Bill Wrinn submits:
Less than three weeks until the historic production of “Gloucester Story,” a musical based on the Russel Crouse Award-winning play by Clayton B. Stockbridge, will be performed alongside the schooners on the docks of Maritime Gloucester Aug. 10-13.
Now is the time to get your tickets!
Part of the greater Gloucester 400+ birthday celebration, “Gloucester Story” brings you back to 1905 when the schooners still ruled the fishing fleets and it was a strong reality that you might not return. It reflects the fishermen, businessmen, and their families of that era and the personal struggles they endured around the Harbor. It also has the element of romance and tragedy.
Originally written as a play, the Annisquam Village Players will transform the work into a musical for the first time. Musical pieces from local musicians, Corey Wrinn, Daisy Nell, and Peter Souza have been incorporated into the show along with some other familiar salty tunes.
Free tickets are available on the AVP website at www.AnnisquamVillagePlayers.com/tickets-to-gloucester-story. And when acquiring your tickets, please be sure to remember the major sponsors in the Gloucester community who are making this happen:
Andrée Robert of Engel & Völkers, Cape Ann Savings Bank, Seashore Comfort Solutions, the Gloucester 400+ Committee, and Maritime Gloucester.
A little history about the show…
In the summer of 1952, as the Cape Ann Festival of Literature and Drama was launching its inaugural event, Broadway playwright/librettist and Annisquam summer resident Russel Crouse agreed to sponsor a new challenge: A contest for “the best play about Gloucester by a resident of Gloucester.”
A year later, “Gloucester Story,” a two-act play written by Clayton B. Stockbridge (1895-1973), a plumber, emerged as the winner of the first Russel Crouse Award. (In 1954, the second and final Russel Crouse Award was given to Brown University professor and Annisquam summer resident S. Foster Damon for his play, “Witches of Dogtown.”)
The play was performed in Gloucester several times that summer and in subsequent years. For a short period of time, it became a popular pick for summer stock theatres. Various tweaks of the script occurred through the years.
The story line, set in 1905, revolves around a 21-year-old son and his interactions with his family, his girlfriend, his fellow sailors, and the sea. It is entirely fictional but the names, businesses, and plot motivations dealing with the folklore are all factual.
It is a dramatic story of the fishing vessel Artemesia, which was lost at sea, and the conflict between the desire of a life at sea and the business of fishing. It involves a schooner vessel and a business owner’s son who wishes to crew on the vessel in order to have the life experience at sea and not be confined to a business life on shore. The son has resistance from his parents and fiancé in his quest to go to sea, and as a result becomes a part of the tragedy which strikes.
Clayton drew this story from his youth working on the docks of Gloucester Harbor during the age of the dory fisherman, incorporating popular Captains, local businesses, and the superstitions of the time. During that period, as other maritime cities of Massachusetts were devoting their resources to the Clipper ship trade or whaling, Gloucester chose fishing as its major contribution to the American economy.
As the industry grew, there were three outstanding developments that Clayton took into account when creating “Gloucester Story.”
One of these was the Schooner
The need for speed, maneuverability and seaworthiness, made it mandatory to improve upon the slow, clumsy pinnaces and shallops used in the early years of fishing. From the time the first schooner slid down the ways of the shipyard at Eastern Point in 1713, its place was assured among fast sailing vessels. The highest accolade that could be conferred on a schooner was to be called “fast” and “able.”
Another was the Dory
In 1793 Simeon Lowell of Amesbury had designed and built what he called a dory and, at the time, proved to be the most seaworthy small boat ever devised. Although only sixteen feet overall with a fourteen-foot flat bottom, it could hold close to two tons of fish – in addition to its two-man crew – without swamping. And they could be nested on a vessel’s deck so that several took no more space than one. It answered all of the requirements of the Gloucester trawlers and, after word got out, it was adopted by all of the world’s deep sea fishing fleets.
Up to the time of the invention of this type of rowboat, bank fishing had been done by hand from the vessel’s deck, but now the dory made it necessary for the crew to leave the vessel in small rowboats to set and haul in the fish.
Most of all the people
The last and most important of this trio is the people who made the others possible.
Youth from foreign countries back then, especially Canada, were attracted to Gloucester by the magnetism of the sea. The Gloucester fishermen became a breed apart. The navigational feats of the captains by dead reckoning were recognized throughout the Seven Seas. The fortitude, stamina and determination of the fishermen will never be excelled.
Some of their deeds are legendary. Without modern equipment such as sonar, radar and radio, the blinding fogs, sudden squalls and the unpredicted gales of the North Atlantic made bank fishing a most hazardous calling. During one five-year period, one hundred men were lost from just dories alone.
These men were extremely superstitious. Misfortune followed the breaking of taboos so often, that the superstitions were implicitly believed and taken for granted. The validity of the dream as an omen of disaster was one of their strongest convictions.
Through the scenes, Clayton strives to show a small picture of this era — forever gone— that typifies the heritage of the sea which is so uniquely Gloucester’s, and how some of these people lived and how some of them died.
Performances start at 7 p.m. Enjoy the show!
Good Morning Gloucester 