Lantern Theater gives director DeLaurier a whole new challenge in a pandemic
The Lantern Theater’s newly filmed production of “Molly Sweeney” has been extended to meet audience demand, and is now streaming through February 28.
When he was asked to direct the play, Peter DeLaurier of Malvern eagerly accepted after reading the script.
“I love Brian Friel - he’s a brilliant playwright,” DeLaurier said. “And he’s so grounded in the needs of his characters.
Even for an award-winning director and actor, this role presented entirely new challenges.
“Making quarantine theater is a strange new process,” said DeLaurier. The process meant extreme changes in the usual procedures of theater-making.
The three character play focuses on Molly, a 41-year old Irish woman who’s been blind since infancy. Played by Genevieve Perrier, Molly is independent, self assured and content with her situation. But her husband and her opthamaologist want her to undergo risky surgery to restore her sight. They are played by Ian Merrill Peakes and Anthony Lawton.
DeLaurier has known and worked with all three actors.
“Each one is a brilliant player and so well suited for the role,” he said.
But as a director, he never before conducted rehearsals virtually.
“The prospect of not rehearsing in person seemed daunting to me,” DeLaurier said.” I didn’t know if it would work.” .
First came three weeks of daily rehearsals, with each actor in his or her own home and DeLaurier in his Malvern home.
“It turned out that rehearsing with them at home was actually great,” DeLaurier said.
Of course, it also involved some surprises because of the home settings
“There were pets and kids running into the rooms, and you don’t get that in a rehearsal room,” DeLaurier said. “But it wasn’t a big deal. In fact, it was fun.”
After the Zoom rehearsals, it was time to rehearse and then film on the Center City stage of the Lantern Theater. .
“The Lantern management went to extraordinary lengths to keep the physical plant safe for us,” said DeLaurier.
For instance, they put in exhaust fans that drew air out of the stage area and drew clean air in. This was because when an actor was rehearsing or being filmed, he or she did not wear a mask. But no one else was in the same space with an unmasked actor.
“Also, we erected a tall, clear
barrier between those of us involved in staging and filming and the actor who was unmasked,” said DeLaurier.
“Each actor rehearsed his or her monologues, with the videographer making suggestions of how to make it more effective when recorded,” said DeLaurier. “Then we ran each actor’s monologues and they were recorded.”
It was a meticulously planned process created in cooperation with Emmy award-winning filmmakers at Natural Light Films.
“The videographer ran four cameras every time an actor was performing,” said DeLaurier. “After all the filming, the video crew and sound designer made magic with the final production.”
That “magic” involved editing and superimposing shots to create a compelling play with three actors. Although to the audience, it would look like they were together onstage, the three were never in the same space at the same time.
In the usual theater process, rehearsals are followed by previews with an audience, and then an opening night. But this would be a filmed production streamed to audiences at home. So there were no previews and no official opening night.
Instead, the Lantern management devised a new version of an opening night.
“A week before the show opened to the public, we all got together on Zoom,” said DeLaurier. “It was about 7 p.m., and we were in our own homes. We said hello, had a glass of wine and then signed off to watch the first available streaming of the play before it opened to the public.
“After we watched, we all signed on again and got together for our opening night Zoom party.”
A week later, the newly filmed play opened to the public and soon earned glowing reviews from critics.
Then, too, the Lantern management set up a way for audience members to respond to the play online, and then sent excerpts from these e-mails to cast and director.
“It’s not like hearing applause each night, but it’s still nice to hear,” said DeLaurier. “And we
all have friends and family who stream the production and share their comments”.
DeLaurier has done a lot in his extensive theater career as actor and director. At People’s Light and Theater, where he’s been a company member since 1991, he’s an Artistic Associate and has performed and directed in many plays.
At the Lantern, too, he’s acted and directed numerous plays. A seven time Barrymore Award nominee, he’s been a recipient twice.
Now the Lantern’s production of “Molly Sweeney” has given him an entirely new experience - directing a play that is recorded but not performed for a live audience.
“It’s creating a new form,” he said. “And it’s been very rewarding. All of us- cast, crew, designers, directors- have felt hugely the loss of not working together on live theater. It was such a gift to spend time together telling this beautiful story.”
COVID-19 vaccine makers told Congress on Tuesday to expect a big jump in the delivery of doses over the coming month, and the companies insist they will be able to provide enough for most Americans to get inoculated by summer.
By the end of March, Pfizer and Moderna expect to have provided the U.S. government with a total of 220 million vaccine doses, up sharply from the roughly 75 million shipped so far.
“We do believe we’re on track,” Moderna President Stephen
Hoge said, outlining ways the company has ramped up production. “We think we’re at a very good spot.”
That’s not counting a third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, that’s expected to get a green light from regulators soon. The Biden administration said Tuesday that it expects about 2 million doses of that vaccine to be shipped in the first week, but the company told lawmakers it should provide enough of the single-dose option for 20 million people by the end of March.
