This enchanting prop now hangs in our new Shakespeare house. It is from when we put on William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the local community in the park just outside.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
One special night we decided to make the town of Windber an offering… The ad read: “June 27 in the park outside the Midway / bring your own chair / free”
Adam Wisniewski as Theseus
Beth Matera as Hippolyta (with sister Chrissa as Cobweb)
Rob Miller as Egeus / Philostrate
Curtis Caldwell as as Lysander
Mike Falcheck as Demetrius
Nova D’Angelo as Hermia
Jill Gearhart as Helena
=================================================
Shakespeare to meet Bikers in Windber
By DAN DiPAOLO
Daily American May 28, 2009
WINDBER — Shakespeare never had it so loud. A local group of actors and theater players will bring “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to life during the Windber Rumble.
“I wanted to place ourselves in the middle of another event,” director Blair Murphy said during an evening rehearsal in front of the Grand Midway Hotel.
Murphy, a writer and filmmaker, helped to turn the hotel into a living work of art in 2001 when he and a small group of like-minded friends purchased the building.
Since that time numerous performances and gatherings of artists both public and private have been focused there. The Shakespeare play will be one of the largest public performances to take place at the hotel to date.
The stage will be the front yard and front of the hotel itself and have projection elements designed for a twilight performance. Calling it a mix of guerilla theater and interpretative arts, several dozen people will contribute to the production.
“It’s going to be very interactive,” he said. “There’s going to be some people coming out of the crowd, into the performance.”
The play itself, famous for fairies, romance, whimsy, magic and matchmaking, will take a slightly darker turn with this interpretation, Murphy said. In fact, the part of Oberon is being played by writer/poet/musician Damien Youth and has been filmed already in New Orleans.
“He kind of modeled it after Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now”),” Murphy said.
For actors like Curtis Caldwell, playing Lysander, the organic and interactive nature of the staging is an exciting challenge.
“Blair has a great vision. This is something different,” said the veteran of many University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown productions.
Nova, a Pittsburgh native and integrative artist, will play Hermia, construct masks and build sets.
“I’m going to build a lot of stuff,” she said. “This is just a fun summer project.”
The cast of players also includes the likes of Pennsylvania Highlands Community College instructor Kevin Bean, Windber native Dylan Fornoff, actors Mike Falchuk, Robb Miller, Aspen Mock and Adam Wisniewski.
The play, open to the public, will start around 8 p.m. on June 27, with the rumble of motorcycles visiting for Thunder in the Valley providing a unique background score.
To quote the play: “I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”
========================================================
Mike Petruniak as Peter Quince
Kevin Bean as Nick Bottom
Bobby Karimi as Francis Flute
Bill Eggert as Snug
Mark Swindler as Robin Starling
=============================================================
(Director Blair Murphy with Assistant Director Curtis Caldwell)
ON MY CHOICES AS A DIRECTOR
I wanted to fill the park out front the hotel with enchantment. That was my main goal. I wanted to dwell on this subject so much for the start of the summer that every time I stepped outside from then on I wanted to see and feel rich enchantment in the trees, in the grass under my feet, hidden in the leaves.
This was my first play. The production proved over and over again how nothing is impossible. My naivatte actually empowered me. The final show was so sweet and innocent. What an enchanted, lovely evening.
-Blair
==================================================================
Damien Youth as Oberon
Aspen Mock as Titania
Dylan Fornoff as Puck (with Phat Man Dee as fairy)
Nicole as Mustardseed
==================================================
SPIRITS IN THE NIGHT… by Bill Eggert
(Impressions of a mid-summer night’s dream…)
Fireflies flickered in the gathering dusk that night…
There were spirits in the night as part of the proceeding…
I discovered the production by accident…
I e-mailed Blair, expressing disappointment at not being asked
Blair extended an invite to try out;
I got a lion’s part of the play, Snug the Joiner
Numerous rehearsals, sets being built;
Hey gang, let’s put on a show!
Blair & Curtis’ tag team Shakespearean collaboration
New actors/friends to meet; old friends like Puck (Dylan)
Ramping up proved a challenge; schedules conflicted right & left
But through it all Blair & Curtis remained tongue-bitingly calm…
The rehearsals grinded on, slowly but surely
Parts became memorized; blocking became second nature…
Soon the big screen made its appearance…
Mounted on the front of the old Grand Midway…
Oberon would soon make his appearance on the Midway’s face
Titania would speak from the balcony; lovers chased each other
The play drew near; the skies grew dark…
The heat rose and subsided…
As the weekend approached old friends surfaced…
Cameos by Cool Hand Jaemi and Skot materialized
Jaemi was excited about his new camera.
Skott was excited about his new book project
We discussed our mutual love for Jim Jarmusch’s films
Hard to believe, Jim Jarmusch is 56….
The final rehearsal from hell; let it all hang out…
Insults fly with tornadic abandon…
Hey , who let Lou Ferigno in? You’re such a bitch…
Where’s that bearded lady at? Who let the dogs out?
