Love of theater and community bring literature to life

The Readers Theater cast ranges in age from 16 (Nadia Daniels-Moehle) to 87 (Mary Sutherland). Photo by Teddy House

By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor

Josephine Zara left acting as a young adult in New York and never looked back … until she moved to Glen Arbor nine years ago. When she was 12 in Detroit, her grandmother had hired the head of the speech and theater department at Wayne State University to give her speech lessons.

“My grandmother thought I mumbled,” said Zara. Thinking an audience might help, he had her perform monologues such as Mary, Queen of Scots by Max Anderson and Emily’s graveyard scene in Our Town.

Later, she joined the Junior Comedie Francaise while attending a Swiss boarding school, then studied theater at Briarcliff College in New York and the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York City. She even studied with the great Uta Hagen. Soon, however, this stunning redhead felt hemmed in by the rigors of theater life and traded that scene for married life.

Fast forward to 2008, when Zara moved to Glen Arbor and joined the Art Association (GAAA). Though wowed by all the music and art, she noticed something was missing. “I kept telling people I met in the Art Association, ‘you’ve got the Manitou Music Festival, painting and lessons, but you don’t have theater,’” she explained. “And Harriett was going around saying the same thing.”

“Harriet” would be artist and director Harriett Mittelberger, who had moved to this area from Washington, D.C., with husband Ralph two years earlier. Mittelberger knew this area well. Her father, Russell Newell, had kicked off his career at 19 by taking a position as teacher and principal of the Leland school in 1924. Then he moved to the little red schoolhouse in Maple City, where he served as teacher, principal and basketball coach, teaching kids with names still familiar to many of us today, such as Shimek, Anderson and Carlson. Eventually, he moved away to continue his career, and his basketball team won the state championship in 1940. He retired as superintendent in 1972.

Through those years, he always brought his family back to this area for vacation. Mittelberger grew up loving the stage and earned an MFA in directing from George Washington University. She stayed in the D.C. area, taught high school theater for 34 years, worked at a professional theater group and for a childrens’ theater company. When it came time for retirement, she and husband Ralph moved back to the area she loved most.

Artist Celeste Crouch, who will direct the next GAAA readers’ theater production in early June, remembers the dinner party when Mittelberger and Zara first discovered their shared love of theater. As they talked, their excitement to meet others in the community with strong theater ties grew. Finally, they asked one another, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do something with drama here in Glen Arbor?”

In 2011, Mittelberger directed their first play in association with the GAAA, a single one-hour act from a work in progress by local writer Anne-Marie Oomen. That first cast reads like a who’s who in the Glen Arbor arts scene: Celeste Crouch, Beth Bricker, Mike Plessner, Ralph Mittelberger and Becky Thatcher. Six months later, Zara directed the second, with Crouch as assistant director. The troupe has been going strong ever since.

What goes into a readers’ theater production? While Crouch readies the actors for their final production of this season, the directors are finalizing their list of plays for next season. Choosing a play isn’t easy. Copyrighted plays require a hefty fee, which is why community theaters usually present either new, locally written original plays, or older plays already in the public domain. According to Mittelberger, plays must be family-friendly, interesting, pleasing, and perhaps educational. Mysteries and comedies always play well here, she adds, but some new plays can’t be adapted to readers’ theater because they require too much movement or a set. Finally, “we look at the technical difficulties, and whether we can meet them.”

Once the director has decided on her play, she will choose music for the introduction, scene transitions and ending, add sound effect notes into the script, then look for a sound person to load those up in sequence for a smooth performance.

That said, the biggest hurdle for directors is casting. “If you get the cast right,” declared Mittelberger, “you’ll get a great show.” Auditions, which come a week before Wednesday rehearsals begin, are always open: no role is pre-determined. Rehearsals last six weeks. That last week, the troupe performs with lights and sound first, capped off by a dress rehearsal the night before the show opens.

This entire process can take up to a full year—a lot of work, yes, but it is truly a labor of love that goes deeper than the love of performance.

Take, for instance, Crouch’s love of literature. After serving as assistant director for seven plays, she finally got to direct her own production and chose My Man Godfrey in 2015. “That was fun,” she says, “because I did get hold of the son of the writer; and he drove up from Cincinnati and said he’d be happy to come and add a little background to the whole thing, which was so exciting.”

“And then last spring I did Madame La Gimp by Damon Runyan, the New York writer. It was particularly gratifying for me because my father loved Damon Runyan. [Guys and Dolls] was the only book he carried through Europe.” Runyan, who wrote in the ’30s, is. “now considered one of the great American writers,” Crouch said.

There’s the love of teaching, and of learning. Mittelberger taught Zara, Crouch and others to direct. Crouch, ever the educator, has developed impressive speech exercises that the actors enjoy. “With my teaching background,” said Crouch, “it really came easy. Learning is best when it’s fun; and if it can be interactive, it’s better. Even the more seasoned actors enjoy this.”

There’s the joy of expanding one’s talents and abilities. “We get people who have not been in a play since high school,” said Crouch, “and they go from zero to 100 over the period of a couple plays. That’s really the beauty of readers’ theater—not only putting on quality entertaining plays, but having people learning production skills, acting skills and enjoying the experience. We get to entertain community members, and have community members enjoying the experience. It’s a win-win.”

“The thing that I’ve enjoyed the most is watching people who auditioned for us, who had very limited experience blossom and really becom[e] very good actors,” said Zara.

The cast and crew come from all walks of life, from near and as far as Cadillac, and are young and old. In this next performance, which opens the first weekend in June, the ages of the actors will span 71 years.

“I love being a part of this fantastic group,” said Mary Sutherland, 87. “Meeting new interesting and talented people keeps me young and involved in our community.”

Sixteen-year-old Nadia Daniels-Moehle said, “While I am the youngest actor, there is [an] inclusivity and agelessness to the group that is really refreshing. Not only is Reader’s Theatre enjoyable, there is an element of heart within the storytelling that only happens in intimate situations like this. Working with the director, Celeste Crouch and the seasoned Reader’s Theatre actors is a great balance between professionalism and fun.”

Two one-act plays by early 20th century British playwright James Barrie of Peter Pan fame comprise their next performance, slated for the first weekend in June. One, set during World War I in London, is about a Scottish charwoman. This “dear old spinster,” explained Crouch, “feels left out, because her new friends are all bragging about their sons in the war.” So she tells them that a Blackwatch Regiment soldier whose last name she sees in the paper is her son. Inevitably, the charwoman and soldier meet.

The other play, called The Twelve-Pound Look, is considered by some to be the best play to come out of World War I. The title means that “[t]welve [British] pounds is all it will take for a transformation,” the director said. “A woman in 1910 London finds independence in a world where women have only one place—in the home. James Barrie just nails it! t’s just amazing!”

Both plays will be performed at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church in Burdickville, June 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m. Please call the Glen Arbor Art Association at 231-334-6112 to make reservations. Donations are always appreciated.