Close to home: Local tale of Hurricane Camille on stage at Endstation Theatre
By Casey Gillis on Jul. 23, 2008
(434) 385-5525
Jared Anderson and Derek Arey face each other, leaning forward in folding chairs on the stage at Sweet Briar College’s Babcock Theater.
They’re rehearsing a scene from Endstation Theatre’s “The Bluest Water,” an original play about the impact Hurricane Camille had when it hit Nelson County in 1969.
The play is the cornerstone of the Amherst-based company’s Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, one of our area’s first. It wraps up this weekend with one already sold-out performance of “The Bluest Water” and two performances of “Romeo and Juliet,” an outdoor production set in front of Sweet Briar’s Benedict Building. Tickets to both of those shows are still available.
In “The Bluest Water,” Anderson and Arey play Emory and Neddy, who are, in this particular scene, at odds over whether Neddy should close down a Lovingston liquor store after the storm. Emory is a state policeman, and Neddy is his ne’er-do-well little brother.
It’s a tense face-off between their characters, but Anderson and Arey can’t help but laugh as they botch a few lines here and there.
Director Geoff Kershner, who has been watching, rises from his seat.
“Alright,” he says. “Let’s get it up on its feet a little bit.”
Anderson and Arey make their way to the edge of the nearly empty stage, where Anderson latches onto Arey’s shirt and pushes him into the center. When he lets go, Arey stalks away from him. Both are fuming, and there’s no more laughter - unless the script calls for it - as they go into character.
While they run their lines, Kershner watches thoughtfully from a folding chair, chin resting on his palm. Then he’s leaning back, arms crossed. Later, he’s across the stage, watching from the wings. He stops the action every so often with suggestions as Anderson and Arey go through the scene over and over again for an hour and a half.
“And,” Kershner jokes about halfway through rehearsal, “take 25.”
Outside energy
A few days before that June rehearsal, Kershner and Arey were immersed in another rehearsal, this time a fight choreography session for “Romeo & Juliet” (see Page 15).
Temperatures were in the 90s, and it was just too hot to rehearse outside. So the cast gathered on the Babcock stage, where they rehearsed the famous “Bite my thumb” scene, in which factions of the Montague and Capulet families brawl.
Kershner stood off to the side, tossing out items to incorporate into the fray: sticks, canes and even a few parasols.
“We’re gonna have some fun,” he said with a laugh, handing Arey a belt.
As Balthasar, Arey mussed up his hair and circled the stage, snapping the belt ominously in an effort to intimidate his foes.
He is one of six actors to appear in both “Romeo & Juliet” and “The Bluest Water.”
For them, the festival has been a blur of read-throughs, rehearsals, and dance and fight sessions that began in late May and ran right up until opening night earlier this week.
The actors come from all over. Many, including Arey and Anderson, are local. Others, like recent Florida State University graduates Natalie Caruncho and Michael Stablein, Jr., come from out of state and have been staying on Sweet Briar’s campus this summer.
“It’s important for us that we’re embracing local artists and presenting local artists, but at the same time, infusing some interesting outside energy,” Kershner says.
Curtain call
Cut to four weeks later: Opening night for “The Bluest Water.”
Every line has been pored over, every action plotted out.
“It’s really come together,” Anderson says a few hours before show time, adding that watching the opening scene during a recent rehearsal “literally gave me chills, it was just so intense.”
About 60 seats have been set up on the Babcock stage, creating the intimate, up-close-and-personal atmosphere Kershner and Endstation co-founder/scenic designer Krista Franco originally envisioned for this production.
The set has come together quickly, a motley collection of debris - mounds of dirt, an overturned wheel barrow, a set of torn blinds - intended to show the aftermath of a devastating storm.
Franco’s goal was to fill the small space with “historic remnants of a time forgotten,” she says, with “the walls and debris piles (getting) higher as we go around.”
The play has been a labor of love for Kershner, Franco and their Endstation collaborators, who include playwright Jason Chimonides, lighting designer and Amherst native Dan Gallagher, sound designer Bryce Page, production manager Maria Hayden, technical director J.D. Stallings and costume designer/actress Sally Southall.
Kershner and Franco started Endstation in 2006 with the goal of creating works that were specific to our area.
“It’s neat to sit in the theater and hear locations from the area mentioned,” Kershner says. “We’re really trying to find a local voice in this.”
Enter Hurricane Camille, which ripped through Central Virginia and left areas, particularly Nelson County, devastated.
Kershner knew he wanted to create an original play about the storm, so he and his cohorts began collecting stories from people in the community, asking them about their memories and how it affected their lives.
New York-based playwright Chimonides was a central figure in those collections and began doing research during a visit to Amherst in the fall of 2006. He was back again in the spring, when he started on the script while a fellow-in-residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst.
“What struck me the most, truthfully, was how personal this was,” he says.
“It was just as massive and important and tragic for this community (as other natural disasters are), but it was also on this small, personal scale. It was just so local.”
He used the collected stories as a jumping off point to a fictional story, using composite characters of real people.
Anderson says that while they’re not portraying real people, they’re still talking about things and situations that did happen.
“Knowing that we are dealing with something so close to home has made it that much more real and powerful.”
Filling a need
The idea for a festival came after Endstation’s inception.
“It became the idea once we got here,” Kershner says. “It enables us to concentrate all our time in this sort of 3-, 4-month period.”
Kershner says they might still put on the occasional production during the year. But most of their efforts will be focused on the summer festival, which they hope will grow every year.
The plan will be to always include at least one locally set piece. Next year’s lineup is already set: an outdoor production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and two indoor productions, “Crime and Punishment” and “My Brother’s Knife: A Madison Heights Odyssey.”
They find inspiration in the Utah Shakespearean Festival, which is held in Cedar City every year. Kershner says the festival is in a rural area, but still manages to attract talented actors and big audiences.
Franco says they want to do something similar but “with our own flair, doing the local historical pieces and producing new work.”
“We’re recognized as part of the arts community here,” she adds. “Two years in the making.”
IF YOU’RE GOING:
WHAT: The Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival
WHEN: The festival features two plays, ‘The Bluest Water’ and an outdoor production of ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ Performances of ‘The Bluest Water’ are sold out. ‘Romeo & Juliet’ is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday and Saturday.
WHERE: Sweet Briar College in Amherst
TICKETS: Students $5, Adults $10.
INFO: Call (434) 381-6537 or visit http://www.endstationtheatre.org
SPECIAL: People coming to see “Romeo & Juliet” can bring a picnic.
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