By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The pandemic meant that the Black Swamp Players annual meeting had to be held remotely with the 20 or so attendees logging in from their homes for a Zoom gathering.
While the pandemic claimed the Players’ last production, as well as a scheduled fundraising show and dinner, it couldn’t claim the troupe’s hopes and aspirations for next season.
The troupe announced its lineup for 2020-2021. It’s an ambitious five-show season to be staged in its new home, the Oak Street Theatre.
As Heath Diehl, who will be returning as president next year, noted, “everything is fluid.”
Diehl touched on the milestones of the year just past.
“It was a year of growing spurts and growing pains.”
The highlight was reaching a lease-to-own agreement to purchase the old church on Oak Street, so that the Players will for the first time in its 53-year history will have a home to call their own.
That, however, means fundraising, which has been stifled by the pandemic.
Diehl said the script selection committee, chaired by Deb Weiser, read more than 50 plays to come up with the season, including 13 musicals and the seven submissions to the troupe’s inaugural playwriting competition, Telling Stories.
“This committee has put together what I feel is a smart, innovative and exciting season for BSP’s first in its permanent home.”
Weiser said the season will begin in September with the Neil Simon comedy “I Ought To Be In Pictures.” They expect that will be on stage by third week in September. “We’ll see how that goes,” she said. She noted that Broadway is planning to be dark through Labor Day.
No specific dates have been set.
In December, the troupe will stage “Every Christmas Story Ever Told.”
February will feature a “heavy” drama, “August: Osage County” by Tracy Letts, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.
The musical, “It Shoulda Been You,” will go up in April. The show, Weiser said, is a good fit for the new space since the action and scene changes are fluid.
The season will conclude in June with the Telling Stories winner “Mimi’s Famous Company” by Nina Wright.
Also, at the meeting, the Players gave out their annual awards.
Graduating high school senior Bob Walters received the R.J. Shellhammer award, which is given to a middle school or high school age student “who has excelled in technical theater in one or more shows in the most recent season.”
He was honored for his work on “Psyche” and “Drowsy Chaperone”
Walters is headed off to Ohio University where he will major in technical theater. “ I’ll still be able to drop in and help when I can,” he said.
Stephanie Truman who presented the award said she’s seen Walters grow from his days in Horizon Youth Theatre
The Friends of the Black Swamp Players award went to the Bowling Green Community Foundation for its ongoing support, including a $4,000 grant last year, which will be used for risers for the new theater. An earlier grant was used to purchase seats.
In accepting the award for the foundation Kevin Cochrane said the group was dedicated to supporting what makes Bowling Green a better place. The Players are “an institution” in the city. “There’s no doubt the Black Swamp Players make Bowling Green a better place.”
Weiser received the troupe’s Lenhart Service Award for her many contributions on the board, on stage and backstage. She is always ready to help in any way she can, said Bob Marzola, in announcing the award.
Among those elected to the board was Jan Schaller, who was a founding member of the troupe. She remembered having to schlep everything needed for a production around town to whatever place they could use to present a play. She said she’s glad to return to the troupe just as it was settling into its own home.
That will happen, Diehl said at the beginning in a phrase that hung over the meeting, “once it’s safe to do so.”
