Rehearsals hone skills of amateur cast

The Cary News - December 19, 2002

Cary Players would be the town's first adult theater company.

by Lisa Coston

Jack Chapman is musing about the exact position of the Gibbs family's kitchen door, and where he should place his invisible hat, newspaper and doctor's bag.

Carolyn Wallace and Beverly King are discussing the finer points of pretending to cook bacon, and the motivation of their character Myrtle Webb in this scene.

It's Dec. 12. Since the final week of October, a couple of weeks after auditions at the Cary Senior Center, these actors and the others who make up the Cary Players' first-ever cast have been hard at work in a Raleigh studio. Soon, the new nonprofit adult theater groupo will make its debut.

The Players will present Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" at Green Hope High School, Jan. 15-18.

"There's such incredible enthusiasm, from everyone -- from those with one line to those who are in most of the play," said Debra Grannan, who plays Julia Gibbs. "What everyone is discovering I think are the little nuances of working with a masterpiece like this."

Practice, practice

Over and over on this December night, which focused on those portraying Webb and Gibbs family members, actors ran over a few particular scenes in which action bounced back and forth between the neighboring families' homes. A few lines got dissected as actors struggled with nuances.

Chapman, who plays Dr. Frank Gibbs, and Grannan, who plays his wife, struggled to find the right tone for a scene between their characters.

"OK, more energy," said assistant director margo Schuler, who led the opening minutes of rehearsal while director Herman LeVern Jones returns from an out-of-town trip. "Really listen to each other, like you're hearing this for the first time. I want to see more romance between the doctor and Mrs. Gibbs, and a more tired doctor. Let me see that beat again."

They've heard "this" a lot more than one time.

The cast has been working three or four nights a week -- hustling in from work or toting their homework -- three or four hours at a time at the studio off Lake Wheeler Road run by Jones. Jones, a theater veteran of nearly 30 years and more than 250 productions, is the co-founder of Cary players along with fellow Cary resident Dan Martschenko, who is handling most of the business and logistical aspects of the production as well as playing the small role of Howie.

A varied cast

The cast is a varied lot, ranging from elementary school students to those in their 70's, and from theater veterans to newcomers. Quite a few have acted with Raleigh Little Theatre, N.C. State's Thompson Theater, the Garner Towne Players, Peace College, the Cary Senior Center's Far From B roadway reader' theater, their school or church, or local dinner theaters.

Tracy Fulghum (Stage Manager) has played the same "Our Town" role before. Others have been in the play in other roles, including Wallace, who played Si Crowell when her high school drama department ran short on male actors, and how is returning to the stage after a 20-year absence. Wilson Pietzsch, who plays Charles Webb, once played Dr. Gibbs in high school.

This is the speaking-role debut for other cast members, including Robert Cassas (Wally Webb) and Michelle Hall (Rebecca Gibbs).

There are families in the cast, including local husband and wife Jeff and Melissa Maxwell, who play romantic leads George and Emily. Jeff's program bio thanks his wife for "dragging him into this" -- and that's pretty much the literal truth.

Melissa, a Peace College and Cary High graduate, returned from audition callbacks and told Jeff, an N.C. State chemistry student and Apex High grad, there were no adult male actors showing up younger than mid-30s. Someone needed to play George. She told Cary Players leaders about Jeff and he agreed to read.

The couple, who met in church as teenagers, formerly acted together in a church play directed by Martschenko.

"It's phenomenal. It's so much fun doing this," Melissa Maxwell said with a chuckle. "Herman says we have a lot of chemistry. It's kind of our story in some ways. It's great to be able to spend the time together."

Dan Martschenko's son Justin is in the show, and the mother-children team of Ann, Katelyn and Michael Clampett appear, as do the mother-son team of Christy and Robert Cassas.

Several cast members grew up in Cary, including Grannan, who appeared in Cary High's "Barefoot in the Park" 25 years ago (as Debbie Zumbach) and has since tried to be involved in a dramatic project every other year or so. Her brother used to be in a scout troop led by the father of Kurt Benrud (Professor Willard), who appeared in "The Miracle Worker" during his senior year at Cary High in 1969. Other actors retired here.

For an added twist and dynamic, the cast -- which will number nearly three dozen when a couple of remaining small roles are filled -- includes several roles that have been double- or triple- cast, with each actor appearing in a few shows. Jones did that in order to let more people participate.

