Highlights from the Newsletter

June/July, 2000

 

 
More about the Players - Join us!

archived Newsletters:


Greetings Players!

Yes, the heading does say July, but, don’t worry, you haven’t missed an issue. We decided that it made more sense for the newsletter to come out at the beginning of the month rather than the end, so we’re combining the June and July issues to achieve this end.

In case you haven’t already heard the fabulous news, we are delighted to announce that The Concord Players entry of Jacques Brel... won the coveted Best Production award at the EMACT Festival at Brandeis University in May. Congratulations to the talented cast, musicians, directors, and stage crew who made it all happen; it was truly a team effort. Many of the folks involved made it to the finals, here is a list of them: Kirsten Gould for Best Director, Shana Dirik for Best Actress, John Murtagh for the Stage Manager’s Award, Susan Tucker for Best Lighting, and the entire cast for Best Ensemble. Jack Wickwire was also a finalist for Best Makeup for his work on MacBeth with the Vokes Players. Now we proceed on to the Regional Festival in Harvard, Mass. on Sept. 16th and 17th. Giselle Ganz will continue in her role as producer for us, so if you’re interested in working as stage crew, or helping to load the truck, e-mail her at Ganzchic@aol.com. I guarantee you, it’s a lot of fun!

One responsibility that goes along with winning the EMACT Festival is that we must host it next year. This means we will need people to work in the following areas: food and other concessions, ushering, maintaining the green room and probably costume areas, and graphics. We have already had people volunteer to head some of those areas, and we’ll have more information in the newsletter as we get closer to the event. Pat Morrow is chairing the committee that will run this, so if you’d like to contact her to volunteer or ask questions, her e-mail address is patmorrow@juno.com. The first thing we need to do is establish a theme and create some graphics; Lisa Sacks is in charge of this aspect. If you would like to work on this with Lisa or have some ideas, contact her at Lsacks@gis.net .

Claiborne Dawes sends this along: Intoned the poet Isaac Watts: “How doth the little busy bee/improve each shining hour/and gather honey all the day/from every opening flower!” Have you a few shining hours that you could improve, thereby helping the Players’ cash flow?? We need three or four people to solicit ads for next season’s program between now and August 1st. Most of the merchants placed ads last year, so this is not so much a sales job as one involving a friendly reminder. There were 32 advertisers, all in Concord; if 8 people volunteered, each one would only need to contact 4 - well, you get the idea! Income from ads pays for our handsome programs, an expense that would otherwise have to be alloted to each show, so you see the importance. We have the necessary forms and info. If you can help, please phone Bob Carter, 369-3522, or Claiborne Dawes email: Cwdolphin@aol.com

Here’s a message from Artty Kinsman: “As a lot of you know, we’ve received some money during our fund raising event that a contributor prefers that we use to refurbish the stage floor. We would hate to have this opportunity pass for lack of interest. I would like to have an initial meeting just to get an idea of what improvements should and could be made. Anyone having any interest or knowledge, please attend the meeting at the theatre on Wed. July 18th, at 7:30 PM. If you can’t make this meeting, but are interested in the project, please email Artty Kinsman artcor68@earthlink.net ”.

We are still in need of some producers for next season’s shows. If you are interested in producing, please email Marlene Mandel at Marleneman@aol.com. If you are a novice, you will be teamed up with experienced producers and taught the ropes; it’s a fun and rewarding job! We were very sorry to hear of the death of long-time Concord Player Jerry Flynn at the end of May. Jerry was a man of great generosity of spirit and enormous talent, and he will be greatly missed.

Frannie Huxley will be playing the part of “Miss Prism” for the Woods Hole Theater Company’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Production dates are August 10, 11 12, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26. All performances start at 8:00 PM. Tickets may be ordered by calling 508-540-6525.

Two of our Players are in the cast of Arcadia at the Vokes Theater in Wayland. Jack Sweet is playing the role of Mr. Nokes and Iain Basin portrays Captain Bryce. Performances run from July 20th through August 5th. Call 508-358-4034 for tickets.

Dorothy Schecter would like to thank everyone who signed on to the Showbus trip to Boston to see Stephen Collins’ show about the life and poetry of Walt Whitman. Stephen called to say that we helped to make a full house and a great audience. He especially loved Fritz Kussin’s response to his greeting to the audience, “Howdy-do, Howdy-do.” Thanks too to Lillian Anderson and Rik Pierce for making the party on the bus great fun.

Dorothy also reports that Dick Levinson deserves kudos for his wonderful performance in the Arlington Friends of the Drama production of Driving Miss Daisy.

Gisele Ganz performed with the Boston Pops Gospel Chorus, singing “With Voices Raised”, a song that they introduced last year which was commissioned by the Pops. They performed on June 14th and 18th (which was Gospel Night with the Pops), both concerts were at Symphony Hall.

We hear that Susan Tucker broke her arm from a fall she took while hiking; we hope you heal quickly, Susan!

The season subscription and membership brochure will be mailed out in August, be on the lookout for it then. We are still negotiating for the rights to one of next year’s shows, so stay tuned to find out what our season will hold - we’ll let you know for sure in next month’s newsletter.

That’s all the news for now! Please send your news to me at sara@sb.org. I really do want to hear from our members! The next newsletter deadline is July 25.