the large elk’s head mounted above it, the crossed swords on the wall, all give us the illusion of English aristocracy, wealth, power, arrogance, and this goes a long way to establishing the character of the master of the house, played by Frechette.

The plastic-domed turntable stereo with the LPs tucked beside it remind us it is the 1970s.

Mr. Frechette plays Andrew Wyke, the writer of mystery novels whose wife is leaving him for Milo Tindle, played by Malcolm Gets. He invites Gets to his home to discuss the situation man-to-man, and soon sets him up in a most creative, and most cruel, game to exact his revenge. Frechette is brilliant as the playful, funny, arrogant, and somewhat manic writer who uses his expertise at writing mystery stories to manipulate and bully Gets into humiliating, and occasionally terrifying, scenarios. Frechette is teasing, bubbly, childlike, scornful, and at times appearing a bit unhinged. That’s a lot of oranges to juggle.

Gets, a more sensitive but no less clever man, is at first overwhelmed by the forceful life-of-the party personality of Frechette, who makes him jump through emotional hoops, but in the second act Gets proceeds to ploddingly turn the tables. The final scene is shocking, and we see that the relentless drive to be the winner in this peculiar game of one-upmanship comes at great risk for both men.

It is a literate play, and frequently the dialogue erupts into long and complicated soliloquies, but this is managed very well by both actors. Both employ credible, and several, British accents in the course of the action as they role play. They are well matched, and deserve much credit for instilling a great deal of energy into what is essentially a very wordy play.

Good company on a warm summer night on Cape Cod.

For more on the rest of the season at The Cape Playhouse, have a look at this website.

Upcoming Plays - July, August

2009-07-15T07:15:00.004-04:00

Here are some upcoming plays in summer theatre:

The Acadia Repertory Theatre of Mt. Desert Island, Maine presents the comedy “Pool’s Paradise” by Philip King July 21st through August 2nd.

At the Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, Mass., the thriller comedy “Sleuth” runs July 16th through August 1st.

The Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Mass. presents “The Einstein Project” by Paul D’Andrea and Jon Klein, directed by Eric Hill.

The Mt. Washington Valley Theatre Company, of North Conway, New Hampshire presents the musical comedy “The Producers” July 15th through August 1st.

Rhode Island’s Newport Playhouse & Cabaret Restaurant presents the comedy “Goodbye, Charlie” by George Axelrod, directed by Bruce Lackey, July 15th - August 23rd.

New Hampshire’s The Peterborough Players gives us the musical comedy “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”, book and lyrics by Joe DiPetro, music by Jimmy Roberts, July 15th through 26th.

The New London Barn Playhouse of New London, Connecticut presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic American musical, “South Pacific”, directed by Kathryn Markey, July 7th through July 19th.

Maine’s Ogunquit Playhouse, presents another classic American musical, “Guys and Dolls” July 15th through August 8th.

Vermont’s Weston Playhouse presents the New England premiere of the rock musical “Rent” July 30th through August 22nd. Book, music & lyrics by Jonathan Larson, directed and choreographed by Bill Castelino. Music director is Greg Brown.

Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse presents “How the Other Half Loves” by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by John Tillinger, July 28th through August 15th.

And finally, the Cape Playhouse of Dennis, Mass. (also, see Barrington Stage above) presents the thriller comedy “Sleuth” by Anthony Shaffer, July 6th through July 18th, where a wealthy crime writer matches wits with the unemployed actor who ran off with his wife, “plotting games full of twists and turns that end in potentially deadly results. A classic chiller that will have you on the edge of your seat!”

This blog will review the Cape Playhouse production of “Sleuth” next week.

Mount Holyoke College Summer Theatre

2009-07-08T07:35:00.004-04:00

The Mount Holyoke College Summer Theatre retired their trademark orange and white tent at the end of their 18th season in 1988, and so symbolic was the tent to the identity of the theater that the future seemed uncertain for the organization. But, there would be a 19th season, and many seasons more until at last the curtain rang down for good.

But this was theater-in-the-round, where there are no curtains, and that is surely one of the factors that made the Mount Holyoke Summer Theatre so fondly remembered as a unique theatre experience. Their productions were, by necessity, intimate and cleverly presented.

