​I've held a script in the early stages of rehearsal, and then I've listened to the memorized words in performance, and I've never grown tired of the Librarian's story.  It is beautifully written and
masterfully acted.  The audiences were also held spellbound as far as I could tell as I sat amongst them. That's about 80 minutes of running time with no break for the actor nor for the audience. The actor carries it, with believable conversational storytelling.

It's a simple set with a large moveable green chalkboard (well-used), and a desk with speaker stand and papers here and there, and a screen off stage right to occasionally illustrate what the Librarian is referring to in the story he tells. The set also allows the actor to move to a different "place" where the owner tells a man with a cross to do his resting somewhere else... Quick change there.

Putnam tells this story with such grace and involvement. Audiences have enough before them to believe the ongoing words, "Still, we'll proceed."  And proceed we do. The story, for me, is clearly a message of how a human being can "move on" and find joy in all kinds of human
challenges.

I guess I should end with a language challenge encountered by those who would write about this show and confuse two words: Being underneath a lentil gives the image of being under an edible brownish seed, before or after it is cooked. The play title deals with being under a lintel, which is a horizontal support across the top of a door. The play program and poster clearly illustrate this image. I am not clear about what would be the image for being under a lentil.
It makes me smile.

BROADWAY UNDER THE STARS and UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL by Barbara Biddison

The BROADWAY event opens for two days only, September 12 & 13, at the Vineyard Church of Wellsboro. About four years ago Kacy Hagan had the idea, and now in 2025 it is going strong, and this year is full of Disney favorites. It's called "a concert and fundraiser" and it has opportunities for everyone. In addition to acting, and singing, and directing and all, volunteers can help with set work, and lighting, and costumes, as well as gathering raffle items and helping with food and drink purchases and initially helping with finding song sponsors. It's really a "something for everybody" HG event.

And then coming up at the end of September/beginning of October is the wonderful UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL in which Thomas Putnam plays the aging Dutch librarian. This show opens Friday September 26 at the Warehouse Theatre. Thomas inhabited this character for the first time about 17
years ago, and he's doing it again now for a run that starts in September. I managed to catch a rehearsal in the Warehouse Theatre last night and followed this one man's life for a fascinating couple of hours.

I'm not quite sure how he does it, but Putnam manages to hold our attention all that time. And sometimes we laugh and sometimes we struggle to take it all in, but always we are paying close attention to the details of the Librarian's journey...........There will be talk-backs after each performance as we follow the Librarian through this "twisty mystery of a tale."

BLOG by Barbara Biddison THE HOBBIT produced by Hamilton-Gibson ProductionsThe performances are over now. Including the one that was added to the final Sunday.  Audiences loved THE HOBBIT, and it was pretty clear that the actors loved being in this show. It is tempting to
praise the acting of specific cast members, but from leading roles such as Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey to Goblins and Elves......all were "right there" in character and movement and costume and presence throughout the show...which, I believe, is a tribute to director Cody Losinger AND a tribute to all the actors who worked to bring this show to life.

I was sitting during the show on the "stage left aisle" when one of those characters crawled up the steps just inches away from me.  He was "real" and I could feel his character's presence. The audience
seating for this show was on both sides of the room going up...up...up. Our theatre space is often "reconfigured" as the director decides how we should see and hear the show, and for this one we could see and hear everything AND we felt like we were in the middle of the whole story.
​Very effective.

The Hobbit was chosen to fit the calendar spot of Wellsboro's Comic Con with Pop's Culture Shoppe this year.  I'm sure that it served that purpose. Our little town was full of both visitors and people who live here. On that Saturday I was at the Gmeiner Art and Culture Center, and we believe that the huge crowd there for the opening of a gallery show was also, in part, spillover from the Comic Con event. 
What a day!!

THE SUN'LL COME OUT......by Barbara Biddison
That's Annie, but "tomorrow" is always worth thinking about as Shakespeare did in "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day" all the way to that "the sun'll come out tomorrow" for our young orphan girl.

As I write, the sun is shining here in Wellsboro, which reminded me that I haven't blogged about the orphan in Annie. I saw the show last Friday in Mansfield's Straughn, and it was a wonderful production. That large auditorium was full. I don't know the size of the audiences for the other four performances, but I'm guessing there was a packed house for each one. A large cast like this and a popular show usually combine to fill the audience seats.

