Between July 6 and August 1, Middlebury theater students took center stage in a venue far removed from the hills of rural Vermont, setting up house off-Broadway at New York City’s Potomac Theatre Project (PTP).
Jim Patosa of Boston University, and the College’s own Cheryl Faraone and Richard Romagnoli founded PTP in 1987. The company has returned to professional theatre every summer, first to a D.C. suburb and since 2007 to New York City’s Atlantic Stage. Students selected by audition work in conjunction with actors accredited by the widely recognized Actors Equity Association. Since the program’s inception, over 150 Middlebury students have gone through PTP.
Now in its 24th season, PTP staged Snoo Wilson’s “Lovesong of the Electric Bear” as well as a compilation of two works by playwright Howard Barker, “Plevna: Meditations on Hatred” and “Gary the Thief” and a last piece, David Rabe’s “Question of Mercy”.
While the latter two plays are unfamiliar to the College, “Lovesong of the Electric Bear” was first staged as a winter term production examining the life of Alan Turing, best known for cracking the Enigma code in 1942 and by many accounts winning World War II for the Allies. Less known is his homosexuality, which led to his persecution by the British government, and eventual suicide.
Many of the cast went on to participate in PTP. Among these is Lilli Stein ’11. Originally cast as Turing’s teddy bear-turned-muse — simply called the Bear — she traded in her part to Equity actor Tara Giordano, taking on a plethora of smaller roles.
“Watching a professional actor do my part — someone who was similar to me (both short, impish) and at the same time very different (a lot more benevolent and sincere) was very interesting,” Stein said. “[Giordano] brought out the devil/angel sides to the Bear. I’d love to play the role again having seen her.”
Stein is not alone in highlighting the exceptional experience of working side by side with professionals. Co-founder and current Producing Director Professor of Theatre and Women’s and Gender Studies Faraone, considers this aspect a particular strength.
“It’s not a conventional student/teacher relationship,” she said. “If anything it is like the apprenticeships of old times, learning a trade.”
Perhaps even more importantly, the experience imbues aspiring actors with the confidence to pursue a somewhat illusive profession. Alex Crammer ’99 has appeared both on screen and stage, in such household names as 30 Rock and CSI – and as a student, with PTP. He credits the program with his early acting success.
“I finished Middlebury, did a season of PTP, right after that was hired to do a season with the National Players,” he said. “I was basically employed for 12 months as an actor because of PTP. That is unparalleled.”
Crammer returned to PTP this season and his experience is not atypical. Of the eight Equity actors participating this year, six are Middlebury alumni. They provide insight into the craft, and invaluable connections to the greater theatre world.
“Both Alex Draper and Alex Crammer brought agents in,” Faraone said. “People can spend years in New York and not get any access to an agent that way. Our students are working with people who have the ability to give them this gift at no cost, rather than spending $500 to be one in fifty at a casting director’s class. For every season I can point to two or three people who got their next — first — job directly from the PTP experience.”
It’s very much a family affair, and both Crammer and Faraone went on to describe a strange phenomenon eating its way through the Big Apple — the Middlebury Mafia, a close-knit alumni network surprising the theatre world with its verve and talent.
Not only a springboard to a career in theatre, PTP is also a valuable confidence booster. “The way the actors behave backstage — they’re human like us, we miss entrances, they miss entrances, they worry about an audience not laughing enough or forget makeup or part of a costume,” Stein said. “On the outside it’s such a dream world, but you get there and there are so many actors doing it and being successful. The opportunity actually feels closer.”
For a month, participants lived the life — and more often than not found that they liked it. Better yet, they could do it.
“When I went I was worried I wouldn’t like NY, that it would be too big or too hard, and I’d decide this wasn’t the life for me,” student actor Willy McKay ’11 said. “It is an incredibly competitive business, no one would say its not, but you meet people who do it for a living and you see that they’re not any different from us and they’re happy. I’m not- going to be starving in the street. You can have fun with a play even if it’s in a professional setting and the New York Times is there. It absolutely reaffirmed that this is the most fun anyone could ever have.”
PTP offers students slice of Big Apple, onstage and off
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