For her first act on stage, Christine Williamson performed in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a fourth-grader at Enfield Village School.
For her latest act, she will enter playwright Maura Campbell’s nightmare on Sunday night.
Williamson, now 35, is taking on the task of portraying a girl less than half her age who tries to connect with three other young survivors of an unspecified apocalypse, in a staged reading of Campbell’s Desert Bloom, or the Boy and the Watermelons, at Randolph’s Chandler Center for the Arts.
“It’s very poetic,” Williamson, a 1998 graduate of Kimball Union Academy now living in Orford, said this week. “The rhythm of the language is integral to the structure of the show. It’s more of a collage than a linear story. I find work like that interesting. It adds a lot of challenge.”
Giving a platform to challenging material is the prime directive of the Chandler Center’s annual playwriting contest, from which judges pick three works exploring social issues for staged readings. Desert Bloom completes this year’s cycle, following Quechee writer/actor Mike Backman’s Sunset, a coming-of-age story built around a young gay man’s Mormon mission, and Roxbury, Vt., playwright Jeanne Beckwith’s Shot in Baghdad, about a young Iraqi-American actor encountering more than he bargained for while performing in a film about a tragic event in Iraq’s capital city.
For Campbell, a 1974 graduate of Bethel’s Whitcomb High School and former Randolph resident who started writing plays in the early 1990s, the impetus to write Desert Bloom came unbidden, during her pursuit of a master’s degree in fine arts at Hollins University in Virginia several years ago. While looking on the internet, she clicked on a photo and saw the face of a child pulled dead from the rubble of a building in one of the many current war zones.
“I just froze there and looked at that picture, and I saved it,” Campbell recalled this week in a telephone interview from her winter home in Florida. “I knew that I needed to say something about that.”
How and where and when to say something took a while to work out.
“When you write a play, sometimes it goes into a drawer and just sits there,” Campbell said. “It’s like a child you haven’t sent to school.”
As draft followed draft, a parable emerged in which three boys guard an abandoned ruin in an unnamed wasteland, telling tall tales to distract themselves from boredom and hunger. Later a girl appears, bearing food and news. Then they hear the voice of a girl deep in the rubble of the ruin, and struggle to decide whether to expend time and energy to rescue her.
“It’s a little Lord of the Flies with some Waiting for Godot,” Campbell said. “There’s an absurdist quality. They’re waiting for something to happen.”
After Campbell entered Desert Bloom in the Chandler’s third annual Issues Playwriting contest last fall, and it emerged from the pack, she started looking forward to returning to the theater that staged several of her plays in the main music hall during the years she and her husband were raising their children in Randolph, and where she started the center’s annual fundraising talent show. Campbell continued writing after the family moved to Florida in 2000, while continuing to spend summers in the Burlington area. She also began writing screenplays and serving as a mentor to aspiring playwrights.
“Without the people at the Chandler, none of this would have happened,” Campbell said. “They’ve created this wonderful space for new plays. The community is incredibly supportive.
“It’s home!”
Williamson, who has performed in the Christmas Revels in Hanover and with the Parish Players and the Old Church Theater troupe in Bradford, Vt., is looking forward to her first Chandler experience — and to going back in time.
“Being an actor is being able to bring childhood imagination and play into adulthood,” said Williamson, a videographer/editor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. “This is actually a treat, to be given permission to be playful and energetic and useful.”
The Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph wraps its annual Issues Playwriting series on Sunday night with a staged reading of Maura Campbell’s
The Americana band Out on a Limb, the No Strings Marionette Company, fire-spinner Aaron Hoopes, and the Raq On Dance and Catamount Morris troupes perform during Open Fields School’s annual Medieval Festival at the Thetford Green on Thetford Hill on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Other performers include Christine Williamson reciting a Shakespearean sonnet, story-telling by The Tree in Me, a maypole dance and a Mummers-style adaptation of the fable of St. George and the Dragon by Open Fields students. There also will be demonstrations of traditional arts and opportunities to try felting, milling, weaving, calligraphy, candle-making and beading, and kids’ activities such as a horse course, a hedge maze and swordplay. For tickets ($7 for ages 5 and older), visit VTMedFest.com.
The West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts celebrates the retirement of Episcopal minister Marthe Dyner on Saturday afternoon at 3, with performances of classical, jazz and modern music at Union Episcopal Church in Claremont. Featured performers at the show, doors for which open at 2:30, include soprano Angela Biggs, organist Peter Walker, flutist Melissa Richmond, pianist Chris Cheon, the Claremont Community Jazz Band, and student musicians. Admission is by donation to the center’s community and youth programs. For more information, visit mcc-ma.org or email melissa@wcc-ma.org.
