By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Local theater has been my beat for 25 years. Certainly I covered theater before that. As best I can remember the first show I reported on was a community production of “Brigadoon” in Montpelier, Vermont in 1980. The paper was a free total circulation advertiser. Because it had a first class mailing permit, it had a limit on the percentage of advertisements. I wrote to fill the spaces between the ads. That was my first full-time newspaper job — I won’t call it a journalism job.
This came up early this year when BGSU Opera staged that very same Lerner-Loewe musical in January. My story ran on Jan. 18.
It was the second of what turned out to be 33 theater stories I posted in 2024. Though I can’t give you the numbers, I can assure you it’s the most ever for me. I did at least two in every month save December.
I used to be able to count on shows in fall through early December, then early winter through spring with the occasional summer show. Now there is no theater season. Summer is packed.
Fun fact: My first immersion in theater was as a summer intern at the Mount Holyoke Summer Theater in 1972.
Note the date of “Brigadoon” mid-January, and it wasn’t even the first show of the year. The year opened with the Black Swamp Players’ “The Moors,” which I described as “this twisted, darkly humorous tribute to the gothic fiction of the Brontë sisters.”
The Players’ continued their strategy of staging off-beat, for-mature-audiences-only fare, and drawing in talent from the Toledo scene. “The Moors” was directed by Toledo-theater veteran Fran Martone.
Fun fact: My first interaction with the Players was playing trombone with some featured wah-wah action in the pit orchestra for “No. No Nanette” in 1997. The musical earned ⭑ ⭑1/2 in the Sentinel.
“Brigadoon,” the next week, was evocative in other ways.
Though staged in the winter it was a throwback to the BGSU summer musical theater productions that ended a few years after I started covering theater. “Brigadoon” was dedicated to the late Robin McEwen, a wonderful singer who had notable roles in those shows. Her daughter, Heather Goldman as well as grandson, were in the chorus.
The show itself celebrates community in a way those sweeping productions, which often featured an entire families including the McEwens in “The Music Man,” celebrated community.
What I believe has evolved in the past few years is that community theater celebrates more aspects of society and involves a broader range of characters.
My intensive engagement in all this dates back to my days as arts and entertainment editor at the Sentinel. The freelancer who reviewed productions, at that point BGSU Theatre and the Black Swamp Players moved on. After an abortive attempt to replace him with another freelancer, I stepped up to take on the role. The editor, the late Dave Miller said we only had to cover the Players. All the university cared about was running their press releases in advance. We missed one university production and theater staff were on the horn wondering why someone wasn’t at their shows. So my role expanded. That continued as I covered shows at the now defunct Ms. Rose’s in Perrysburg and the Beautiful Kids Independent Shakespeare Company which staged Shakespeare in the park for 20 years starting in 1997.
Let me explain a little of what I do. Please note, I do not refer to my writing about theater as reviews. That implies criticism and judgment. The former reviewer at the Sentinel was comfortable in this role. He even assigned star ratings. That’s something I never liked even when wearing my hat as a freelance jazz reviewer. It’s reductive.
No, I attend shows and try my best to give my readers a sense of what they will experience. The form allows me room for commentary. I will praise what is worthy, and I never say something is good that’s not.
As the range of what I covered expanded, that approach was validated. I may have written about what the Horizon Youth Theatre was doing, but didn’t attend the shows to write about them. I avoided high school productions because of the county-wide circulation area that would have been overwhelming. BGHS’s theater maven Jo Beth Gonzalez, though, had a knack for devising hooks that lured me to write about a show.
Now I’m a regular at the high school productions. They continue to make good use of the stage at the Performing Arts Center. Most recently they brought the bloody business of “Macbeth” up close and personal with an in-the-round setting. “The Addams Family Musical” was a fitting continuation of the beloved all-school musical tradition.
Now with BG Independent I cover the gamut.
This year’s shows included “Rogues,” the second show by the middle school drama club, founded by Alice Walters, and then six weeks later the Broadway touring production of “Frozen.”
It’s all enjoyable. While the high gloss and dazzle of the professional how ups the entertainment value of the professional show, watching amateurs, youngsters, teens, and adults, venture into the new world of a script and bring it to life is equally intriguing.
When after many years I saw my first Broadway show at the Stranahan, I noted that while Linda and I had great seats in the middle of the house, if we had been at the same distance from the stage at Players’ home on Oak Street, we’d be sitting in the lawyers office across the street. And who were these people on stage? Never ran into them while out walking in Bowling Green or seen them in multiple previous productions.
When it comes down to it, the community part of community theater is what means the most to me.
I think that attitude has earned me the appreciation of theater company, who pay me the compliment of inviting me to see their shows.
This year I wrote about productions for the Waterville Playshop, 3B Productions, the Village Rep, the Village Players, and the Toledo Opera as well as our local troupes.
The opera’s production of “Ragtime” was one of the most moving productions I wrote about. It’s cast was a mix of guests from out of town and the top operatic talent from the area, including graduates of BGSU.
Fun fact: My son Erik, then 12, was “the elf in the barrel” when Jason Budd, a regular featured performer with the opera most recently in “Tosca” was a student at BGSU.
BGSU continues to offer a mix of the thought-provoking and entertaining, from the pop culture musical “The Heathers,” complete with padded shoulders to this fall’s “Silent Sky,” about the women who helped bring us the space age.
And on July 4 we celebrated the 100th birthday of someone who got her start in acting at BGSU and then went on to win an Oscar, Eva Marie Saint.
HYT has settled into its new home in the theater upstairs in the Grand Rapids Town Hall. It offers them a space where they can get a few weeks of rehearsal in on the stage. The troupe continues to stretch itself with productions of the musical “Matilda” and “She Kills Monsters.”
Fun fact: I participated in the first two meetings at Scott Regan’s house where the creation of HYT was first discussed. Because I may end up writing about the theater, I stepped aside and my wife Linda Brown joined the board.
Perrysburg Musical Theatre, Waterville Playshop, and 3B Productions continue excel at their musical productions.
PMT’s “Bright Star” shined at the Ohio Community Theatre Association awards. (The Players’ “Puffs” was also honored.)
PMT’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” was, as the headline pronounced “powerful” and “operatic.”
And Waterville Playshop offered an increasingly rare production of musical from what Broadway’s “Golden Era,” “The Sound of Music.” “Brigadoon,” of course, is in this category, and watch for the Toledo Opera’s production of “South Pacific” on Feb. 14 and 16.
This season I got to visit the Village Players home for the first time for a “Doubt.” The story of the machinations around a parochial school. This resonated with this old Catholic school altar boy.
I closed out the busy 2024 theater year with Toledo Rep’s “A Christmas Carol,” a holiday tradition. Now it’s on to 2025.
Fun fact: The Black Swamp Players have honored me on a couple occasions, once resulted in formal recognition from State Sen. Randy Gardner, and the BGHS Drama Club has named me an honorary thespian. One troupe, Lionface Productions, one of several I’ve seen emerge and then fade into indefinite hiatus, had I was told an award named for me. My understanding of this was for someone who went out of its way to promote the company. However lightheartedly this was meant, I consider it a career achievement.
