Open Book Players

We will finally be back performing at Johnson Hall Opera House this fall! More information and performance details will be posted very soon. WE ARE TRULY EXCITED ABOUT GETTING BACK TO OUR HOME BASE!

I have been asked to write about my experiences with Readers Theatre and the Open Book Players.  Where do I start?  I have always loved everything about theater but never had the opportunity to experience being part of it other than as a patron due to work commitments.  When I retired I always thought I would love to be part of the theater community but never had the confidence that I could do it.  Then I saw an announcement for a readers theatre workshop.  Having no idea what readers’ theater was (do they just read out of a book???), I thought I’d go and observe.  Several groups performed short plays and I was wow’d that they could portray a character with just their voices, facial expressions and hand motions.  I’ve been hooked ever since and am now on the board of directors of Open Book Players.  Whenever there is a show, I always want to audition for what I know will be an amazing experience.   Readers Theatre and the Open Book Players have given me the opportunity to express my creativity and to be part of a community that is welcoming, fun to be with and to make lifelong friends.   It has also given me the confidence to expand into other acting opportunities with local theaters. Whether you attend a performance (please do!!!) or act in one, you will be glad you did!

Andy Tolman spent his first fifty theater years in the audience, enjoying both amateur and professional performances. He was encouraged to audition for Laughter on the 23 rd floor by his daughter at the turn of the century. That experience motivated him to continue to seek auditions, including one for Lucy for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. After working with Monmouth Community Players for a couple of
years, Lucy encouraged him to try Open Book Players. He’s been in dozens of their productions, most notably, the touring version of World’s Afire and several summer tours to libraries and schools.
He’s been on the OBP board since 2003 and was recently promoted to President. He particularly enjoys the biannual Reading Rumpus, where we stage Maine Author’s children’s books. The reactions of the audience and authors to seeing their stories performed is always gratifying. Our presentation of Memorial was another excellent experience.

Open Book Board Posting            

Hammie Award Winner Joins Open Book Board! Bob McIntire has joined the Board of Open Book Players. This isn’t new news. He has actually been serving in the role for several years. It is only recently that the organization admitted it. McIntire has a checkered  storied theatrical background. He began acting in middle school when the Mechanical Arts teacher and drama coach/director recognized in him a unique talent but as yet untamed.  The teacher/director threw caution to the wind and cast the young McIntire as Lord Fancourt Babberley in a musical adaptation of Charley’s Aunt. This late 19^th century farce is about a college student who is persuaded to impersonate an aunt from Brazil. This was just the kind of role he could sink his teeth into, a 9^th grade cross-dresser. He is shown in the center of the production promotional snapshot. His memorable performance resulted in the director bestowing upon the young thespian the first ever, somewhat coveted Hammy Award.

This role launched McIntire into a variety of productions including his first nude scene in a Parkersburg Actors Guide presentation of Stalag 17. Having, as a young man, never met a milk shake he didn’t like he apparently cut quite the figure. Fortunately, no photos of that production remain. McIntire experienced early pattern baldness which served him will in the high school production of Look Homeward Angel where he played Will Pentland. His mother was heard to say, “He reminds me of my brother, William. I never remember him with hair.”

Even then he was intrigued by readers theater. “Long ago and far away when I was young and impressionable the first performances, I remember were during church services when my uncles, who took turns being the preacher in the little congregation that worshipped in the church across the driveway from my grandmother’s house, would read from the scripture. Even as a youngster I was impressed that these farmers from the hollers of West Virginia with their unique hill-grown accent could be so possessed by the spirit that they sounded like Shakespearean actors as they read. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the King James version of the Bible, from whence they were taking the verses, was written at the same time as the Bard was busy toiling over his plays and sonnets. This is why the uncles behind the pulpit sounded a bit like Ian McKellen, with a little Appalachian twang, but I digress.

“I was also captured by the romance of radio. I was given a crystal radio kit as a child. I somehow managed to actually assemble it and tune in a local radio station. The transmitter tower was visible out my bedroom window. Sometimes when the atmospheric conditions were right you didn’t even need the radio. You could receive the signal with fillings in your teeth, assuming that you had fillings in your teeth. None-the-less I was swept away by the romance of broadcasting.”

After miraculously graduating from high school McIntire turned down a scholarship to a reputable college just outside of Washington, DC where he would have gotten into significantly more trouble more quickly. He chose instead the bright lights of Morgantown, West Virginia, and the theater department at the state’s flag ship university. He quickly realized, however, that he wasn’t cut out for that program. He was intrigued, however, by one particular course entitled Oral Interpretation that whet his appetite for reading out loud. Then there was the fledgling broadcasting program. He lasted just two semesters in academia before bailing and heading east to begin a career in radio, thus ending his relationship with the stage that was not to be rekindled for over forty years.

“While working at the Maine Department of Education I happened to see an announcement for a readers theater presentation of a radio drama at the University of Maine at Augusta. Following the performance, I learned about Open Book Players from some of the actors. Fast forward another couple of years and I saw a casting call for a production called Worlds Afire in 2008. I read and was given several parts in the production. The cast was great. The script was compelling. It was a great experience. The next production was on my bucket list, Under Milkwood. I was thrilled to get a chance to read that play. Then there was Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, The Importance of Being Wilde and A Cheever Evening among others. It is always great fun to work with the actors.”

