What if the souls of Woodstock spoke from beyond the grave—not to haunt, but to heckle? In “Spoon River Apology,” local satirist and sometime performance anarchist Mikhail Horowitz reimagines Edgar Lee Masters’ 1916 Spoon River Anthology for the odd little town of Woodstock. The dead of the fictitious hamlet of “Woodspoon” speak not from the cornfields of Illinois but from the compost piles of the Catskills, and their posthumous monologues trade 19th-century moralism for 21st-century snark.
Where Masters’ characters included horse doctors and bankers, Horowitz offers up Reiki practitioners in Priuses, self-important singer-songwriters, ayahuasca shamans, and an interfaith “Buddhist rabbi.” It’s a deeply local roast of Woodstock’s storied quirks, performed in staged-reading format by a rotating crew of talented collaborators: Lori Wilner, Nicole Quinn, Taylor Steward, Adele Calcavecchio, David Smilow, Andrew Joffe, Hank Neimark, and Gilles Malkine.
Horowitz, a veteran of the Hudson Valley’s alt-literary scene (and a man who once rhymed “Rimbaud” with “Monroe”), is perhaps best known for his long-running collaboration with Gilles Malkine, with whom he has “lowered property values” at prestigious downtown venues like St. Mark’s Church and the Village Gate. With “Spoon River Apology,” he turns his satirical lens homeward, mixing poetic pastiche, social critique, and absurdist wit in equal measure.
Whether you’re a longtime local, a freshly arrived flatlander, or just someone who enjoys a little metaphysical mockery with your community theater, “Spoon River Apology” promises a sharp-tongued séance with the spirits of a town suspiciously like Woodstock.
Performances are Friday, June 28 at 7pm and Saturday, June 29 at 3pm at the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center in Woodstock.
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This article appears in June 2025.
