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.