Founded in 1970 by Mount Holyoke College Department of Theatre faculty member Jim Cavanaugh, this South Hadley, Massachusetts summer stock event was borne of a desire to create, as Mr. Cavanaugh wrote in the 10th Anniversary special program, “a theatre in which students would take positions of responsibility, on and off stage, and learn by doing.” Students had shared with Cavanaugh their less than satisfying experiences paying money to apprentice with major professional companies and “learning little except how to withstand lack of sleep.”

The first season produced eight plays in eight weeks, as Cavanaugh notes, “We didn’t know it couldn’t be done, so we did it.” Some memories over the years includes stopping a performance of the musical “Carnival” for 35 minutes to wait for a rain shower to stop so that the audience hear the performance. In the meantime, the actors taught the audience the words to songs from the show and they had a sing-a-long until the rain stopped.

Occasional rumbles from C5 aircraft taking off from nearby Westover Air Force Base always required a pause in the action, but were thankfully less frequent, and not as long-lasting than very loud rain on the tent roof. In fair weather, there was something tantalizing about the warm summer night, with the moon and stars lingering just beyond the tent wall and the screened door.

The series was reduced to seven plays in later seasons, and always ran the spectrum of comedy and drama, from Moliére to Thornton Wilder, from Neil Simon to Tennessee Williams. No big names from Hollywood or Broadway were among the casts, but none were needed. The mixture of professional guest actors and technicians, and company apprentice and journeymen students created a vibrant, intimate, and emotionally charged world in the orange and white tent. They are still missed.

Walter Hampden at Ridgefield Summer Theatre

2009-07-01T08:07:00.004-04:00

Continuing our season of summer theatre, we take a look back at Walter Hampden’s appearance with Connecticut’s Ridgefield Summer Theatre in August of 1938.

Hampden was himself a resident of Ridgefield, having bought a farm here in 1911. He seems to have been part of a vanguard of wealthy New Yorkers to establish grand homes here. One America’s foremost Shakespearean actors of the turn of the 20th century, Walter Hampden toured the US and Europe, and formed his own stock company in 1919. In the 1920s he launched his own theater in New York, playing Hamlet to Ethel Barrymore’s Ophelia.

Hampden also enjoyed a varied Hollywood career noted in this post from my Another Old Movie Blog (see here).

This small town in Connecticut where he rested on his farm between engagements may have been a less illustrious venue for his considerable stature as an actor, but Walter Hampden’s appearance here in “A Successful Calamity” by Clare Kummer demonstrates what once was common among the great actors. Actors, real actors, toured in summer stock, no matter their stature or fame, no matter if the theater was a high school auditorium, a barn, or a boathouse, or a tent.

Hampden’s own personal ties to Ridgefield must have made this minor engagement all the more appealing. Ridgefield, Connecticut has two theaters today, the Ridgefield Theater Barn, and the Ridgefield Playhouse. The Wilton Bulletin of August 11, 1938, in anticipation of the coming event reported that Mr. Hampen, “has played “A Successful Calamity’ many times and has always delighted his audiences.”

Review - Broadway by the Year - Berkshire Theatre Festival

2009-06-24T07:28:00.004-04:00

There is something rustically elegant and exquisitely symbolic about the wooden screen doors that gently swing open to the Berkshire Playhouse. They are an effortless gesture to the heritage and style of New England summer theatre. It is as if the building itself, designed by Stanford White in 1888 and now on the National Register of Historic Places, is both conscious and yet demure about its prestigious history.

Inside, a more pointed display is on hand with a number of headshots from stars of the past several decades, and period posters to which the patrons are riveted when they are not out catching the summer breeze on the porch, or having a drink on lawn.

The Berkshire Theatre Festival began in 1928, and celebrates its 81st season. Currently “Broadway By the Year” is playing here, and like the old wooden playhouse, makes the past real and relevant.

Musical review series created for New York’s The Town Hall by Scott Siegel, focused this time on the year 1930 and 1964. Mr. Siegel wrote the narrative which accompanies the songs, and hosted. His remarks were insightful, humorous, and along with his depth and knowledge of Broadway history, showed a warm admiration for the hits and stars of the past that the audience clearly shared and appreciated.

