The actors and direction were more worthy of an Equity company than community theater… My compliments.

This is part of a letter one of our audience members wrote after attending a performance of our last production, GHOSTS. These are the standards to which ABET aspires and this type of comment is not unusual as we continue to keep the quality high on our small stage.

Don’t miss our upcoming production, HOME GAMES by Tom Ziegler, directed by Rebecca Williams. The American Stage Co. and the Hudson Guild Theatre both had hits with this romantic comedy.

HOME GAMES | Mertle Mae Tucker supports herself, her dad, a canary and a blind cat working as a truck dispatcher. Dad was once a Yankee - he spent the 1955 season on the bench and then retired rather than be traded to Cleveland. He lives in a demented twilight zone, walking around in his uniform and talking to the audience as he would to Casey Stengel. When Mertle Mae takes a night school class, she meets and falls in love with a successful young executive. He loves Mertle Mae but is not so sure about taking on dear old dad. He finds an old-folks home in Cleveland, but Mertle Mae can’t bring herself to put him there even though she knows Frank is her big chance in life. Dad, more aware than the lovers realize, informs Casey that he will allow himself to be traded to Cleveland after all.

GET INVOLVED | ABET is always interested in new volunteers, at the moment, especially anyone interested in helping with set construction. If you would like to get involved, please email us at: celiaabet@gmail.com or call 249-7177. We would love to welcome you to our warm, fun group.

DONATE | We would like to thank the Reinhardts for their generous donation which made them our very first “lifetime members.” Hopefully, others will consider joining them in helping us continue to bring quality theatre to our audiences.

Henrik Ibsen finished the script of Ghosts in 1881. The original script was penned in Danish, and Ibsen’s title for the piece was Gengangere, which literally translated means, the ‘again walkers’. The play was then translated into English by William Archer, who, chose the title Ghosts. The play received its world premiere in Chicago in 1882, and has since been engulfed in a sea of negative publicity, mainly due to the subject matter. The play, Ghosts, is approaching its one hundred and thirtieth birthday, and still engages social questions that remain relevant today: alcoholism, sexual disease, and infidelity.

This particular version, translated by Lanford Wilson, pushes the envelope even further, drawing special attention to the transgressions of each character, not one or two. The action of this play sends the characters through multiple journeys, which force all of them to change and adapt. It is within this growth that the ghosts of past generations are unknowingly awakened and the ghosts of future generations are unwillingly created.

I’m often asked where the songs and ideas came from for the show Aussie Song. While the inspiration to write this musical seemed to come in a hypnotic rush in 2005, in retrospect, it was clearly the result of a slow-growing, subconcious assemblage of childhood memories and family tales passed through the ages. The stories my mother told me of her growing-up years in Australia led me to revere my happy-go-lucky grandfather, Frank Trager as a hero, and to perceive her immigration to America as a grand adventure.

Raymond Key and Teddy Trager on their wedding day | Perth, Australia | 1943

Once the vision of a stage show came to me, I was truly swept along by the magic and the mystery of their lives and that segment of history, and within just six weeks I’d structured the script and most of the songs. Numerous edits have occurred of course - the most recent under the tutelege of Caryl Butterley, our director - in an effort to condense a lifetime of information into a manageable and understandable presentation.

To think that many of my family members who are portrayed in this story will be able to witness my rendition of their lives is both a joy and a responsibility. I hope I have captured the essence of their experiences - the charm, difficulties, heartaches, humor and joys - somewhat adequately. I hope audiences will feel a connection with the characters, who made their life journey in a different time under very different circumstances, but in the big picture, a journey perhaps not so different from our own.

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Most of all, I hope that those who see the show will be touched by the legacy of music, love, wisdom and forgiveness that these characters have passed along to so many others. For what is Life but a collection of memories that bring us to dwell in the ever-new, yet ever-changing, “eternal now”? Aussie Song is for me the revealing of my own personal collection of such memories, and in that sense, the revealing of the forces that have shaped my life. My deepest thanks to all those who have teamed together to help me share “the song that opened the door to a magical place in my heart….”
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The case of Lizzie Borden had always fascinated me. Many years before this play, I’d read a book about the ax murders of her father and step-mother and had also seen the made-for-television movie.

How could a person commit such a grisly crime, much less a woman? What sort of inner rage sparked such a release? Then, in the midst of my new readings, a strange thing happened. I ran across the most intriguing fact of all from my point of view - after her acquittal she lived thirty-four more years staying right in her home town, and the scene of the crime, Fall River,  Massachusetts.

At the time of my readings this fact was almost treated as a short, relatively minor postscript to the murders and her acquittal. Although I could understand the salacious appetite for most of those who would read about her was first and foremost  the run-up to and the ghastly murders themselves, for me I had to know about her life after.

So began the research, as many books as I could find that would at least have partial sections of them  about the years that followed for her. The internet also proved an invaluable research tool. What I found was that I had wandered into a Pandora’s Box of utterly fascinating material filled with art theft, lesbianism, a home in the best section of Fall River, unforgiving townspeople, newspapers never letting go of the story - ever, sibling conflict, steel-edged defiance and most of all, the unforgettable and bizarre character of Lizzie herself.

I had to write a play about all of this, about her, about AFTER THE MURDERS.