Wither Farrah & Michael?
Goodbye, yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl
The sun sets; night begins to fall
A crowd gathers in the darkening hour…
The players get set; battle lines are drawn
Lines are silently gone over; cues are memorized
The canned music disappears; the crowd enlarges
The players take the grassy stage to start the play
Oberon appears on the large screen; Puck makes his entrance
Players exit and enter with quiet efficiency….
Soon the Mechanicals make their noisy entrance
There is no such thing as a small part.
Bodies are hurled to the ground; swords are drawn
Threats are uttered; fists are raised
Motorcycles quietly purr past the proceedings
Though some bikers go hog wild….
Waiting off-stage; waiting for important cues
Costumes are put on and/or removed…
The mechanicals make their final appearance
The play within a play’s the thing….
Bully Bottom, Peter Quince, Snout, Robin and Flute
The best of all is master thespian Snug the Joiner
“You! Ladies, You! Who gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps along the floor”
The Shakespaerean Shatner delivery enthralls
The audience is spellbound at the actor’s voice
A star is born that night (so he thinks…)
The audience gives him a standing ‘O’ (in his delusion)
The final curtain call along the old train tracks…
The crowd gives the players heartfelt applause…
Soon it is over; the crowd disperses..
The players wander back into the bowels of the Grand Midway
“If these shadows have offended
think but this and all is mended…”
Fireflies flickered in the gathering dusk that night…
There were spirits in the night as part of the proceeding…
THE END
===========================================================
Emay within the Audience
Blair & Company…
Really? Such wonderful people come together, such magic happens in this place? The stories will never place it as harmoniously in time, but surely there is a clear view of heaven from in here.
Congrats! Can’t wait for the Tempest
-Love Emay
========================================================
Cast group Shot by Adam Blai
============================================================
(Skot Jones within the Audience)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Personal Narrative from the Enormous Hotel
by Dr. S.M. Jones
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.” (William Shakespeare)
Solve et coagula—dissolve and coagulate, separate and join together.
“Unless the eye catch fire
the God will not be seen…” (William Blake)
Management has requested an account of the happenings of the evening of June the 27th, but as I see it the facts are twisted by conflicting realities: the mandala, the fairy ring, with the motorcycle; alchemical transmutations: a cinematic character emerging from a giant screen to interact with the living cast, couches of twilight Windberians seated on train tracks, soaking in summer air, Otherworld creatures desirous of love, while their mortal actors masked, hunger for the divine archetypes.
I doubt that I can arrive at a conclusion. I took my facsimile edition of the first folio of Shakespeare down from the top shelf of my library and placed it on an Oriental table by the window, opening it to the play in question and placed a small bundle of wildflowers from the Occidental ruins next to my home. Mgmt., this was not the beginning that you had dreamed…
What do motorcycles have to do with the amorous delusions of Titania or our young Greek mortals? Blair Murphy says everything with his production, placing it squarely against the Thunder In the Valley motorcyclists’ bonanza. Love out of balance and misfiring like the profane rumble of trademark Harley Davidson wasted spark gas exhaust in triumphant American roar, a pop-punk sublime panacea oozing through the stage walls, the enchanted exterior façade of the Grand Midway Hotel.
Many members of the cast were unknown to me, except for a rambunctious and confrontational heavy metal Puck played by Dylan Fornoff, famed Damien Youth’s brooding portrayal of Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Kevin Bean’s robust and hilarious Bottom, but all were inspired to follow their ever enthusiastic director’s vision.
Nova as Hermia almost didn’t happen. After their brief and fiery romantic adventure, the actress had a severe falling out with Blair Murphy during a car ride on the return trip from Louisiana to film the part of Oberon that would be displayed via projector and giant screen. The exchange was so profound that Dylan Fornoff refused to finish the journey with the two and opted to stay where they were and take his chances in Tennessee. With only a few weeks before the performance, Nova had quit the play. Dream within the play within the real. As if performing the play on the stage within, the director placed enough magic ointment on the eyes of his female lead to convince her to go on. Rumors have it that if he so much as breathed in her general direction, she was off to the hills and never to be seen or heard from again.
But these incongruities illustrate the difficulty I have in appraising the nuances of the performances, or the costumes, or ingenious use of film for Oberon, or the set design, or that someone would dare put on a play amidst the incredible distraction of a thousand motorcycle engines clearing their throats. They are all a part of the hotel and the man, and the dream of a creative lover in every and all. The audience member gets to be God watching the beautiful folly of man amid the magical complications, and man burning to do all with the imperfect love he is given and perhaps getting it right by burning it completely wrong, leaving nothing left over in the end. I, the petitioned writer, having been so completely wrapped up in mid-summer lust and laughter, my evening embodied of true love without eyes for anything less than the dream. True love is what I give in return.
-Skot Jones
