By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Black Swamp Players started a new chapter Monday night, hosting the first performance in their new home on Oak Street.
Lane Hakel, the Players ex-officio president, told those at the inaugural First Monday event that in the future they could say: “You were at the first performance ever in the Oak Street Theater of the Black Swamp Players.”
The theater, built as a church and used for more than 40 years as a daycare center, would be the Players first permanent home.
The peripatetic troupe has staged shows in churches, courtrooms, community halls, and bars. The closest it had to a venue of its own was when it occupied a rented space in the Woodland Mall from 1993-2001. Since then it has presented most of its shows at the First United Methodist Church, a space that will not be available starting next fall.
The Players have made a down payment on the new space, now they must raise the money to buy it outright within two years, and then transform it into a theater. Hakel said in his welcome that the troupe had a goal of $500,000 to complete the job. He repeated that figure twice, as a way of overcoming his own incredulity at the size of the goal.
While the Players have made good use of space to date holding auditions, rehearsals, meetings, and their Christmas party there, Monday night was the first time the general public has been welcomed in for a show.
Tim Tegge and the Black Swamp Boys played two sets of original songs. In between, actors did readings from two melodramas, each with a connection to the troupe’s history.
They opened with a couple selections from “Lily, the Felon’s daughter,” the first play staged by the Black Swamp Players back in 1968.
There’s a bit of uncertainty over where it was staged, though Rose Dapogny Drain, whose parents Gene and Mary Dapogny were founding members, believes it was in St. Mark’s Lutheran’s community room. (That would make the church part of the genesis stories for two local cultural institutions — the first Black Swamp Arts Festival used the church’s stage for its headliner, Leon Redbone, when foul weather forced it inside.)
Drain joined the cast for the second reading of another melodrama “The Last Villainous Laugh” that was written by Bob Hastings, a long-time pillar of the Players until his death last year. The script was never staged.
Both played up the damsel-in-distress theme, and called for some serious overacting, all delivered with a wink. The cast members were Deb Weiser, Hali Malecki, Sally Stemen, Drain, and Hakel, who did his dastardly best as the villain in both excerpts.
Then Hakel turned his villain’s top hat to good use and passed it around the audience to collect money.
As the collection was taken in the old church, Tegge and the band struck up the song “Nickels and Dimes.”
The atmosphere was relaxed, with some patrons seated at tables on the periphery or in the loft sipping wine they’d brought with them.
After the show, Tegge said as much as he likes to play wineries and bars, the experience of performing his songs where the audience is more intent on listening to the music is gratifying.
He finds he plays fewer songs, talks a bit more about how they came about, and plays them better. Tegge delivered originals that touch on ordinary life, and the emotional pull of home. They are songs where people drink lemonade, coffee, and beer. After all, you don’t buy champagne with nickels and dimes.
The First Monday series organizers Hakel and Melissa Shaffer, who also directed the melodramas, wanted to present music to help bring in a new crowd.
Shaffer announced that the Irish band Toraigh will be featured at the March 2 show starting at 7 p.m. The dramatic interval will be devoted to material with an Irish connection.
Hakel declared the first First Monday a success. More important than the money taken in was exposing the Players and their work to a broader audience. He expects Toraigh will bring in a different audience with holdovers from Monday night’s show.
Meanwhile across town, rehearsals were going on at First United Methodist Church where the musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” will be staged over two weekends at the end of the month opening on Feb. 21.