The singers were Scott Coulter, who also directed; as well as Christiane Noll, and Kerry O’Malley. Piano accompaniment was provided by Ross Patterson, musical director.

The 1930 segment featured songs from “Girl Crazy,” “The New Yorkers”, “Three’s a Crowd”, “Simple Simon”, “Nina Rosa”, “The 9:15 Review”, and “Strike Up the Band.”

The 1964 portion featured songs from “Fiddler on the Roof”, “High Spirits”, “Anyone Can Whistle,”, “Funny Girl”, and “Hello Dolly!”

Mr. Coulter’s mellow tenor was accompanied to great effect by Ms. O’Malley’s powerful, rich voice with its great range, and Ms. Noll’s beautiful high soprano. At a few turns in the show, most notably during “Sunrise, Sunset” from “Fiddler”, and “I Got Rhythm” the trio exhibited terrific close harmony.

First act costumes were formal and evocative of the era of 1930, and the second act boldly announced 1964 in the mod and colorful style, right down to Mr. Siegel’s multicolored tied and cummerbund, as if we’d all just gotten color TV.

Highlights included Ms. O’Malley’s second act opening shot-out-of-a-cannon rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade”, Ms. Noll’s tear-filled eyes at the end of “But Not For Me”, Ms. O’Malley’s lusty and fun “Home Sweat Heaven” sung on top of the piano, the soulful “Ribbons Down My Back” by Ms. Noll, and Mr. Coulter’s wistful “Anyone Can Whistle.”

The show continues through June 27th. It is a real treat, and well worth seeing. If you’ve seen it, let us know what you think.

Upcoming Summer Stock

2009-06-17T07:20:00.005-04:00

Here are some more upcoming plays around New England as we launch into our season of summer theatre:

At the Acadia Repertory Theatre of Mt. Desert Island, Maine, “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher will be presented July 3rd through 19th.

Lakewood in Maine gives us the comedy “A Bad Year for Tomatoes” by John Patrick, directed by Stephanie E. G. Irwin. The show features Jeralyn Shattuck, Bart Shattuck, MJ Clifford, Larissa Gaias, Gary Dorman, Midge Merrill-Pomelow and Tim Pomelow. Dates are: June 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27 8:00 p.m.; June 21st 4:00 p.m.; June 24th 2:00 p.m. & 7:00 p.m.

New Century Theater of Northampton, Mass. presents “Other People's Money” July 2-11th. Written by Jerry Sterner, directed by Keith Langsdale.

The Peterborough Players of New Hampshire presents the comedy “Bad Dates” by Theresa Rebeck, June 17-28 th.

Connecticut’s New London Barn Theater is currently producing Ken Ludwig’s “Leading Ladies”, directed by Peter Hackett, June 16-June 21st, the farce about two out-of-work actors who disguise themselves as women in order to inherit a fortune.

The Ogunquit Playhouse of Maine presents “Shout!” the Mod Musical, June 17th through July 11th.

The Ridgefield Theater Barn of Ridgefield, Connecticut will produce “Expecting Houdini” by Sam Havens, July 10th through 18th, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m .

Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse is presenting the musical, “tick, tick…boom!”, book, music, & lyrics by Jonathan Larson June 23 - July 18th.

The Weston Playhouse, Weston, Vermont presents “Fully Committed” by Becky Mode, June 23rd through July 4th

Rhode Island’s Newport Playhouse is currently running the comedy “Breaking Legs” by Tom Dulack until July 12th. Directed by Martin Raymond, the cast includes Matt Siravo, Kyle Medeiros, Ed Carusi, Bing McGrath, Camille Terilli, Nishan Lawton, and Fred Davison. The show is about three Mafia bosses who want to invest in a play, but have a few changes to the script.

Finally, Berkshire Theatre Festival of Stockbridge, Mass. is presenting the musical review “Broadway By the Year” June 18th through June 27th. Next week, this blog will feature a review of this show.

The Valley Players - Holyoke, Mass.

