FARMINGTON – It’s a story about telling stories, Foothills Arts Director Anne Geller said recently of an original musical to be performed this weekend.
Eleven actors and nearly 30 singers are busily learning lines and rehearsing music in preparation for the production aptly named, “Songs of the Foothills.”
The play, originally conceived by Susan Gardner of Livermore Falls, is roughly based on Bernice Richmond, a deceased Broadway actress who lived in Livermore Falls. When Gardner’s time constraints prevented her from completing the script, Geller recruited Sarah Levensalor, an arts administration major at University of Maine at Farmington, to complete it. Levensalor was also asked to direct the play, a first for her.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” Levensalor said Friday, citing the loss of actors that forced her to take one of the parts herself last week. “I’ve crawled up the ladder and then someone steps on my fingers and I have to go back up again.”
Levensalor started writing and revising the script in January; play rehearsals began about seven weeks ago.
Writing the script wasn’t that difficult, she said.
“I have a knack for listening to people, so creating dialogue was easy,” the lifelong Farmington resident said.
And she is learning a lot from the experience, particularly about communication.
“I’m learning to interact with people in a very stressful situation,” she said. Talking with actors as a director is different from talking to them actor-to-actor, she added.
Many of the songs in the play are the result of a Foothills Arts songwriting class held late last year and led by veteran songwriter Martin Swinger, who also wrote “The Ballad of Bernice Richmond,” the starting point for the show.
Other songs from previous years’ productions were also incorporated and will be sung by the organization’s Continental Harmony Chorus.
Members from the recent songwriting class, ranging in experience from seasoned musicians to home-schooled teenagers, have continued to meet informally to support one another’s endeavors, according to Geller.
“It’s what we always hoped for,” she said of the group of songwriters.
According to Levensalor, the play is a metaphor for the arts organization’s 15-year existence. The river referred to in the production, ostensibly the Androscoggin though never specifically mentioned, is represented by the audience – the community that has supported the arts group for more than a decade, she said. The whole thing is retrospective.
“I bit off a little more than I can chew,” Levensalor admitted about taking on the project. But things are “smoothing out” as the university’s semester draws to a close.
Her biggest hurdle? Convincing younger female cast members they need to wear dresses for the period play, which takes place in the mid-1930s.
For more information on the production or other Foothills Arts programs, people may call 778-0448 or visit www.foothillsarts.org.
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