73 Seconds

 

Fifty-five years ago, I co-founded a children’s theater in Mason, New Hampshire, Andy’s Summer Playhouse.  Children performed for audiences of all ages.

https://www.andyssummerplayhouse.org/mission-history

Andy’s welcomed all comers. From the beginning, young people and adult artists played and created side by side. Andy’s was never founded to be a training program or a conservatory for the young. Nonetheless, early on, there were alumni inspired to play and explore their artistic potential beyond their rural New Hampshire roots.

 

A few days ago, I had the joyful opportunity to see a workshop presentation of a solo show conceived, written, and performed by a former Andy’s “kid”, Jared Mezzocchi. “Kid” is an excellent descriptor for Jared; an inquisitive, playful, imaginative, and inventive nature that has evolved into a distinguished career as a theater artist. His exploration as a theater artist has taken many forms: performer, director, multimedia designer, educator, and artistic director.  You can learn all about his many accomplishments in new and interesting ways to tell a story here: https://www.jaredmezzocchi.com/about

Beginning as a boy of eleven, Jared spent every summer at Andy’s until he was eighteen, acting in one show while working behind the scenes on any show possible, absorbing what adult theater professionals generously demonstrated. 

 

It can be safely said the kid never left Andy’s. Indeed, not too long after college, Jared returned to Andy’s to work as a staff member.  A few summers later, he took over as Andy’s next artistic director. He found inventive ways to keep Andy’s alive online during the pandemic. He’s increased the number of children participating in Andy’s each summer to over a hundred, while restoring the tuition-free access that was a hallmark of Andy’s origin.

 

This summer, Jared has moved on to devote more to his own theater making, while still keeping a hand in as Executive Producer of the Playhouse.  

 

Watching Jared’s workshop piece (destined, I predict, for great success), I found myself engaged with it on several levels.  73 Seconds weaves personal loss, past and present, the Challenger Space Shuttle, and memories of Jared’s past.

At a talk back after the show, the question was raised, “What would you say the show is about?”  Aya Ogawa, the show’s director, answered “Grief”.  

 

The tension and revelation that Jared’s narrative builds certainly justify that assessment.  But there is something else going on as well.  I found myself immersed in not only what the story was, but also how it was being told. From the outset, the storytelling space is filled with pieces of analog technology from the 1980s when the Challenger disaster occurred. There is tension, mystery, as to why various objects

populate the playing space and when they will be utilized. 

For me, 73 Seconds could just as easily be characterized as about time.  Or timing.  

 

It was coincidence that brought me to the performance. My home is in the Catskills. A half hour away is the Catskill Art Space. In the late spring, I discovered that Jared would be doing a one-week residency at CAS in collaboration with En Garde Arts, based in New York City.  Here was Jared, with performing credits from all over the place, appearing almost in my backyard.

 

Jared’s performance prompted my own thoughts on the Challenger, including an essay I’d written at the time. I mused on Andy’s past, present, and future. And grief.

 

We got to talk a bit both before and after the show.  Andy’s final show of the summer was having its last performance on the same evening.  Not too long before he went on, Jared had gotten a call that the well at Andy’s had run dry.  The water well, certainly not the creative well.  Not a problem an executive producer in the rural Catskills about to perform his show could solve, no matter how talented he may be. Still, no surprise that people in New Hampshire might think that Jared could fix the problem.  Among those at dehydrated Andy’s that evening was my co-founder, Peg Sawyer. Peg does a good job of keeping tabs on her legacy.  That evening’s show, an original musical about three Greek goddesses, is titled Fated. Fated, a good title for us all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

Resurrecting Piano - Beaverkill Church

 The Beaverkill Community Church (formerly the Beaverkill Methodist Church) holds services regularly during the summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  A week ago, my granddaughters Willa and Julia attended for the first time at a Children’s Service.  While there, they learned (or more accurately, their mother learned) that the following Sunday, both the regular piano player and the substitute would be unavailable.  Did anyone know someone who might be able to cover the following Sunday?  Elizabeth suggested me. Mind you, I have not touched a keyboard in years; years that have been less kind to my touch with the development of Parkinson’s.  Folks at the church welcomed anyone who could plunk a few notes, maybe play the melody line, strike a chord for acapella renditions.