2009-06-10T07:28:00.013-04:00

A fondly remembered summer theater company produced plays and musicals on the top of Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. An idyllic spot of picnic groves, restaurant, ballroom, dance pavilion, amusement park, and zoo, Mountain Park also featured a theater called the Casino. At one time, it was the home of what was reputed to be the largest summer theater in New England.

From 1941 through 1962, the Casino was home to The Valley Players, a theatre company which helped nurture, or even launch the careers of many young actors, Hal Holbrook among them, who first performed his famous one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight” here. Future Tony nominee and native of nearby Westfield Anne Pitoniak appeared here as well.

Mountain Park was created in the late 19th century when the first train and trolley and mountain tram cars made their way up Mt. Tom. An early vaudeville theater was built here, later replaced by the Casino. In 1911 the Casino Stock Company produced stage plays here, but folded after one season. Vaudeville acts and silent movies shown at the Casino drew in the crowds. Stage plays were attemped again in 1924, and a 1935 renovation of the Casino led to more plays here showcased by the Works Progress Administration (more on the WPA theatre project another time). One Depression-era member of the company was future film star Wendell Corey.

Carlton and Jean Guild created the Valley Players here in 1941. They had been involved in other New England summer theaters, and along with collegues Dorothy Crane, Lauren Gilbert and his wife Jackson Perkins, Walter Coy, Louise Mudgett and Joseph Foley, were looking for a site for a new company. All would function on the administrative staff or perform in many of the plays produced by the Valley Players, or both. Joseph Foley went on to do some live television, was Gabriel Gurney the principal for the first season of “Mr. Peepers”, until his untimely death in the summer of 1955 in Holyoke.

The Valley Players was an Equity stock company. During 1943 Mountain Park was closed due to the wartime gas rationing. The heyday for the Valley Players was throughout the 1950s (coinciding with what is generally perceived as the golden age of summer theatre in New England), but the dawn of the 1960s brought rising production costs, lower attendance, and the curtain was brought down in 1962 with Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.”

Mountain Park closed in 1987.

Here are a few programs from The Valley Players. “Bell, Book & Candle” with Hal Holbrook was the final production of 1953. “Holiday” from July 1954 featured Si, (later billed as Simon) Oakland, later seen in many future film and TV productions. Hal Holbrook also appeared in “The Velvet Glove” July 1953, one of his earliest appearances with The Valley Players. The following month he had a part in “The Happiest Days of Your Life”.

Ralph Edwards, who at the time was the host of the “Truth or Consequences” gameshow on radio, and would also be the host when this show eventually moved to television, appeared in “Nothing But the Truth” in August 1942.

I’d love to hear from anyone who attended a show by The Valley Players, or was involved in any way in their productions.

Note: the postcards of the Casino Theater are from the Imagine Museum website. These programs for The Valley Players came to me by way of an old family friend (and collectibles & antiques dealer) Gail Watson. My dearest thanks to her.

Off Topic - Happy Anniversary

2009-06-04T07:34:00.001-04:00

Happy one-year anniversary to my twin brother's cartoon blog: Arte Acher's Falling Circus!

The American Theatre Wing

2009-06-03T07:20:00.003-04:00

Coupling our launch of a series of blog posts about New England summer stock, and the upcoming Tony Awards, we note a local tie-in with the American Theatre Wing which co-produces, along with The Broadway League, the Tony Awards®.

The American Theatre Wing started out as part of the World War II Allied Relief Fund, which had roots in the Stage Women’s Relief Fund founded in 1939. One member of that group of theatrical women was Antoinette Perry, for whom the “Tony” is named. When the US entered the war, this group started the famed Stage Door Canteen to entertain servicemen.

Above we have a brochure published in 1942 by the American Theatre Wing War Service, Inc., and the Actors’ Fund of America, which was distributed in the program of a play presented by The Valley Players of Holyoke, Massachusetts. More on The Valley Players will be featured in posts in the weeks to come.

The pamphlet included information on the Stage Door Canteen and the work of the Actors’ Fund, which was to provide economic aid to the sick, aged, and indigent members of the acting profession. The Actors’ Fund was already over 60 years old. The Actors’ Fund supported the Actors’ Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey for aged actors and actresses, and also funded two cemeteries “for the final resting place of its people.” We were then coming out of the era long past when actors and actresses were regarded as disreputable vagabonds of dubious virtue, so any kindness towards them was a virtue.

