So, there I was. Desperately preparing to chew for me and Meliss what I’d just bitten off. The Popcorn Hat Players (not yet under the umbrella of Gamut) had committed to producing a scenically minimal, small cast version of Midsummer… Say… seven actors and six cubes for levels to sit and stand on. I had some small experience playing in Shakespeare, but I’d never directed any of his work (or really anything outside of kid’s shows, a couple of Chekhov one acts, and some scene studies in college,) and so I had no idea or inclination of directing this one. As I’d stated earlier, my friend, previous director, and former tour-mate, Tommy Hensel, was about to complete a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Carolina in cooperation and residency at The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC. Melissa and I had been in touch with him, and he said he would be excited to come up and direct the show.
Read moreMarch of 2020: move home from working with a jousting company, their contract outside of Miami having been cut short due to a disease called COVID-19.
Fast forward to March 2021: I am now cleaning out a desk, finally able to return to in-person work at Gamut Theatre with vaccines on the horizon, not only for myself but for my family. While taking stock of what was in the drawers of this new desk, I stumbled upon student artwork for Hamlet--the same play Gamut would be presenting for Free Shakespeare in the Park in June of 2021.
Read moreWELCOME BACK TO RESERVOIR PARK! We’re so glad to again gather with you under the open sky to share one of William Shakespeare’s most beloved stories. Because of the pandemic, we missed seeing you last year, and we are very pleased to once again bring you our yearly rite of Summer!
Read moreThe question of “why produce art created by people we ethically don’t agree with?” isn’t going away for any theatre that chooses to engage in what we call classic stories. The Darwinian manner in which The Outcast examines its characters may as well be a predecessor to eugenics and profiling based on appearances. (Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, paved the way for eugenics to exist.) In both plays, the characters are named X and Y: Is August Strindberg giving these works the time of day, with fully realized characters and thought-out plots, or are these works caricature-ish etudes, experiments, and practice sketches? Why do we produce them for any reason? Why bother with the misogyny of The Stronger, seemingly about two women bickering over one’s affair with her husband (the husband, of course, absent)? Just replace the name Strindberg with J. K. Rowling, Orson Scott Card, Roman Polanski, Chris Brown, R Kelly, or any other creative who perpetually upholds sexist, anti-LBGTQ, or racist ideas in their art or in their personal lives or both.
Read moreThere are two female characters in The Stronger, but neither is named—the script denotes them simply as Madame X and Mademoiselle Y (that is, one married woman, one unmarried). Only Madame X speaks, and her conversation centers around her husband and what relationship he might (or might not) have had with Mademoiselle Y. In addition, the stage directions establish that the two women are in a female-only space—a woman’s café—and yet the most dominant presence in the play is the absent male, the fulcrum of their connection and competition. The play seems to pit the two women against each other in a duel to see who is the stronger.
Read moreWhen I was a kid, there was a trend amongst all of us young’uns to tell very silly “Elephant Jokes” and one that always stuck with me was, “How do you eat an Elephant Sundae?” and the answer is “One bite at a time.” So, in the spirit of that silly little bit of 2nd Grade wisdom, I’m coming back with the next chapter of our Gamut history…. with some explanation about why it’s been so long in coming. I developed a bad case of “white page syndrome” that writers talk about. In other words, I just couldn’t start, and I know why.
Read moreEvery year that passes brings new gifts and also losses, which make us reflect all the more on those precious and foundational relationships from the past. This year Gamut marked the passing of three very different, but equally dear friends and company members. We’d like to take this opportunity to share our love and our loss with you.
Read moreHello, all… I’m very sorry that this chapter of our Gamut History is so long in coming. To be frank, I have been so caught up in current events that, looking back with focus and clarity, have not been quite so easy of late. However, I’m stepping back in here with the intention of continuing this story of the past, to help us remember where we came from as we attempt to bravely face what will surely be a challenging (but also hopefully very abundant) future for us all.
Read moreSo there here we were, my new wife and I, in Central Pennsylvania. I’d briefly toured through here several years before with another two-person outfit, and we’d visited Melissa’s family previously, both before and after we got married. So, I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the place, but now it was to be my home…
Read moreWe are in Week 7 of Working from Home. It never occured to me that a functional theatre company could successfully work from home, but here we are. My husband and Gamut Co-Founder/Artistic Director, Clark, and I are hunkered down in Millersburg, PA. It's a small town located in northern Dauphin County in South Central PA, about a 35-minute drive from downtown Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has always been its own microcosm of the nation itself, with thriving cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg; as well as beautiful wide-open spaces and sparsely-populated farmland, mountains, and rural areas….
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