The Sky Blue Boys and Catamount Crossing headline a night of bluegrass music at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction on Sunday night at 7. Sky Blue’s Dan and Willy Lindner, brothers who cofounded Banjo Dan and the Mid-night Plowboys, mix their own compositions with traditional songs and tunes, shuttling among a stage full of stringed instruments. Singer-banjo player Bob Amos leads Catamount Crossing, for which Amos’ daughter Sarah will sing. Tickets ($18) are available online at yellowhousemedia.com and at the door. For more information, call 802-369-6687.
As a benefit for COVER Home Repair, banjo master Bela Fleck and the Flecktones perform at Lebanon Opera House on June 5 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets ($47 to $84) and more information, visit lebanonoperahouse.org, call 603-448-0400 or drop by the box office in Lebanon City Hall.
The Springfield (Vt.) Community Players open their season this weekend by performing Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s The Aliens at the Players Studio in downtown Springfield. Starting Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30, and continuing the nights of June 3 and 4, the play follows young people exploring issues of friendship, art, love and death at a coffeehouse in the fictional town of Shirley, Vt. To reserve tickets ($12 to $15) and learn more, visit springfieldcommunityplayers.org or call 802-885-4098.
The Parish Players continue their run of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with performances at 7 tonight, Friday and Saturday nights and at 2 on Sunday afternoon, at the Eclipse Grange theater on Thetford Hill. The production, starring Upper Valley veteran actors Mike Backman and Kay Morton as Willy and Linda Loman, runs through June 5. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344.
The Repertory Theatre Company is scheduling auditions for singers, actors and dancers interested in performing in its production of the 1950s teen-themed musical Grease at Claremont Opera House, set for the first week of August. To schedule a day and time to audition, call 603-542-0064.
Revels North is inviting aspiring singers, actors and dancers of all ages to audition for the 2016 Christmas Revels, “A French Canadian Celebration of the Winter Solstice.” Auditions for children and teens interested in acting and singing in the chorus, are scheduled for Tuesday afternoon from 4 to 7 at Tracy Hall in Norwich. Auditions for dancers and chorus singers of all ages are planned for June 11, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The cast participation fee is $75 per performer; anyone who cannot afford the fee can ask about dispensation by emailing info@revelsnorth.org. To make an appointment to audition at either or both sessions, visit revelsnorth.org/christmas-revels/auditions.
Under guest conductor Filippo Ciabatti, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra performs Sibelius’ Romance for Strings Opus 42, the overture to Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on Saturday night at 8, at the college’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover. The singers of the college’s Handel Society and Glee Club join the orchestra for the Beethoven finale. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422. Before the concert, Ciabatti will lead an admission-free discussion of the works at 7, in Faulkner Recital Hall at the Hopkins Center.
The Dartmouth College Dance Ensemble performs its spring show, choreographed to music of Philip Glass, alt-J, Aphex Twin, Tyondai Braxton and the Polish electro-acoustic composer Jacaszek, at 8 on Friday and Saturday nights at the Hopkins Center’s Moore Theater. For tickets ($10) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Billy Rosen plays guitar at the Canoe Club in Hanover tonight at 6:30. Following him to the microphone with 6:30 to 9:30 shows over the coming week are pianist Randall Mullen on Friday, guitarist Rowley Hazard on Saturday, pianist Bob Lucier on Sunday, guitarist Ted Mortimer on Tuesday and pianist Jonathan Kaplan on Wednesday. On Monday night starting at 5:30, Marko the Magician performs his weekly, tableside sleight-of-hand.
Singer-songwriter Erik Boedtker pulls into Windsor Station tonight from 7 to 10. Next up over the coming week are The Pilgrims with a set of rock on Friday night at 9:30, Riddim Vigil with a session of reggae on Saturday night at 9:30 and RoadTrash Band singer-guitarist Dan Blaise on Tuesday night at 6.
Bluesman Arthur James plays at Bentley’s restaurant in Woodstock tonight at 8.
The Occasional Jug Band performs at Jesse’s restaurant in Hanover on Friday night starting at 5.
Americana singer-songwriter-guitarist Davey O. performs during the weekly Sunapee Community Coffeehouse at the Sunapee Methodist Church on Friday night at 7. While admission is free, donations for the performer are welcome. For more information about the series, visit sunapeecoffeehouse.org.
The Friday night line-up at the Upper Valley’s Salt hill Pubs features the Jordan Tirrel Wysocki duo with an Irish-infused set of rock in Lebanon and Fujita Five frontman Tod Moses with an acoustic session in Hanover. On Saturday, the choices are Club Soda in Newport, Carlos Ocasio and Old Soul in Hanover and Bobby & the G-Men with a set of rock, funk, soul and R&B in Lebanon. All shows start at 8.
Beyoux sets cajun and zydeco rhythms for dancing at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night starting at 8.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights starting at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
The Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon runs an open mic on Tuesday nights, beginning at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday nights.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.