Here is another notice by the Actors’ Fund placed in a 1956 program. By then the American Theatre Wing had transitioned from a wartime relief aid fund, to supporting education in the theatre, and by then the Tony Awards had been established.

The Valley Players was a professional summer theater begun in 1941, producing shows at the Mountain Park Casino in Holyoke, which had hosted various other road productions for at least a generation before that. Ensconced in the little theater on the highest mountain in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, The Valley Players seemed tenuously linked, despite its isolation, to the grander theatre world of New York.

They staged “Three’s a Family” August 6th through 11th, 1956 starring Jean Guild, John O’Connor, and Jacqueline Paige, and the producer’s notes in the program posted a thank you to all the patrons who, responding to a plea in a program from a show weeks earlier, donated a total of $815.61 to the Actors’ Fund of America to “provide relief and comfort to many of the acting profession who, because of age, illness or misfortune, are in need of assistance.”

The theatre is a big family sometimes, in a small world.

For more on the American Theatre Wing, have a look at this website.

Summer Stock and Upcoming Plays

2009-05-27T07:23:00.007-04:00

We begin the summer season with another round of upcoming plays in New England. Some of these represent summer stock, an aspect of the New England theatre that is a particular favorite of mine.

Back when modern American theatre was flourishing, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the theaters would close in summer. There was no air conditioning then, and the wealthier patrons left the city in summertime anyway. Summer stock arose out of the two new features of modern life: the automobile, and summer vacationers. Summer stock gave young performers cutting their teeth in “stock” companies a chance to perform with major stars who went on the circuit after their engagements were concluded after the regular season ended. It allowed vacationers in remote Cape Cod, Maine, Vermont, the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, and along the Connecticut shore, to enjoy legitimate theater without heading for the big cities, and without the top hat and tails. Summer whites were all that was required, and straw boaters.

More on the history of summer theatre in New England as the summer progresses, along with a few current plays.

Here are what’s playing for the final shows of the regular season for some theaters, and the first shows of this season’s summer stock:

At the Ridgefield Theater Barn, Ridgefield, Connecticut we have the musical “Camelot” by Lerner and Lowe, from May 29th through June 27th, directed by Craig David Rosen.

The Berkshire Theater Festival of Stockbridge, Mass. presents “Faith Healer” written by Brian Friel and directed by Eric Hill, with David Adkins, Colin Lane, and Keira Naughton from May 21st through July 4th.

The Goodspeed Opera House of Haddam, Connecticut is running “Lucky Guy,” a new musical until June 14th. Their production of “42 Street” runs until June 28th.

The Lakewood Theater of Lakewood, Maine, which bills itself as America’s Oldest Summer Theater, is presenting “Rumors” by Neil Simon, directed by Jeff Quinn. The cast features Bart Shattuck, Jeralyn Shattuck, Cheryl Seamans, Cory King, MJ Clifford, Jeff Quinn, Gary Dorman, Christine Demchak and Jason Hilton. The show runs May 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30 8:00 p.m.; May 24th 4:00 p.m.; and May 27th 2:00 p.m . The Lakewood Theater is in Madison Maine, just north of Skowhegan.

The New Century Theatre of Northampton, Mass. opens its summer season with “Last of The Red Hot Lovers” by Neil Simon June 18-27th. The show is directed by Jack Neary.

The Peterborough Players, of Peterborough, New Hampshire present “I Remember Mama”, the classic by John van Druten on June 3, 5, and 6 at 8 p.m., and June 7th at 2 p.m. Some of the area’s best high school actors will work alongside professional actors Kathy Manfre, Ken Sheldon, and Michael Dell’Orto. Artistic Director Gus Kaikkonen directs.

Hartford, Connecticut’s The Bushnell presents the musical “The Color Purple” June 9th through 14th.

The Huntington in Boston presents “Pirates! (Or, Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder'd)” by Gilbert and Sullivan, directed by Gordon Greenberg in the Boston University Theater - main stage through June 14th.