Recently life’s schedule has kept McIntire from performing on stage with the troupe, but he looks forward to getting back in sync with the production schedule. Until then he serves on the Board and strives not to cause too much trouble. He also performs with Marti Stevens Interactive Improvisational Theater and produces local history programming in his hometown of Hallowell.

Open Book Players wishes you all a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Look for our new “guest” article coming soon!

Special Thanks to Richard Bostwick and Donna Loveland for representing Open Book Players in Gardiner’s Parade of Lights (which focuses on the visual and performing arts in the area) on December 2nd!

Our next guest contributor to our Open Book Players editorial series is…Sarah Rossignol…

Sarah is a senior at Oak Hill High School. She takes part in Academic Decathlon, theatre, student council, dance, and tennis. Her favorite things to do outside of school are read, hang out with friends, and binge watch Dance Moms. Sarah plans to major in nutrition and become an Oncology Dietitian.

“What Readers Theater Means to Me”

When I tell others that I take part in reader’s theater, the first question I always get asked is, “What is reader’s theater?” Well to answer their question and one that you are probably asking yourself, reader’s theater is where actors come together and perform a piece with their scripts in front of them. The actors use their hands, facial expressions, and tone of voice to bring a simple story to life. The second question I always get is, “Why reader’s theater? What’s the point? Why not just stick to drama?” I’ll tell you why. Some of my favorite memories have been made through reader’s theater. Not only do I get to come together to perform with my friends, I also get to meet new people of all ages.

So what does reader’s theater mean to me? It means that I get to do the one thing I love, perform for people, while also creating connections and relationships that last a lifetime. If one day you see a flier somewhere advertising a reader’s theater performance I recommend you go to the show or even try out for a show once! Especially one put on by Open Book Players. Just see one show and you’ll see why I take part in it.

You’ll see the magic in bringing a story to life.

…to all of our performers, friends, and patrons! Our next “guest essayist” will be posted soon!

As Open Book Players will not be presenting another production until late winter or early spring (hopefully at our home base of Johnson Hall in Gardiner which is still undergoing restorations and reparations), we will present “guest” essays from previous and present Open Book Players performers regarding their experience with the theatrical format of Readers Theatre.

Our first contributor is Avery Mickalide…

Avery Mickalide grew up in Litchfield, ME. He finished a PhD in physics in 2019 and now works for a genetics startup. He lives in Oakland, CA where he is raising children with his dear fiance. In college, Avery’s life took a turn for the mystical. He is attempting to make sense of what all is happening by constructing a deck of power cards based on the wild and varied insights delivered unto him.

I am in the middle school auditorium and the room is abuzz with excitement for we are about to put on a spectacular production that we have been rehearsing for weeks. Good, sturdy sets have been built and every scene has been carefully blocked. There’s one problem though: I don’t have a single line memorized. I desperately pore over the script before the show, willing the words to stick, but each one slips from my mind as soon as I read it. Realizing it is hopeless, I approach my favorite teacher and the director of this play, Mrs. Rioux, and admit my failure to her.

It’s been more than a decade since I have been in a play, two decades since middle school, but to this day I still have variations of this dream. One cannot overstate the psychological burden that a theatre kid must overcome to learn those lines: to flip through a script after marking each line with a highlighter, the pages now a sea of yellow, and wonder “How in the world will I ever memorize all of this?”

Enter Readers Theatre. You get to have all the fun of performing plays, embodying all sorts of characters, and enjoying camaraderie with other actors, and, best of all, you get to take that script right up there on stage with you! You don’t have to memorize complicated blocking either: To go off-stage, you swivel 180 degrees clockwise on your stool to face away, and, to return to stage, you swivel clockwise again. For costumes, you wear all black, including a handsome Open Book Players long-sleeve t-shirt, and use different hats to indicate different characters.

My first official Readers’ Theatre performance was a production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. When I was older, I got to play Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” alongside my best friends for several years running. There was this one character that my friend would play with a rough cockney accent, and the way he would say the line “Do you, Mrs. Dilber?” will be forever burned into my brain.

I had a lot of fun doing Readers’ Theatre. There was one production that we took and sort of toured around Maine a little bit. We got a comped meal after each show which made me feel like a paid actor. I think the highlight of it all was when the camera crew from PBS came to our school to film us for the “Zoom into action!” segment of the television show “Zoom”. They recorded us doing a performance and then interviewed us afterward. There’s a VHS tape of the episode kicking around somewhere in Maine.

Having not been in or seen a Readers’ Theatre performance since childhood, I would very much like to revisit it now that I am an adult with a more honed aesthetic sense. I am poised to appreciate it for the unique art form it is with its own merits. Is it a stripped down version of a regular play or a suped up version of being read a story? Does the presence of the script increase or decrease the intimacy between the players and the audience? Is the script more like a character or a prop?

Because of the sad and tragic mass shootings in Lewiston and the cancellation of schools in RSU4, our production of “Something Wicked This Way Comes!” this weekend is now canceled. Our hearts and thoughts go out to all families and friends who have been impacted by this terrible event…much love to all of you!💔