In 60 years of acting, directing, producing, playwriting and screenwriting, I have put thought recently into the productions that stand out as favorite memories, not only for the quality of the production, but more for the quality of the company. These are haphazardly ordered from most recent to way into the past.
This is the second film I wrote and produced, both Geno McGahee films. This one is special, because our film company, Geno’s XPosse Productions has over the years become confident, well-equipped and professional, and we have built a troupe of talented, experienced and (most importantly) NICE actors and crew. Every day on set was a LOVE fest. Release scheduled for the fall. October big-screen premiere planned at the Basketball Hall of Fame, and it will be available on Tubi and other streaming services.
A Geno McGahee XPosse film, and a chance for me to play the lead character in a movie, a character with an arc, meaning there is growth and change. A dying wife makes her husband Richard reluctantly promise to bring the family together for the next Christmas holiday. The family is dysfunctional to say the least, and Richard’s reluctance is because he was the cause of the family’s trouble. The Geno McGahee screenplay gave me a character, a former drinker, that was bitter and caustic, and eventually he was moved to open his heart to his grown children and the family. Really fine film, viewed often each holiday season. It’s available on Tubi and other services
I was invited to join a Dinner Theater Company, BrickRoad Productions, currently owned and operated by Ray Surprenant (above left as Grampy Otis). The photo is from one of the shows I wrote, Mountain Moonshine Mystery, a fun show filled with hillbilly cliche jokes. What stands out in my mind about dinner theater is that we of course had a script, but equally important was improvisation, playing off of audience members, many of whom were willing and often enthusiastic about throwing in jokes of their own. My classroom experience helped with that. We laughed every show. Call Ray at 413-267-3078 if your place can use a few good laughs!
This was an original musical by talented local musician/writer Howard Odentz, and it was such great fun! It was directed by Ray Surprenant, the dinner theater proprietor mentioned in the entry above. It was about three ghosts that inhabited an old theater. I played Laslo, the ghost of a Shakespearian actor. We sang, we danced, and we all felt that we were involved in something special.
These are publicity photos for the show. On the right, my audition, center rehearsal, and left showtime.
Another Ray Surprenant-directed show, this one was a joy, beginning to end. I played Norman Thayer, an old man dealing with the ravages of age. His wife Ethel was played by beautiful Rae Bannigan, a highly respected speech pathologist and a wonderful actor. She was an acting student at NYU in her youth, getting great young woman roles there. The photo below is a poster for the show, signed for me by the cast. Gazing out at the pond is Rae and me, as Ethel and Norman.
The funny part of that photo is that it was taken in the middle of winter. Snow was on the ground, and it was cold. The summer scene was photoshopped in. Look closely at my back pocket; what looks like a wallet protruding was actually a woolen ear warmer stuffed there when I had to put on my lake hat. Jaime Tabor, seen in the dinner theater photo previously, was my daughter Chelsea, and my friend Forris Day Jr. was the mailman Charlie.
We lost Rae Bannigan-Cole earlier this year, after she had suffered frontotemporal dementia. Rea, I’m sure the afterlife has exuberant chatter now, something to look forward to!
Like In Good Spirits and On Golden Pond, I Hate Hamlet was a production of my hometown Monson (Massachusetts) Arts Council. This is a favorite acting role, the ghost of John Barrymore, perhaps known today as the grandfather of Drew Barrymore. Back in the 1920’s and in subsequent years he was known as a supremely talented actor. His 1925 performance as Hamlet was lauded as one of the greatest in theater history. Barrymore was also a self-loathing alcoholic, and this play allowed me to play both the confident actor and his other more pitiful side.
I have no photos of our Monson Arts Council production about the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie Wyoming, and the reactions of residents, witnesses and Matthew’s family and friends. It was directed by Susan Trudeau, and it was for me both deeply personal and a wonderful acting opportunity. I say with pride that I have been an LGBTQIA ally since I was 12 years old; that’s the personal part. The thought of being beaten to death because of what we are is as horrifying as the images of that boy left to die, tied to a fence.
The acting opportunity was the fact that there were over sixty roles, played by only 10 actors. I had ten roles, including Matthew’s father’s emotional court statement. For that, I took some coaching from Eric Michaelian, a young Central High School actor I had recruited into the show. I have never known how actors like Eric can call up tears in a scene. He told me to keep my eyes open for ten minutes before going on. It worked! I didn’t actually drop a tear, but I was pretty weepy-eyed for that speech.
Our director Susan Trudeau gave me a direction that has stayed with me. One of my roles was a Wyoming redneck with the inflections and mannerisms that a redneck called for. Susan encouraged me not to descend into stereotype and caricature. The lesson, of course, was that everyone has a story, a reason for being what they are, and my character deserved to be portrayed as a human being without adding in my assumptions.