The New London Barn Playhouse in New London, Connecticut opens its summer season with their “52nd Annual Straw Hat Revue” directed by Charles Massey June 11th through 14th. “Join the 2009 Intern Company as they introduce themselves and their formidable talent to our audiences. This barn tradition is free to the public but fills quickly so get your tickets early!”

The famed Ogunquit Playhouse begins its summer season in Ogunquit, Maine with the musical “A Chorus Line” featuring Lorenzo Lamas, through June 13th.

Westport, Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse presents “Children” by A. R. Gurney, directed by John Tillinger, through June 13th.

The heyday of summer stock in New England occurred in the 1940s through the 1960s, sometimes called the “straw hat circuit.” I hope you’ll just us in the weeks ahead for a look back, and a peek at what’s happening now, and share with us your memories of attending summer stock plays.

Sharon Gless - Watch on the Rhine

2009-05-20T07:28:00.004-04:00

Sharon Gless, probably best known for her role in the television series “Cagney & Lacey” (1982-88) made her stage debut at StageWest in Springfield, Mass., October 1989.

In an interview with Fred Sokol of The Springfield Sunday Republican, October 22, 1989, Gless confessed her fear at this new experience of performing live on stage.

“I go to sleep with my heart pounding. I wake up with my heart pounding.”

The play was Lillian Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine”, directed by Eric Hill as part of StageWest’s 23rd season (for most of its existence, StageWest had been located in West Springfield, Mass.)

Gless played Sarah Müller, the role those more familiar with the 1943 film version was played by Bette Davis. Jan Triska played her husband Kurt, the Nazi hunter, and the venerable Academy Award-winning actress, Kim Hunter, played her formidable mother. Kent Broadhurst was the villainous informer Teck, and fans of 1960s daytime television would recognize Jacqueline Betrand as Anise, companion to Kim Hunter’s matriarch.

The intense drawing room drama was well suited to the intimate theater. One minor point worth noting is that perhaps one trick that kept the flow of the serious mood through the scene breaks and intermission was the use of stagehands dressed as household servants. Rather than scrambling in the half light (or dark) to strike props, the lights remained up, and “the maid” or “the butler” would stroll casually to retrieve or place whatever was necessary for the next scene.

Sharon Gless need not have been so terrified. “This is not fun yet” she replied in Sokol’s article during rehearsal. Her performance, and the play, was well done, a play that reflected America’s crisis of conscience in the days before World War II, and remains a timeless study of the risks both of ignoring political social forces, and the consequences of standing firm among them.

Marilynn Miller at the Shubert, Boston

2009-05-13T07:23:00.000-04:00

Marilynn Miller, one of the most popular stars of the Broadway musical in the 1920s and 1930s, began in vaudeville. Here we see her as part of the cast in “The Show of Wonders”, a series of musical sketches that went on tour in 1916 after its successful run at New York’s The Winter Garden.

This program is from Boston’s Shubert Theatre. Marilynn Miller was still a couple of years away from stardom when she joined the Ziegfeld Follies in 1918, where she shared billing with Eddie Cantor, W.C. Fields, and Will Rogers. After that came her enormous hit show “Sally” with her signature song “Look for the Silver Lining” and Marilynn dropped one of the “N’s” in her name to become Marilyn, which because of her, became a very popular name of that era.

The Louis Alter mentioned in the cast later became a noted songwriter and composer for Broadway musicals, and a few early sound films. He collaborated with Oscar Hammerstein II, among others, and was an accompanist for Beatrice Lillie and Helen Morgan.

The Ernest Hare listed among the cast later found fame as a recording artist and singer on The Happiness Boys radio program, teaming up with Billy Jones. Maybe you remember their Interwoven Socks commercial (singing, “I’m Billy Jones/I’m Ernie Hare, We’re the Interwoven Pair/How do you doodle--oodle--oodle--oodle--do?).

Okay. Maybe you don’t remember that.

These performers had long and varied careers, but most of them never became stars. For this night in Boston in November of 1917, they were the pride of producers Lee and J.J. Shubert, and slayed (or attempted to slay) the audience in scenes with such descriptions as “In a Pullman Car”, and “The Oriental Bazaar” and “On the Beach.”

