Little Mermaid portends a full summer at Woodstock Playhouse
Randy Conti and Doug Farrell are in work clothes, comfortably seated in the darkened lobby to their Woodstock Playhouse on the morning of Memorial Day. The town parade’s gathering outside. The two men are taking a breather as a tech crew scurries around in the theater space just to our rear, prepping things for this weekend’s big performances of The Little Mermaid. Which, Conti and Farrell point out, marks the start of their summer season at the Playhouse — their third — which will ostensibly see them racing helter-skelter, day in and day out, until Labor Day, if not beyond.
“This season’s already feeling a little bit easier,” Conti says, explaining how the big New York Conservatory for the Arts production this time of year used to be put on at UPAC in Kingston, involving load-in and load-out time, higher expenses, and less actual rehearsal momentum in the performance space.
Now, lights have been up for a while, the set can be built right on stage, and everything’ll be able to gear into the Playhouse’s summer rep season smoothly for its kick-off gala and first production later in June.
“We’ve gotten a jump start on things,” Conti says. “We kept the status quo for the past two years as we got used to the Playhouse but the time seemed right to finally make the shift.”
Farrell noted how the Playhouse has been up and running since the beginning of March…and following The Little Mermaid, there’ll be a Woodstock Chamber Orchestra concert taking place in the main theater on June 9. But then there’ll be no more rentals in the space until the fall, when the Woodstock Comedy Festival, British car show, and film and luthier festivals come in back to back over a couple of months.
Conti and Farrell are excited about the coming weekend’s performances, which include a number of NYCA students who’ve been with them for years now…and quite a few Onteora-area kids. Flying by Foy will add a ballet-like majesty to the musical’s underwater elements. The well-rehearsed troupe, with two casts for all the major roles, is feeling comfortable in the new space. To make up for the loss of seats accompanying the move from a 1200 to a 300-plus theater will be made up for via the addition of a Friday evening performance.
As for the summer rep line up of Les Miserables (June 20-30), Fiddler on the Roof (July 11 – 21), Biloxi Blues (the weekend of July 25) and Tommy (August 1 – 10), there’s a new designer on hand, Ethel Green, and cast and crew coming to town June 7. Moreover, audience figures — and enthusiasm — are proving better than expected, according to both men.
“We pull a lot of people from the city, and a lot who are checking out a variety of theater throughout the area,” Farrell noted from his times in the front of the house, greeting people as they come to the Playhouse.”
“I think it’s great, this hunger people have here for more,” Conti added. “It’s like Broadway, where there’s show after show.”
“The more going on here, the more people flock to the area,” chimed in Farrell. “It’s great when we all have so much to offer.”
Coming up for this season’s gala opening, on Thursday, June 20, The Playhouse will be offering up a first-time joint affair with a pre-show dinner at the Cucina barn, after which guests will utilize the revived trail between it and the Playhouse…once active back in the 1950s and 1960s when the Playhouse was in its earlier heyday and what is now Cucina was Deanie’s. To help with the celebration — their first such partnership with Cucina, which went through considerable controversy getting their barn-based catering service approved last year — a number of veterans of the earlier Playhouse days will be on hand, including director H.G. Baldrich, late of New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse, publicist’s son Paul Champanier, who recalls seeing rehearsals in the old barn down the path, and painter John Elwyn, who’s donating a new painting of the old playhouse for the lobby, to be raffled off later in the season.
“There will be memories of the days when Diane Keaton was here, alongside John Glover, Larry Hagman and Ann Meara,” Conti says, excitedly.
“We’re creating a history wall,” adds Farrell.
But first, they each add, in unison, comes NYCA, their original dream, and this weekend’s performances of The Little Mermaid.
“They’ve all got such excitement,” Conti notes. “You can’t have a song play without them joining in singing and dancing…”
“You can’t hold them back,” adds Farrell. “They have a history…”
As does the revived Woodstock Playhouse, once again for its third new season.
Paul Smart
Disney’s The Little Mermaid plays Friday, May 31 and Saturday June 1 at 7:30 PM each evening, and Sunday June 2 at 2 PM at the Woodstock Playhouse, 103 Mill Hill Road in Woodstock. For ticket reservations and further information, call 679-6900, or visit ulsterpub.staging.wpengineplayhouse.org.