The combination of a diverse cast and a familiar show title gets the audience. This cast has a lotta kids, mostly playing orphans, and many familiar faces as well as new adults never before seen on the HG stage. I counted names on the program, I got 53 I think, and that does not include the production crew of 18. Jessie Thompson directed, Taylor Nickerson (First Position Dance Studio) was Choreographer. Naomi Gehman was Dance Captain and Thomas Putnam was Musical Director. And Sylvia Duterte played the title role of Annie! Oh my! And let us not forget the dog. Annie has to have a dog. This stage dog was extraordinary! Oh, what a well-behaved real dog.

For a show like this we have to remember that the Mansfield stage is available only for the last few rehearsals and for the show itself. So, all of this has been rehearsed in Wellsboro and then transported to Mansfield where everyone must get used to a whole new physical surrounding. In my past acting career with HG, I had that experience once for a musical, and I have great respect for those actors and techies who do so in what seems to be such a smooth transition! 

TO SING AMERICA IN ANOTHER LAND by Barbara Biddison

They flew across the ocean to land in Yorkshire, England, these young singers in the HG Treble Choir. And, of course, they were accompanied by some parents and a few other adults as well as the director, Thomas Putnam. They left on a Wednesday and returned the following Wednesday. All the reports from kids as well as adults revealed their joy in singing for these audiences and their personal growth as they sang in another land. It was clearly an experience with memories to last a lifetime. The reports suggest that they sang everywhere they went---churches, and schools, and museums, and castles and parks, and in the streets. The adults came back with happy memories as well. I'm loving hearing and reading about it everywhere!!!! And, yes, reading about it in joyful detail in our local newspaper.

Less than two weeks after their return to the States they were in concert again in Wellsboro, sharing their songs and their talent with the local folk. The Methodist Church generously provided the space for the Treble Choir amid the added delights as well: The Brothers and the HG Choir Too. I could have sat happily on that church bench for hours more. 

By the way, there is something, a learning experience, that Putnam often has the singers do that I appreciate. He has individual choir singers write in their own words and read aloud a sentence or 2 or 3 that gives the title and composer and perhaps subject matter of the song they are about to sung and we are about to hear. A great idea.

This concert included two groups that did not travel to England----groups that I love to see and hear. HG Choir Too, about 9 or 10 of them, sang a few very appropriate-for-that-age pieces with great enthusiasm and attention to director. And The Brothers who achieved their rightful fame in JOSEPH concluded their bit with YOU RAISE ME UP. Oh yes...

It was a rich and full afternoon, and we are so fortunate to have such music with us.

ONE COUNTRY : MANY VOICES...or MANY VOICES : ONE COUNTRY by Barbara Biddison

The printed program on October 6 would have it both ways.  In any case the TREBLE CHOIR was joined by the younger ones called CHOIR TOO and the older guys who were the brothers in JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT.   All featuring "uniquely American music."  What a wonderfully diverse concert!  I did not want it to be over.  Thomas Putnam has created an extraordinary environment for singing.  For kids singing under the encouraging direction of Laureen Wolgemuth.  And for young adults singing under Thomas's direction. St. Paul's was nearly full with people related to the singers, of course—but I saw a goodly number, like us, who just enjoy hearing all these people sing.

Next spring audiences across the ocean will hear them sing, too!  They will be traveling to Yorkshire, England.  To help fund the trip they are selling poinsettias as the Christmas holidays approach,  (I like to present them as gifts.) And coffee and baked potatoes,  and for anyone who doesn't need any flowers or coffee or potatoes, there's always the opportunity to just contribute and write a check. ​

There are openings in both HG choirs grades 2-8!!  I always remember my own high school  choir experiences when the HG choirs sing and travel and enter foreign countries.  I'm sure their memories will last as long as mine have.  I lived in South Texas so our "foreign travel" was into Mexico and not across any ocean, but I suspect that the feeling is much the same.

Speaking of foreign countries, HG just returned from our annual trip to Ontario, where we experienced three shows in the world-famous Stratford Festival. And in December we travel to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. HG is truly alive at home and abroad! Join us!