PORTLAND, Maine — Good things are worth waiting for, and that includes the latest work from Pine Plains award-winning author Darrah Cloud, lyricist for the musical “Sabina,” first conceived of in 2012 and now streaming from its debut performance at the nationally recognized Portland Stage Theater in Portland, Maine.
Cloud also happens to be the former town supervisor of her hometown of Pine Plains, a well-known playwright and teacher, a local businesswoman and landlord, and a volunteer who spends her “free time” running a writing workshop.
The musical “Sabina” was adapted from playwright Willy Holtzman’s off-Broadway 1996 production of the same name. It was originally set for 2020 but was delayed by the COVID pandemic.
In it, Cloud, who as town supervisor once helped write town resolutions and laws and gave a voice to those in need of aid, has given a powerful voice to Sabina Spielrein, who herself gave voice to others through her groundbreaking work in psychoanalysis.
The musical centers around a wealthy catatonic Russian woman who was cured by Carl Jung using Sigmund Freud’s then-new technique.
She became Jung’s lover, was known for helping to forge a relationship between the Freud and Jung, and eventually become a therapist herself, pioneering treatment for women before being murdered by a Nazi Death Squad in 1942 at the age of 56.
Fascinating as this real life character is, equally interesting is the way in which Cloud’s words reached the stage.
For years, Cloud’s plays and TV movies have been known for featuring solid roles for women.
“All my writing is to focus on female characters based on getting to New York in 1981 and realizing that there were all these incredible actresses and they had crappy roles or roles that were small or roles that were inaccurate,” she said. “It was horrible… In meeting those actresses I realized there’s a whole 50% of the country not being addressed accurately in the theater.”
So began her quest to provide quality roles for females despite the male-dominated theatrical scene.
While a hard choice, she labeled “The Stick Wife” as her favorite. It “features a woman married to a member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963 and unbeknownst to him, she acts the role of the loving and dutiful housewife while informing on him to the FBI,” said Cloud.
“She’s utmost in my mind because that’s the play that got me really started in the theater. There were a number of ideas in the premise that if you behave a certain way all your life, you do you not end up sort of having to be that.”
Being flexible herself, she answered the call in 2005, when Holtzman’s best friend suggested turning the well-received dramatic play “Sabina” into a musical.
Always working on a play, at that time she was busy with “Makeover” a musical about Estee Lauder. Cloud nevertheless joined Holtzman and the “amazing” composer Louise Beach.
The group would meet at Beach’s house — often weekly, and “just hammered it out —the three of us. We chose what we wanted to include… and kind of got rid of what we couldn’t put into a musical,” with its faster pace and monologues that become songs in the more emotional medium.”
Throughout the process, the work changed “hugely and constantly,” as it evolved from a play about the two men and centered on Sabina.
Delighted to be again working in a “very influential regional theater with a lot of new work that’s gone out into the rest of the nation,” Cloud lauds those responsible for this “dream production.”
That includes the many young performers who had to manage the difficult task of Zoom auditions after having graduated from Yale and Juilliard, with their careers put on hold as COVID darkened theaters.
Of the entire production, Cloud said, “I am so proud,” noting she’s delighted local viewers, including those in her Pine Plains Writing Group, will be able to download tickets to share in the experience.
Tickets for the download are available from Wednesday, May 18, through Sunday, June 5, through www.portlandstage.org.
Maxon Mills in Wassaic hosted a majority of the events of the local Upstate Art Weekend events in the community.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene during the Garden Tour in Amenia.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else. I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and
Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.
