Category: Art

A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES

OF HISTORICAL CHARACTERS FROM GLOUCESTER 1600 – 1900

Friday

June 4th 8pm

The research and scriptwriting process was funded in part through a grant fromThe Gloucester School Connection.

The production was funded in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council administered through the Gloucester Cultural Council.

Special thanks also to Stephanie Buck and Courtney Richardson of the Cape Ann Museum for their assistance in research and dialogue.

The Beauport Anthology features nine local professional and community actors performing dramatic monologues of 16 characters from Gloucester’s history .

Cast of characters in order of appearance followed by (actor’s names) is as follows:

John James Babson (Gordon Baird) – Wrote the first history of Gloucester (1860) – Narrator : History of the Town of Gloucester ©1860

Masconomet, Sachem of Agawam (Jim Buhrendorf)

Captain John Smith (Duncan Nelson) New World explorer – Voyages 1605

Lord Sheffield (1623) (David Adams) – granting of Cape Ann Charter

Abigail Sommes (1692) (Nora Messier) Gloucester woman accused of witchcraft

Thomasine (Tammy) Younger – (Tina Greel) A wily Dogtown character

Easter Carter (Talia Brown) – one of the last Dogtown denizens

Rev. John & Judith Sargent Murray  (Jay DiPrima/Nora Messier)        Founders of the first Unitarian Universalist Churches in the US.

Peg Wesson (Tina Greel) Left Dogtown to tend tavern bar – “witch tale”

Fitz Henry Lane (Jay DiPrima)- renowned painter & lithographer

Samuel Sawyer (David Adams) – philanthropist & Gloucester benefactor

General Benjamin Butler (Bradley Royds) – Civil War soldier, lawyer, entrepreneur, served as Massachusetts Congressman, Senator & Governor.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (Talia Brown) – writer, poet, prohibitionist, women’s rights advocate

Captain Eldridge (Gordon Baird) – sea captain, nautical chart expert (Recounts Kipling’s Captain’s Courageous 3 day visit to Gloucester)

Mason Walton (David Adams) – Hermit of Ravenswood

Howard Blackburn (Duncan Nelson) – “Fearless Fisherman,” Lone Voyager, philanthropist, builder/owner of Blackburn Tavern (now Halibut Point)

Song – Sea Serpent – a metaphor of fear vs. mystery & hope for Gloucester

Adapted and arranged by (Bradley Royds) from the children’s book – The Serpent Came To Gloucester, by M.T. Anderson © 2005.

Special thanks to Linda Stockman for costume design and construction!

BEAUPORT CAST BIOS (in order of appearance)

Gordon Baird (Babson/Captain Eldridge) was the co-founder and 25 year publisher of Billboard’s Musician Magazine.  He founded the West End Theater of Gloucester, the Gloucester Kids’ Theater Club and the cable TV comedy show Gloucester Chicken Shack. He is an Equity actor, singer and currently plays in the rock band, The Tide. A native New Yorker and an everyday sailor, Gordon writes a humor column for the Gloucester Times and lives on a seaside farm with three kids, a patient wife, an old tractor, 3 goats, 17 chickens and a very personable pig.

James Buhrendorf (Masconomet) grew up in a 1950s rural trailer park and a Levittown-style Cape Cod tract house, in a green Connecticut Valley town where he was allowed to drive tractors as a young farmhand. After 30 years in corporate public relations and publicity, he is now discovering he can sing, play and perform — everything from heartfelt alternative roots songs, Sufi-inspired instrumental compositions, and compelling stories drawn from personal and collective history.

Duncan Nelson (Captain Smith/Howard Blackburn) is an English Professor at UMass/Boston. Theater-wise this guy’s been tossed in a range of roles, from Malvolio to Poo-Bah, Carnes in O-klahoma, and Doc  West Side Story. Having reached his eightieth year he’s praying his crowning glory will be – to have learned, and been turned into, King Lear!

David Adams (Lord Sheffield/Sam Sawyer/Mason Walton) is a self employed arborist of Cape Ann.  He has been acting and dancing for more than 25 years.  His last role was as Antonio in Merchant of Venice

Nora Messier (Abigail Sommes/Judith Sargent Murray) has worked both on and off stage in various theatres including Gloucester Stage Company, the Boston Actors Theatre, The Firehouse in Newburyport, The West End Theatre, History Alive!, and the Boston Playwrights Theatre.  Some of her favorite roles she has enjoyed delving into are Jo March (Little Women), Lizzie Morden (Our Country’s Good), and Antonio (Twelfth Night).  Outside of the theatre she sings in a choir, dabbles on the piano, listens to her husband’s band practices, and is the residence director of a group home for adults with developmental disabilities.

Tina Greel (Thomasine Younger/Peg Wesson) grew up on the head of the harbor. She has been an actress, a visual artist and follower of the muse for many years in Gloucester. She has had minor roles in several area films and is the lead actress in the current Gorton’s commercial.

Talia Brown (Easter Carter/Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward) is a performing artist in the Boston area. Most recently she has enjoyed storytelling for children’s shows at Symphony Hall, Boston Children’s Museum and many of New England’s public schools. Talia currently teaches Theatre at O’Maley Middle School in Gloucester, MA.

Jay DiPrima (Rev. John Murray/Fitz Henry Lane) playwright and life long educator, Jay currently teaches performing arts and directs shows at O’Maley Middle School. Dr. DiPrima also teaches graduate courses in drama and education for Fitchburg State and Endicott College. One of his passions is to bring “history to life” through dramatization. Other historical dramas and monodramas that he has written include: Henry David Thoreau: Lyceum Lecturer, Mohandas Gandhi: His Majesty’s Hotel and Paul, the Aged (Apostle Paul). As an actor, he toured with the Guild Players for many years bringing historical figures and literary adaptations to school children throughout New England. Jay is most grateful to the Gloucester School Connection, the Gloucester Cultural Council and this remarkable cast for bringing these characters to life.

Bradley Royds (Benjamin F. Butler/musician) is a composer, performer, producer, sound designer and recording artist. Currently, his songs and sounds can be heard in television shows, commercials, theater, video games, and on the radio, Cd’s and the internet. He has a lifetime of accomplishment and professional experience in both the art and business of entertainment. Bradley has appeared as a guitarist in Stoneham Theater’s production of Tommy, and The New Rep’s Scapin. As General Benjamin Butler he draws on his Southern roots and Northern sensibilities. Bradley would like to thank Jay DiPrima and the entire cast!