Marilynn Miller, Sidney Phillips and Arthur Davis sang a song called “Wedding Bells.” Patsy O’Hearn led the troupe of dancers in a song called “When Pavlova Starts Bucking and Winging.” Willie Howard gave out with “Yiddisha Butterfly.” Sidney Phillips, Virginia Smith, and a gaggle of chorus girls sang “Pajama Girlie.”

It was a different era in musicals, long before musical plays ever followed a single storyline, or when the songs forwarded the plot. That would wait for Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart.

For now, it was a bit of fluff during the grim days seven months after the United States entered World War I.

Corse Payton at the Court Square Theatre

2009-05-06T07:40:00.000-04:00

Corse Payton arrived in Springfield, Mass. with his stock company in 1915 to play at the Court Square Theatre. He billed himself as “America’s Best Bad Actor.” Rather than keep the crowds away, this unlikely label seemed to attract them, if only out of curiosity.

Born in the 1860s, Payton was a Midwesterner who joined a traveling circus as a young man, and by 1900 had had enough touring through the country to settle down in Brooklyn and bought himself a theater and founded a stock company. Some future film stars got their start with Payton, including Mary Pickford, Ed Wynn, Fay Bainter, and Dorothy and Lillian Gish.

In August, 1915 at the Court Square Theatre, Corse Payton and his stock company, which included some of his relatives, like his brother, Claude, presented what the playbill labeled “the absorbing drama” called “Madame X.”

The teenaged girl who went to this performance at the Court Square Theatre wrote in pencil on top of the program “went with Agnes - cried a lot.”

Hopefully, the girls cried because it was such an absorbing drama, and not because Payton really was such a bad actor.

This photo of the Court Square Theatre here is from the Library of Congress, from the Detroit Publishing Company, taken sometime between 1900 and 1910.

The Court Square Theatre opened in 1892. Most of the theatre greats played here, the Barrymores, Helen Hayes, each in their season and generation. It was closed in 1955, demolished two years later.

Here is a shot of what remains of the Court Square block. For more on the Court Square Theatre, have a look at this blog post by Mark T. Alamed in his terrific “Exploring Western Mass” blog, and also here at Cinema Treasures for more history on the Court Square.

Review - "A Moon for the Misbegotten"

2009-04-29T07:25:00.000-04:00

“A Moon for the Misbegotten” currently playing at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre features a strong cast bringing to life Eugene O’Neill’s damaged, complicated, and often very funny characters in the most hearty, and heartbreaking, manner.

The shanty Irish Hogans, father and daughter, live hand to mouth on a hardscrabble farm on the edge of more polite Connecticut village life in 1923. They do more battle with each other than with their neighbors, contending in colorful Irish oaths and rollicking threats of violence over issues ranging from Phil Hogan’s scheming ways, his drinking, and equally devilish daughter Josie’s temper, and tales of her easy virtue.

James Tyrone, Jr., the dandy actor who playfully spars with Phil as his drinking buddy, and spars with Josie over personal secrets, shares a tortured night of confessions and castigations with Josie. We see, as they do, that love and healing take many forms.

Kate Udall is stunning as Josie, who though labeled throughout the play as a big, strong woman with spirit and an independent streak, becomes suddenly vulnerable when her true feelings, and her secret is revealed. Josie finds relief in sharing her secret and revealing her passion and gentleness, learning to find peace with that unique burden of strong people, which is not being allowed to be anything but strong. Udall is on stage for most of the play, and deftly carries the soul of the play as her feisty, and surprisingly romantic, character supports the needs of those around her.

Gordon Joseph Weiss terrifically captures the curmudgeonly rascal Phil Hogan, Josie’s incorrigible father whose tricks and questionable business dealings provide much of the play’s humor and balances the more unhappy aspects of the characters’ relationships. He is physical, and majestically boisterous. The rapport and timing between Weiss and Udall is something wonderful, trading quips and insults and threats interchangeably.

