JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Last night, I had the extraordinary experience of seeing my characters come to life in a stage reading. Now, as someone who studied and worked as an actress (about 800 years ago) I'm no stranger to stage readings, and I've seen my share of amateur ones in recent years as each of my children has participated in the Maine Young Playwrights Festival. But this one was a first for both the author participants and the Portland Stage Company, our city's professional (Equity) theater.
In conjunction with their latest production,
Arsenic and Old Lace, the PSC decided to have a readings-and-conversation night with five Maine mystery authors. The whole thing was kicked off and masterfully organized by our own Brenda Buchanan.
Amazingly, the crowd turned out. It was almost a full house! Now, the fact the theater put on a wine and beer reception with delicious Otto's pizza might have had something to do with it...
...But I think there were a lot of crime fiction lovers who would have come anyway.
The amazing cast of actors assembled on the stage to read from Brenda's
Quick Pivot,
Straw Man by Gerry Boyle,
The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron,
One Was A Soldier (that's mine) and a suitably scary short story by Chris Holm.
I didn't get any pictures of the performances because I'm too darn polite to whip my phone out in the theater. But it was an impressive array of talent, both from the actors and from my fellow authors. It was interesting - none of the selections we chose (each author could submit up to three pieces for the director to review) were particularly...mysterious. All of them were character studies, with two or more people connecting - or not - for a moment. I swear, the excerpt from
The Poacher's Son could make an excellent one act play with very few changes.
Afterwards, we answered questions from the audience...
...on stage and off.
Fingers crossed, the PSC will be doing this event again. There are so many exceptional crime fiction writers in Maine, wouldn't it be great if all of us could get a turn in the limelight?
Many thanks to the wonderful actors who brought a part of
One Was A Soldier to life: Bess Welden as Anne Ellis,
Elizabeth Freeman as Clare Fergusson,
and Whip Hubley (who managed to convey a man wearing only a towel while still fully dressed) as Russ Van Alstyne.
