Fall season features local playwrights

Local playwrights continue to bring their original works to the stage, turning out everything from comedies to fables to performance memoirs. Several original plays written by area playwrights are scheduled to hit Seacoast stages this fall, and audience members devoted to local theater will fill the seats.

Photographer Jan Marx said she keeps her eyes on the Seacoast theater scene as a way of supporting local art. Marx has been a fan of local plays since she moved to Portsmouth in 1998 and remembers when Gary Newton, founder of The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth, started providing a venue for local playwrights.

“I’m very invested in keeping the arts alive in Portsmouth,” Marx said. “You need to go to these plays if you want these local playwrights to thrive.”

One of Marx’s first experiences with local plays was at Pontine Theatre in Portsmouth, when she saw a performance done by artistic directors Marguerite Mathews of Durham and Greg Gathers of Portsmouth. “They do everything for their shows. It’s just extraordinary,” Marx said.

This fall, Matthews and Gathers will present their original piece “Home is Heaven—Poems by Ogden Nash” on Sept. 26 and Oct. 2 at Pontine’s West End Studio Theatre on Islington Street in Portsmouth.

Even after returning from visits to London each year to see some of the best plays in the world, retired choreographer and former Music Hall board member Dean Diggins is awed by the talent of local playwrights. “I still come back to Portsmouth and I’m equally entranced,” Diggins said.

Diggins first got involved in the Portsmouth arts scene in 1990 when he moved from New York City. Because of his interest in choreography, he became friends with many in the local theater scene. Among his pals is local playwright Michael Kimball, as well as David Mauriello, who will showcase his Machiavellian fable “Spirits Willing” at this year’s ACT ONE Festival of Fun at WEST on Sept. 24 and 25, and Oct. 1 and 2.

Another frequent audience member is local poet Marie Harris, who also commented on the talent of local playwrights. “The quality of the work is always so important,” Harris said. “It’s not that these people are local but (that) they are terrifically good.”

A few of Harris’ favorite offerings from this summer were original works by South Berwick, Maine, playwrights Susan Poulin and James Haller, as well as New Hampshire writer Pat Spalding.

Harris and other local theater-goers will have a chance to see Haller again when he returns to the ACT ONE Festival of Fun with his performance memoir “Salt & Pepper Cooking—The Education of an American Chef.” Written and performed by Haller, the piece will be at WEST on Sept. 12 and 19.

Harris said the arts community in Portsmouth is closely knit, with artists of various disciplines working together. She often recognizes theater artists in the audience at her own poetry readings.

Newburyport, Mass., playwright Ray Arsenault said he finds it encouraging to see plays written by fellow local playwrights because it brings a certain closeness. “There’s a certain kind of kinship. We’re all trying to produce art,” he said.

Arsenault and his wife Cynthia first became attuned to the Portsmouth theater scene through their involvement in the Newburyport scene, and both said they derive joy from seeing local plays and helping people develop them.

Cynthia said she likes being able to watch the development and trajectory of another local playwright over the years. And, if you get to talk to that playwright, “It’s very exciting and personal,” she said.

Cynthia added that a sense of pride comes from seeing a play by someone you know from your community. “I would liken it to going to hear a first-rate musical performance, one that just performed very well, and it’s your daughter. It’s almost that feeling of family.”

Other original plays coming up at local venues include Harbor Light Stage’s “Come Night Fall,” by artistic director and Kittery resident Kent Stephens, at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth from Oct. 8 to 24, and “Resurrection,” by New Hampshire Theatre Project director Genevieve Aichele, at WEST on Sept. 3 and 4.

The Players’ Ring is also hosting a number of original local plays this fall, including John Herman’s “An Evening of Steampunk Robot Comedy and Tragedy” from Sept. 24 to Oct. 10, and Sheri Lynne-Hinton’s “The Tale of Isabel and Morgan” from Oct. 15 to 31.