 

Encouraged by Elizabeth, I agreed to give it a try, all the while wondering whether coming out of musical retirement with the addition of an infirmity was a wise idea. By midweek, I was in possession of a Methodist hymnal with the SIX selections for the upcoming week’s service duly noted.  First on the docket was Number 127, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” If you’re curious, you can find it here:  https://hymnary.org/hymn/UMH/127#:~:text=1.,will%20ever%20give%20to%20thee.

Notes at the bottom of the hymn told me the words were written by William Williams in 1745.  A sign from above?

 

Practice didn’t make perfect, far from it. Like a third-string quarterback hoping to hold things together, I got through the game. True, no cornerbacks were blitzing

the keyboard. Just geriatric hands working hard not to fumble.  The pastor, music director, choir, and congregation were generous, fine examples of Christian charity all. Did Jehovah guide me?  I’ll settle for thinking the day ended on a high note. Hugs from granddaughters will do that for a fellow. 

       

Auf Wiedersehen, Elon

 

5/31/25

 

I spent time yesterday in the studio at WJFF 90.5 FM, the radio station where I host a monthly half-hour broadcast and a longer podcast about addiction issues, The Kingfisher Project – Information Against Addiction.  https://wjffradio.org/thekingfisherproject/.  WJFF is an NPR station, now threatened by cuts in funding from the Trump administration.  The president has issued an executive order that would strip federal funding from CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), totaling $545 million for fiscal year 2025. Those funds are distributed to local public radio and television stations, with a focus on community service and content development. CPB is the largest single source of funding for many public media stations, supporting local and national programming. WJFF is one of the multitude of stations so affected. The concern at the station is palpable. It has filtered down to this producer/host, causing me to contemplate an interruption, or worse, an end to the message I help bring to a listening area that includes Sullivan County. Sullivan County recently had the highest per capita overdose fatality rate of every county in New York State, New York City included. There is a need for the Kingfisher Project’s message, as there is for the many other public service messages the station provides.

 

I recorded an interview with the Board Chair and the Executive Director of an organization called Community In Crisis.  www.communityincrisis.org.  CIC’s mission is to “combat substance use disorder through youth and family education and recovery support, building a healthier, more connected community.”  Begun in 2014, CIC has grown to become a model of what a grassroots organization can achieve.  In 2024, they were honored with the prestigious White House Blue Ribbon Award for excellence in youth prevention education. They, too, receive federal funding.  They, too, are holding their breath over continued funding.  

 

While discussing the many good things CIC does, I heard the story of a young man in their community who had recently been saved from overdose by naloxone, the lifesaving overdose reversal drug, also known as Narcan.  Saved, referred, placed in treatment, and hopefully beginning his journey to recovery.  Absent education, prevention, harm reduction, and peer recovery support, to name a few services CIC provides, this young man would be but a statistic. Another cut the Trump administration has proposed is a $56 million grant that teaches first responders how to use naloxone. The recent significant drop in overdose deaths can be attributed in part to naloxone. With approximately 90,000 overdose fatalities still lost annually in the U.S., now hardly seems like an appropriate time to cut naloxone funding. Quite the opposite would cut into that 90,000 figure even more.

 

I had not left the studio when I came across the news report of Elon Musk’s drug use. I was not surprised.  The symbiotic derangement Musk shares with our president – financial gluttony, manipulating the law, evading the law, compulsive lying, and distortion of fact - are all of a piece we’re all too familiar with in a Trump administration. The drug issue simply gilds the lily on the malignancy we know as the Trump presidency.

 

Nor was this the first report I’d heard of drug use among Trump aides and advisors. Easy access to Xanax and Provigil to help staffers work under stressful conditions has reportedly been the norm. Who knows what we don’t know?  The Musk news led me to think about drug use in Hitler’s Germany.

 

Norman Ohler’s book, Blitzed – Drugs in the Third Reich, could be a cautionary manual for a wannabe authoritarian regime. Methamphetamines for the military. Methamphetamine chocolates for housewives. Thanks to advertising (Think Purdue Pharma), meth to help spark the entire population’s productivity. Development of Eukodol – an early version of oxycodone. Hitler’s right-hand man, Goering, was morphine dependent, if not morphine addicted. Hitler himself, ever more reliant upon a quack doctor, Theodore Morell. The parallels ought to be instructive. Trump could do himself a favor and read it. Given his notoriously scant engagement with the printed word, perhaps he could find the time to view this documentary based on Ohler’s book. You can too. Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DtR-CNZN44&t=732s