As another Hudson Valley summer commences, farm stands throughout the region have posted signs that exhort neighbors to Buy Local. The advice is sound; by purchasing produce, dairy, and meat from area farmers, the benefits are numerous: support for the shrinking number of farms, keeping capital in your area, limiting pollution by not trucking in goods from elsewhere, and savoring fresh goods. Those dedicated to such ecological imperatives are known as locavores.
When it comes to summer theater-going, why not observe the same pledge to buy local? The advantages are similar: supporting local artists and keeping entertainment money in the community, saving gas by not venturing into New York.
But what about freshness, you ask? Aren’t Valley offerings simply warmed-over chestnuts? Not at all. While some local companies play it safe with crowd pleasers, more are introducing new playwrights.
Whether your yen is for high drama, avant-garde pieces, or old favorites, the Valley offers it. If you demand star wattage, take heart; film and TV actors regularly take to local stages to keep their acting chops honed. Herein is a survey of the most compelling theater offerings from Putnam County to Greene County this summer. It offers a potent argument for joining the ranks of Hudson Valley locavores.
Making everything old new again is the mission of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, now in its 23rd season. Each year, Artistic Director Terrence O’Brien and company reimagine the Bard, refusing to let the dust settle on 400-year-old works. Rather than treating the plays as museum pieces, O’Brien tells actors to “presume the play is written by someone alive today; then you connect the work to the world around you.”
For the first time this season, the HVSF will perform its productions in repertory for the season, which runs from June 14 through September 6. They include the war drama “Pericles”—which O’Brien promises will be played as an action movie—the farce “Much Ado about Nothing” and the chaotic, irreverent Shakespeare 101 piece “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).” This manic romp zips through all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 97 minutes.
The HVSF has a setting as grandiose as its productions: the grounds of the Boscobel mansion, perched on the banks of the Hudson River, where audience members can enjoy picnics before each performance.
Another venue where nature enhances the theatergoing experience is Performance Spaces for the 21st Century, known to habitués as ps21. Now in its fourth season, this Chatham performance tent stands in a 107-acre apple orchard with the Catskills rising in the west. According to founder Judith Grunberg, the “spaces” in the name refers to the long-term plan to build an environmentally sensitive year-round facility.
ps21 offers an eclectic schedule of films, live music, dance pieces and theater. Parents will welcome the high-toned offerings for children. Mask-and-theater troupe Arm-of-the-Sea offers a more thoughtful take on the giddy Hudson River Quadricentennial. “Mutual Strangers: Henry Hudson and the River That Discovered Him” (June 13) will emphasize the downside of that historic milestone: Native American genocide and ecological destruction. On June 28, children can join dancer Rod Ferrone, who combines song, dance, vaudeville, and hat tricks in “Feet 2 the Beat.” Also for families is “Those Two Guys,” starring Patrick Ferri and acrobatic clown Dave Cox (August 1). But leave the kids at home for “Mombo” (June 19–21), in which Chatham playwright Alan Gelb dissects the relationship between mother and child in vignettes that range from farcical to poignant.
Shadowland Theater, a stately Art Deco house in Ellenville, continues to bring classics and new works to weekenders and summer vacationers. Artistic Director Brendan Burke, a veteran of the Manhattan stage, brings professionals to Southern Ulster County. Past artists include Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” and Judd Hirsch in Yasmine Reza’s “Art.” This summer, Burke seeks to mount works that “deal with the economy, the Depression, and the American psyche.” Fittingly, the 25th anniversary season opens with Arthur Miller’s “The Price” (May 29–June 14). Two warring brothers are forced to take inventory of the achievements of their father, who lost everything in the Great Depression. “The Price” stars veteran actor-author Orson Bean and Stephanie Zimbalist, best known for TV’s “Remington Steele.”
The season closes with David Mamet’s sacred and profane “American Buffalo,” in which three desperate men plan a heist. “It’s another view of American business, from the underbelly,” says Burke. Between these powerful bookends, however, are two comedies and a mystery: “Almost Maine” (June 19–July 12), “Gutenberg, The Musical!” (July 17–August 9), and “Accomplice” (August 15–September 7).
Stageworks/Hudson, now in its 15th season, seeks to showcase fresh dramatic voices. “Our mission has never changed,” says Founder and Artistic Director Laura Margolis, “[It is] to bring high-quality adventurous productions to the community and to perpetuate development and production of new plays on a national level.”
Playwright Lucile Lichtblau, 77, has penned a show as relevant as today’s headlines. “Car Talk” (July 22–August 9) concerns an elderly Jewish couple that has just learned that their daughter is preparing for marriage. The lucky groom, however, is a female taxidermist. Self-identified liberals, the parents must confront their mixed feelings on their drive to Vermont.
Equally tied to current debate is the drama “Nowhere on the Border” (August 26–September 13) by Carlos Lacamara. An American border cop meets a Mexican man in the Arizona desert. The man is looking for his daughter, who crossed over illegally. Unlike a Lou Dobbs harangue, this drama takes no sides. “It focuses on the human aspect of the story,” says Margolis.
