The tale of the intern

The single known fan of this blog has been complaining about the dearth of postings. Lecturing Elderhostels, designing sets for A Christmas Carol, a trip to Washington, D.C. to see State of the Union at the Fords Theatre and New York to see Plain and Fancy, designing and moving the theatre’s costume shop and rehearsal studio, have taken my time and energy of late. Hopefully, reports of these events and projects can be added to this blog in the upcoming weeks.

The rewards of producing musical theatre often seem outweighed by the risk; but there is a constant stream of alumni refining their careers post Amish Acres—207 actors in Plain and Fancy alone and uncounted artistic and technical staff are spread across the nation, many still attached to the performing arts world, which by the way is very small, while others have used their experience to launch new and unrelated careers.

Margo Brenner was associated with the Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres for seven years before graduating from the University of Michigan with a major in theatre. She served as house manager, props master, kid wrangler, assistant stage manager, and assistant director. Following an accident involving our guest director of The King and I, Margo stepped up from her assistant directorship to assume full responsibility for several scenes under the supervision of artistic director Scott Saegesser. She followed this effort with expanded responsibilities for scenes in West Side Story.

Margo not only performed an ever expanding role with our theatre, but became so smitten with the art form that she wrote her first play, Not Only Time Will Tell, a two-act drama drawing inspiration from the recent Broadway revival of the musical and our earlier production of 1776. The play focused on the marriage and romance of John and Abigal Adams as preserved in their letters. Although her high school drama department is one of the most respected in Indiana, it understandably has little space for a budding playwright within its curriculum. Margo accepted her rejection to organize a reading of her play within the school’s department as a challenge—a prerequisite for becoming an author.

She asked for space and time from us to stage her reading. From this reading performed by her classmates, like all authors, she found reason to revise. After a second revision, she finally convinced her drama teacher to let her produce her work on the school’s workshop stage. Margo’s drama friends were auditioned, cast, costumed, rehearsed and the curtain opened on her world premier with an audience of nearly 100. A standing ovation greeted the curtain call. We published her two-act play on our Website. I tell you this today because tomorrow I will tell you the next chapter of Margo’s journey into the world of performing arts.