A Brief History
In the beginning (Spring 1970), there were two long-time friends who had an invitation to do Shakespeare. Gerry Guarneri and John Livecchi (a former student of mine) had eagerly accepted and decided on Hamlet, and, when they needed someone to look after our poet, I made a third as Protector of the Bard.
That first venue was a pretty primitive, natural bowl in Washington Crossing Park, where some people Gerry knew from a local company had done a musical or two in previous summers. They wanted to expand and diversify their program; no better diversifier than Mr. W. S. himself.
We rehearsed in an elderly building on East State Street in Trenton that housed The Trenton Conservatory of Music, owned, fortunately for us, by Gerry’s aunt, Miss Isabel Kaminski. Those late summer nights were hot, hot; no a/c in that old place.
John Livecchi portrayed a Hamlet of deep thought, troubled by the burden laid upon him by his father’s Ghost. The August weather cooperated; we drew an audience. Management was pleased and we were in business.
What we learned in years two and three (Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, respectively)was that there was a fairly sizable number of folks who wanted the opportunity to play Shakespeare and lots of audiences to hear our work. And so each year we grew, adding actors, staff and costumes.
For year four, I chose Macbeth and the company gained two of its best-ever talents, when John Anastasio, just out of the US Air Force, and Sue Tapper, just out of Rutgers, joined up. Sue was an energetic Witch, and John a noble Macduff. John will forgive me if I recall the moment when the cue, “Here comes the noble Macduff,” failed to produce an entrance. An embarrassing pause (as only live theater can effect) ended when the Stage Manager rousted him from a dressing room Hearts game. No Big Brother in those ancient days.
In the Spring of 1974, I met Tom Moffit in my Shakespeare class and signed him up to play Lucio in Measure for Measure. Over time, Tom played in almost everything we did and became our principal comedian, our Will Kempe. His Lucio was so well crafted that I often speculated that Shakespeare knew Tom was one day going to play him. He did Bottom and Dogberry, Grumio and Falstaff, and, when we moved forward to other classical masterpieces, he was Dr. Rank, Mr. Hardcastle, Sir Peter Teazle and Pinchwife. After an accident left him sightless, he returned to us to play Old Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, who, of course is blind. He was superb. A debilitating illness has kept him from the stage of late, but all of us treasure his work with the company.
So, here we have a brief look at our first five years, and we’ve just begun. There just might be more to come in due course. Meanwhile, we move forward with The Antipodes at TCNJ in March, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona in May at Kelsey, as we begin our second Fifty Years.