If becoming lost in theater is your goal, then book a hotel room for the duration of July near Vassar College. Powerhouse Theater (June 30–August 2) offers a veritable orgy of readings, plays, and musicals in development that feature marquee names from TV and film. Since 1985, New York Stage & Film has used the Vassar theaters as a petri dish for nascent works by new and veteran playwrights. This approach yields as many misses as hits, but intrepid theatergoers welcome the challenge.
For the 25th anniversary season, Pulitzer winners John Patrick Shanley and Beth Henley returns with new works: “Pirate” and “The Jacksonian,” respectively. Or consider the musical “The Burnt Part Boys,” slated for Broadway next year; “One Slight Hitch” by savage satirist Lewis Black; a new musical by “Spring Awakening” composer Duncan Sheik (pictured above); or “Tina Girlstar,” a musical about African-American artists in the contemporary music industry.
After years of writing scripts for TV (HBO’s “In Treatment”) and film (Disney-Pixar), Poughkeepsie native Keith Bunin arrives in his hometown with a new play: “Vera Laughed,” a comedy-drama about a Russian émigré who flees his country during World War II with his wife and mistress in tow. They settle in the French countryside and create a workable ménage a trois.
The lead character, a famous Russian writer named Ivan Bunin, may have been distantly related to the playwright, hence the initial fascination. But Bunin completed the tale because it contained universal themes: “Refugees making a home and therefore needing so much from each other,” he says. Bunin began his professional theater career with a 1985 reading at Powerhouse titled “The Principality of Sorrows,” which netted him his first agent at age 23. He would be welcomed back three more times for workshops and readings. “Vera Laughed” is his first full Powerhouse production.
Theater on a community level is America at its democratic best. Root on neighbors as they get in touch with their inner showman before handmade sets. Shandaken Theatrical Society (STS) has exemplified that can-do spirit since 1976. The results are more than worth the $12 ticket for a seat in a refurbished 1887 Odd Fellows Hall in the mountain town of Phoenicia.
STS president Dot Penza will direct the summer musical “Anything Goes” (through June 7), a candy-colored romantic comedy on a cruise liner, featuring Cole Porter songs. Casting the roles was easy, Penza says, with one exception: She had difficulty finding teen boys who could play tap-dancing sailors. Penza’s plans for next season include offbeat choices for community theater: 17th-century French playwright Moliere and Tennessee Williams. But STS will retain its core spirit.
“We are dedicated to keeping the community feel of the theater—to stay inclusive,” says Penza. “We find a space for everybody.”
A festival for the unabashed egghead is Bard College’s SummerScape. Each season, classic works are restaged by visionaries in world theater. Scotsman Gregory Thompson brings “The Oresteia,” the Greek trilogy by Aeschylus, into the 21st century (July 15–August 2). This harrowing suite of plays—“Agamemnon,” “Choephori,” and “The Eumenides”—deals with a dysfunctional family ready-made for reality TV. Agamemnon kills his daughter Iphigenia, then goes off to war. When he returns in triumph, his wife Clytemnestra kills him. Angry siblings Electra and Orestes in turn slay their mother. Finally, Orestes is hounded by the Furies, demanding payback for the bloodshed.
Speaking from London, Thompson explains why his collaborator, set, and costume designer Ellen Cairns, dressed the cast in 21st-century clothes. “If you put it in modern dress, the modern parallels are going to strike everyone,” he says. Those parallels involve hoary debates over capital punishment and cycles of revenge that pass through a family. “What do you do with the desire for retribution, that harsh kind of justice? That is as relevant now as it was when Aeschylus was writing.” The director cites the American invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war—“started by a father and completed by a son.”
Thompson and Cairns raise difficult questions, then slyly leave the audience to confront their own beliefs. Literally. Cairns has installed a traverse that juts out into the theater. Audience members, placed on either side of the extension, will be forced to watch one another’s reactions as the tragedy plays out. “It reflects the fact that this is a play about debate, of opposing views confronting each other,” Thompson says. “And the traverse is great for that.”
Now in its seventh season, Woodstock Fringe was co-founded by Manhattan theater professionals with eyes trained on fresh talent in theater and music. Pieces are performed in the historic Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock. Artistic Director Wallace Norman may have reined in the number of offerings this year but continues to shape offbeat pieces in workshops.
“The opportunity for a playwright to hear his new work is so rare,” Norman said. “Our sense of purpose for doing new work is ever stronger.”
The 2009 season of Woodstock Fringe includes “The Night the Cardiff Giant Sang Ruffini on the Lawn” (August 13–23) by Charles Traeger, a founding member of the Fringe. For history buffs, the Giant in question is part of New York lore. When exhumed in 1869 in the western part of the state, it commanded national headlines as well as the attention of showman P. T. Barnum. Trager’s comedy, as the title suggests, is a surreal foray into the subject and takes place in Cooperstown, where the behemoth remains on display.
This article appears in June 2009.