And I got to meet a friend on this production, Forris Day Jr., who would later introduce me to dinner theater, and after that, he invited me into independent film work with Geno McGahee.
My writing experience began in earnest in 1992, when I returned to teaching at a Springfield Mass middle school. I was having trouble finding good plays for our 6-8 graders, so I wrote two shows based on Charles Dickens stories, and I wrote and staged a modern-English translation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, another special memory for the next segment.
When I transferred to Central High School in 1997 and began graduate study at Cambridge College, the school asked if there was something I’ve never done that I’d like to do. I responded that I’d like to write an original play, and Misty’s Room came from that. I was inspired by my middle school experience at Elias Brookings K-8 school, located in an impoverished area of Springfield. I remembered a student who came in on a cold winter day with bags under her eyes. She apologized for not doing her homework because her apartment had lost heat. I put that and other issues into a play about students who find support with each other by skipping classes and getting together in a school storage room. Photos below are from my teaching scrapbook.
I was required by my Cambridge advisor to do extensive research into each of the issues included in the play, such as racism, homophobia, eating disorders social anxiety, dealing with the loss of a loved one, and others. She also required that I run the play by students, fellow teachers and administrators. Students and admin liked the play, but some of the teachers did not. A reporter I knew offered to write a story about the event, and after reading it, she saw the controversy. For one, in the minds of my critics, it glorified cutting classes, and more impactful, one of the students in the play got into trouble for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He was challenged to rewrite it, which he did, omitting the phrase “under God.” Those controversial issues were the focus of the story.
The article helped fill our little theater in the school for two nights, and made our show very profitable, and the follow-up article the next week was by another reporter who attended the show.
There are several reasons this show is a treasured memory. One, it was the first production of the Little Theater Repertory Company. I started that because I had always wanted to be in a group that could do a new play each week, so I hand-picked reliable student actors, gave them each a script with instruction to learn their lines before the first rehearsal, then we rehearsed 10 or so times and went on. The Rep Company lasted five or six years, before I moved on to other ventures.
At that time, I was often at odds with the very conservative faculty at the school, which put so much attention to curriculum, and little attention to the life of students outside of school, so Misty’s Room was an important statement. We all felt it, and rehearsals crackled with that spirit.
By the way, the two students top row center in the first photo, Shauna Wilson and Durrel Harris (Moody 140,000) are both now in our film company.
Returning to teaching after 13 years out of the field sparked a creative surge for me, one that has lasted. I started a drama club for grades 6-8 at Elias Brookings K-8 School, called the Brookings Star Players. I wrote and staged modernized versions of A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, and the photos below are the cast of Maybe It Was Only a Dream, the point of Shakespeare’s title A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.
I took some flak from Shakespeare purists for this. Traditionally, modern Shakespeare had been done with changes in settings, with contemporary or even futuristic places and dress, but the Elizabethan language was less-often messed with back in those years. For our production, we used traditional dress and settings with modern language, which introduced the play to large audiences that may have never seen or understood a Shakespeare play otherwise. I translated the play myself, which allowed me overcome my years-long aversion to Shakespeare.
Another special thing about those years was that most of our shows had students and teachers, and even occasionally parents in the cast, kids and adults working together as peers!
Below, the cast of another special memory. Alice In Wonderland was a full-school project. The entire Gym/Auditorium was decorated as Wonderland, set designed by the art teacher, costumes made by a very talented faculty member, and students and teachers performed. So much fun!
I was an English teacher at Escola Pan Americana da Bahia, a small American-run international school in beautiful Salvador, state of Bahia, Brazil. I had started a drama club the year before, which was immediately successful because the American community and parents from around the world welcomed theater, and with limited space we had full-house audiences for each play, as I recall roughly 200 patrons per performance.
You Can’t Take It With You is a wonderful 1936 play by George F. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It was the second 3-act play I had directed, the first being The Man Who Came To Dinner, also a Kaufman/Hart show. Both were suggested to me by our wonderful school librarian, the late Marian Fraser.
I loved this play so much I directed it again, years later.
The photo below is from a dress rehearsal. Boris Kolenkhov, an exiled Russian ballet teacher is working with Essie, one of the eccentric Sycamore family. Essie was played by Puni Fraser, Marian’s daughter.
The best thing about my favorite productions is that, at 72 years old, I still have a creative life, and I never know when another favorite will come along!
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2 Responses
Brent,
So cool to read about this wonderful history of productions. So many adventures. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Jess!