Monday, April 2, 2012

Welcome to Theatre in the Pines

Coming Next! 
May 17 - 20, 2012 
Spiran Hall, Rockport, MA
Summer and Smoke
by Tennessee Williams

Tickets available at:
Toad Hall Books, Rockport
The Bookstore, Gloucester
At the Door at Spiran Hall






Enriching the Arts on Cape Ann

 Please join the excitement and keep the fun alive!



       Theatre In The Pines has played a vital role in the artistic and cultural life on Cape Ann for the past 22 years. Under the direction of Nan Webber, the founder and artistic director, productions from the experimental The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Boys Next Door to classics such as As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew to the popular Crimes of the Heart, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Lend Me a Tenor, have informed, delighted, and entertained us. 
       When Nan retired from teaching, she knew that she was not going to be retiring from directing, but would have her own studio. She and Margaret Eddie looked through magazines for ideas about studio spaces and found the pre-fab studio which they ordered from a company that makes the structures for greenhouses. Margaret said they could make it work and it would be fun. They hired someone to excavate the site and bought the lumber for the floor. The studio came with an industrial fan for the summer and heater for the winter. Windows were installed in the back and front that would give good ventilation and close tightly in the winter. They collected rugs from all over and pieces of furniture from flea markets and swap shops. The studio was erected in 1987 and has survived hurricanes, snow storms, and nor’easters.
       Meanwhile, 77 productions later over the last 25 years, we’re still going strong. We are most fortunate in having Margaret Eddie as producer, Frank Wolcott as technical director and set designer, Carol McKenzie as wardrobe mistress, and Randy Dupps and Steve Rask as house managers. The membership of Theatre In The Pines consists of talented, hard working, and dedicated people who donate their time and energy to ensure that the Theatre continues to thrive.
       Theatre in the Pines would like to pay tribute to the entire membership and especially to those members who have been with the troupe for 20 years or more: Barbara Brewer, Frank Wolcott, Susan Barratt Souza, Ben and Sheryl Reed, Mary Rudolph Black, Marjorie Bagley Grace, Rick Doucette, Tony Gentile, and Suellen Wedmore.
       Through the years Theatre in the Pines has given benefit performances for Hospice, North Shore Aids Inc., The Children’s Foundation in Chile, The Clamshell Alliance, and Cancer Research. This year a portion of the proceeds from Lend Me a Tenor will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer in celebration of our director’s fifth anniversary as a cancer survivor.
       Theatre In The Pines is very grateful and thrilled by the overwhelming support shown by the people of Cape Ann.

  Please join the excitement and keep the fun alive! Email: info@theatreinthepines.org

       The following is an excerpt from an article written for the newspaper in the spring of 2000 by Mike Carter, a Theater in the Pines actor:

       With all of the millennium madness now in the past, I recently found myself settling into this fresh new year and as I do each and everyyear around this time: I began to reflect.
        But as I reflected this spring, I realized a very special anniversary in my life. It had been 10 whole years since I first joined a small theater group in Rockport called “Theatre in the Pines.”
       For those of you not from the area, or for you residents just a little behind on your local culture, “Theater in the Pines” is a quality community theater troupe in Rockport that was established in 1987 by a retired teacher from Gloucester.
       And it is 10 years of rehearsing and learning under this wonderful director and teacher that has inspired me to pay tribute to her in some humble way for all that she has done for me personally, as well as for the community as a whole, over the past decade.
       Nan Webber, or “Web,” as she is affectionately known by many of her former drama students at GHS, has personally taught me as much about life’s lessons and values, through the art of theater, than any other single individual ever has. From the very first rehearsal up in that big greenhouse studio in the pines on the top of Squam Hill, I knew that I was part of something special that was going to enrich my life in many ways if only I allowed it to.
       The ensuing 10 years proceeded to bring me some of the best, as well as most difficult, moments of my entire life, and I am grateful today in saying that Nan has not only watched me through these times, but has always been a great director, teacher, and sometimes even a second mother to me.
       And so during this springtime 2000 as I reflect, I can’t help but acknowledge today what an asset Nan Webber has been, not only to me personally, but to so many of her former “cherubs” (that’s her own affectionate name for her former pupils) and to this community as a whole, and I would like to formally recognize Nan and her “Theatre in the Pines” as nothing less than a Cape Ann treasure.
       On a more personal note, I’d like to say: “Thanks Nan for seeing me through the difficult times, for being a tough director and teacher when I needed it most, and thank you always for being a role model and an inspiration to me. No matter what future success I may enjoy in life, or however far I travel, I will always cherish and acknowledge you as a great teacher and friend. It’s been an incredible run, and if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing…”

       

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