Veteran director

Jones spends part of most rehearsals sitting on a chair or sofa, his right hand around a coffee cup and his left slowly stroking his chin. Suddenly, he'll spring up and put himself into one of the roles, striding around and demonstrating where he wants actors and what he wants them to be doing with a "dahdahdah, dahdahdah, dahdahdah, dah" in place of the script lines.

He's often liberal with his praise, leading the rest of the cast in applause for a particular scene or actor, and repeating things such as "nice work ladies, really nice work," "great moment, that's terrific" or "ri-i-i-ght, right."

He's often humorous, laughing through instructions such as "This is a big butternut tree -- I know it looks like a black wall." During a scene when the doctor is talking to his son, Jones instructed him to appear distracted.

"You're talking to George, but you're really wondering, 'Where IS my woman? She's late,'" Jones said.

The cast spent the first two weeks of rehearsals seated around tables reading the Pulitzer Prize winning play, trying to immerse itself in life and death in small-town America, Grover's Corners, N.H., in 1901.

Cast member Bob Jeter showed the uninformed how to string beans. Grannan went on -line to research what the heck a heliotrope in her garden was, anyway.

As actors struggled to understand the relationships between and rhythms of the lines, "Oh, that's what he means there," rang out regularly.

"Herman Jones, our director, has really encouraged us to embrace the script, to come to know it like a piece of poetry," Grannan said.

By Nov. 11, the actors had started blocking the show, meaning actually figuring out who entered, stood and left where, and so forth.

"We're going to jet through this -- y'all are going to be amazed at how we do this," Jones told them on the first night of blocking. "Everyone turn to page one.

" Masking tape on the floor in the small, bare room with high ceilings and black walls indicated the placement of trellises, chairs and tables, along with never seen items such as stairs and stoves.

"Don't forget to project your voice to the back of the auditorium," Jones said. "This is about being comfortable right now. Relax, you don't have to hurry. Remember where Main Street is, where east is, the post office ... where to point. Forget this wall right now -- there'll be plenty of space when we get [to Green Hope] and we'll work it out when we get there.

"You'll feel it."

The actors regularly made notes in their scripts with pencils and referred to them a lot, except for Fulghum, already partially in costume brought from home, to practice just how to put his hands in his coat pockets or his thumbs through his vest.

He played the Stage Manager as an NCSU grad student about six years ago and hasn't really been involved in theater since.

"Some of it started coming back to me, once I got up on my feet and we started blocking, but I had to learn a lot of it again," said Fulghum, calling the play a "copious amount" of words to learn. "The characterization is kind of the same, sort of what I had in mind, but I think Herman's squeezing a little more out of me this time. ... And the cast is more mature. You have people playing more to their real ages."

Intense schedule

At this point in mid-December, rehearsals involve more fine tuning and small-group work. Most of the actors have most of the lines well memorized -- most of the time -- so they are focused on the pantomime required by "Our Town," with its minimalist set and props.

When eggs spoiled during the recent ice storm, Grannan used them to practice what breaking eggs to make breakfast looks like.

"Is the window open?" Jones asked Grannan during a December rehearsal. "You did open it earlier in the scene? OK, well then, you yell at [daughter Rebecca] through the window then. Does that work for you?"

There must be discussions about the size of Howie's horse Bessie, the location of Mrs. Gibbs' chickens and the height of the Webbs' kitchen cabinets. Jones occasionally pulls out a scale model of the Green Hope stage that the technical crew has provided for reference.

The actors also have been doing more mundane tasks, like selling tickets, and publicity such as appearing in the Cary Christmas parade.

The night of the shows, most will work as ushers or ticket takers beforehand, or simply be stationed around the auditorium chatting, in character.

The biggest challenge? All the work that must be done in a relatively short amount of time, and time spent away from home and family, several actors said.

"It's community theater, but it is pretty intense," Fulghum said. "I think the schedule keeps a lot of people away from trying theater ...

"I think a lot more effort has been put into this since it's the group's first show. You want to get everything right."

Jones told the actors they earned a week off for the holidays, but soon they'll be back at rehearsals with intensity.

In biographies written for the program, several comment on their pride in being part of Cary Players' inaugural show.

"I've always loved theater," Grannan said. "I really felt like I should get involved with this, especially with the first production. It's not a real long run of shows and this company has so much town and community support. you don't get an opportunity like that very often."