Michael Canavan’s fine understated performance as their friend, contrasts the more emotionally volatile manner of the other two, yet his demons are far worse. James Tyrone, the gentleman actor with the drinking problem has emotional and psychological burdens too great to bear until this night when Josie draws them out and bears them for him. Canavan successfully balances both despair and teasing humor, and pulls the audience in with his tragic honesty.

John Kooi is the wealthy neighbor T. Stedman Harder in a memorable rollicking scene where the hapless gentleman finds himself the victim of his social inferiors’ revenge. Karl Baker Olson is Josie’s young brother Mike, who bitterly leaves the family shack and establishes in the opening scenes the Hogan family history.

Directed by Edward Morgan, the play moves along at a quick pace, and is foremost a play more reliant on dialogue than on physical action. The grittiness is made suddenly lyrical at odd moments. One of these is when Tyrone stands outside the shack in the early evening, and sees through the dimly lit window that Josie is combing her hair. We see the shadow of this slow, sensual, dance-like action projected against the scrim in the background.

Bill Clarke is responsible for the scenic design, which makes use of the intimate stage with a very evocative “other side of the tracks” setting. There are bits of grass growing from the crumbling, iconic New England stone wall, and the rough, split and rotting boards of the shack and the ramshackle front porch on which much of the action takes place brings a stark and unforgiving texture to the scene. The realism of the set is a suggestion itself of what the Hogans’ lives are like, and by its contrast, enhances rather than negates the tenderness of Josie’s eventual understanding of Tyrone and his sense of guilt.

Jeni Schaefer, costume design, sets the period with the finer clothes of the finer gentlemen. She illustrates both the hand-to-mouth existence and recalcitrant manner of father and daughter in Phil Hogan’s loose, torn, overalls that seem to have a life of their own apart from his constantly writhing body, and in Josie’s diamond-in-the-rough persona in simple, unadorned, shift dresses.

“A Moon for the Misbegotten” was Eugene O’Neill’s last play. O’Neill changed the face and future of American theatre in the 1920s and 1930s with his literate plays which explored serious issues, taking American drama beyond the established 19th century style melodrama. He won four Pulitzer Prizes, and was the only American playwright ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“A Moon for the Misbegotten” runs through May 17th at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell. For more information on the production, have a look at this website.

The show was very well received by the audience at the performance I saw, with enthusiastic comments traded back and forth as we left the theater. Try to see this soulful, moving play in this first-rate production for yourself, and please let us know what you thought.

Note: All photographs accompanying this piece are by Meghan Moore.

Upcoming Plays

2009-04-22T06:45:00.000-04:00

Here are some upcoming plays at professional New England theaters:

The Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut presents the new musical comedy “Lucky Guy” from May 14th through June 14th, set in the country music world of Nashville.

The Majestic Theatre in West Springfield, Mass. presents “John & Paul” a multi media show from April 16th through May 24th. This look at the partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney features original music and lyrics by Steven Schecter, with narration and dramatization by Danny Eaton.

The American Repertory Theatre gives us a David Mamet celebration in the “Sex, Satire, Romance, and Ducks” festival of works by Mamet. The individual plays are “Romance” which runs from May 9th through June 7th, at the Loeb Drama Center, “Seriously Funny” which runs May 29th through June 6th at the Zero Arrow Theatre, and “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “The Duck Variations” at the Zero Arrow Theatre from June 11th through June 28th. For more information, have a look here.

Hartford’s The Bushnell presents the lavish musical “The Phantom of the Opera” opening tonight and running through May 10th.

Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse will present “Children” a drama by A.R. Gurney from May 26th through June 13th. “When their mysterious brother, Pokey, returns to the family's beachside vacation home, all the family plans crumble as love affairs and family secrets explode.” For more information, have a look here.

Finally, at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” will be presented April 23rd through May 17th. “A beautiful American classic about two lost souls and their touching encounter under a full moon. Fatigued with life, Josie and James struggle with dual realities in this comic and tragic meeting. It is a stark look at humanity in its basest and loveliest form by four-time Pulitzer Prize and America’s only Nobel Prize-winning playwright.”

For more information, have a look here.

NOTE: This blog will review Merrimack’s production of “A Moon for the Misbegotten” next week.