Looking ahead to summer, Pfizer and Moderna expect to complete delivery of 300 million doses each, and J&J aims to provide an additional 100 million doses. That would be more than enough to vaccinate every American adult, the goal set by the Biden administration.
Two other manufacturers, Novavax and AstraZeneca, have vaccines in the pipeline and anticipate eventually adding to those totals.
Asked pointedly if they face shortages of raw materials, equipment or funding that would throw off those schedules, all of the manufacturers expressed confidence that they had enough supplies and had already addressed some of the early bottlenecks in production.
“At this point I can confirm we are not seeing any shortages of raw materials,” said Pfizer’s John Young.
The hearing by a House subcommittee came as U.S. vaccinations continue to accelerate after a sluggish start and recent disruptions caused by winter weather. More than 44 million Americans have received at least one dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, and about 1.4 million per day got a first or second dose over the past seven days, according to the CDC.
But state health officials say demand for inoculations still vastly outstrips the limited weekly shipments provided by the federal government.
Security officials testifying at Congress’ first hearing on the deadly siege of the Capitol cast blame and pointed fingers on Tuesday but also acknowledged they were woefully unprepared for the violence.
Senators drilled down on the stunning security failure and missed warning signs as rioters loyal to former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, in a misguided attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden’s election.
Five people died in the attack, including a Capitol Police officer. The security officials lost their jobs, and Trump was impeached by the House on a charge of inciting the insurrection, the deadliest attack on Congress in 200 years. Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.
Here are some takeaways from the testimony:
FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
Intelligence warnings of an armed uprising by extremist groups heading to the Capitol didn’t rise to the level of alarm — or even get passed up the chain of command — in time for the Jan. 6 attack.
Crucially, a key warning flare from the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, of a “war” on the Capitol was sent the night before to the Capitol Police’s intelligence division. But then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified that he only learned about it the day before Tuesday’s hearing.
Instead, Sund said he was bracing for demonstrations on par with other armed protests by mobs of Trump’s supporters in the nation’s capital in November and December after the presidential election.
“No entity, including the FBI, provided any intelligence indicating that there would be a coordinated violent attack on the United States Capitol by thousands of well-equipped armed insurrectionists,”
he testified in written remarks about a conference call the day before the attack.
The Democratic chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, said, “There was a failure to take this threat more seriously.”
HE SAID, HE SAID
As hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol, breaking into the iconic building’s windows and doors, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat with police, there are conflicting accounts from the security officials over what happened next.
Sund, who had raised the idea of calling on the National Guard for backup days earlier, specifically recounted a 1:09 p.m. phone call he made to the then-sergeantat-arms of the House, Paul Irving, his superior, requesting National Guard troops.
Sund said he was told they would run it up the chain of command .
Irving said he has no recollection of the conversation at that time and instead recalls a conversation nearly 20 minutes later. He said the 1:09 p.m. call does not show up on his cellphone log.
As the riot escalated, Sund was “pleading” with Army officials for Guard troops in another phone call, testified Robert Contee III, the acting chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, whose officers had arrived for backup.
Contee said he was “stunned” at the delayed response from the military.
Defense Department officials have said they offered National Guard troops days earlier but were rebuffed. Pentagon officials are scheduled to testify to the
Senate next week.
COMMON FACTS: ‘A PLANNED INSURRECTION’
At the start of the hearing, coming 10 days after Trump was acquitted by the Senate on the impeachment charge of inciting the insurrection, some common facts were agreed to.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the chair of the Rules Committee, asked the security officials if there was any doubt the riot was a planned attack and carried out by white nationalist and extremist groups.
None of the witnesses disputed the characterization of the facts of Jan. 6.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin read an alternative account, of mostly peaceful protesters festive that day, that he encouraged colleagues to consider.
But in closing, Klobuchar restated the testimony: “There was clear agreement this was a planned insurrection.”
ONE OFFICER’S PERSONAL STORY
The hearing opened with Capitol Police Capt. Carneysha Mendoza, a 19-year veteran of the force, delivering a compelling personal account of being called at home that day as she was spending time with her 10-year-old before the start of her shift.
She rushed to the Capitol only to find “the worst of the worst” scene of her career.
A former Army veteran, she recounted the deadly mayhem, fending off rioters inside the building’s stately Rotunda, inhaling gas and suffering chemical burns to her face she said still have not healed. Her Fitbit recorded four hours of sustained activity, she said.
The next night and following day she spent at the hospital consoling the family of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the attack.
“As an American, and as an Army veteran, it’s sad to see us attacked by our fellow citizens,” Mendoza told the senators.
TRUMP’S SHADOW
The former president was hardly a presence at the first hearing.
Instead, senators largely set aside their sharply partisan ways to drill down on the facts of what happened that day — on how to prevent it from happening again.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., pointedly asked for the name of the commander in chief of the armed forces that day who was ultimately responsible for the military and security of the country. That drew out the former president’s name.
Among the senators on the panels are two of Trump’s staunch allies who led the effort to overturn Biden’s election victory — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.