Vermont Stage. Burlington, Vermont, 2023-24

Talley’s Folley Lanford Wilson (26 Jul.- 26 Aug.) at Isham Family Farm 

Cadillac Crew Tori Sampson (27 Sept.-15 Oct.) 

And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank James Still 

(11-12 Nov.) at Temple Sinai and subsequent school tours 

Winter Tales conceived by Mark Nash (13-15 Dec.) 

Breakfalls Gina Stevensen (20 Mar.- 7 Apr.) 

tick, tick…BOOM! Jonathan Larson (book and lyrics) (1-26 May)  

The Bakeoff 2024: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune Terrence McNally (12- 

16 Jun.) 

Vermont Stage’s 2023-2024 season represented a subtle change in the company’s focus. Previously, the company’s website described itself  as Northern Vermont’s home for “contemporary theatre,” but now it reads home for “exceptional theatre.” This small change may explain why this season felt like a shift in programming.  

The 2023-2024 season opened in July with Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folley produced at Isham Family Farm, a picturesque outdoor location that offered the company a lifeline after audiences proved wary to return to indoor theatre following the pandemic; this now appears to be a feature of Vermont Stage’s early season programming. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning two-hander, which was first produced in 1979 and set in1944, is ostensibly a romantic comedy wherein one of the impediments to the lovers’ courtship is their Jewish/Protestant identities. While not a contemporary play in any sense, the show proved to be well-chosen for the idyllic setting. Scenic Designer Chuck Padula’s boathouse provided just enough space for Patrik Chow’s stage compositions to maintain tension between Matt and Sally, played by Connor Kendall and Leila Teitelman, while still allowing patrons to enjoy the Isham’s gardens. Connor Kendall’s performance of the play’s metatheatrical welcome speech charmed from the start. I saw the production on a particularly warm evening and couldn’t help but feel anxious for the actors as they sweat through Jess Nguyen’s simple yet effective period costumes in the oppressive humidity and blistering early evening sun. I was impressed with the energy of their performances; somehow Matt and Sally managed to convincingly argue, banter, and rekindle their love affair even in the withering heat. 

In the fall, Vermont Stage returned to Main Street Landing with Tori Sampson’s Cadillac Crew. Sampson’s play spends much of the first two acts focused on the lives and stories of the Black women (and, to a lesser extent, white women) at the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement. The play celebrates the legacy and power of their organizing and mobilization and acknowledges their corollaries in the Black Lives Matter movement. While the two first acts of the play are theatrically stronger than the third act, in which Sampson introduces figures from BLM, the dramaturgical purpose of the time and character shifts is clear. Director Jammie Patton helped craft lovely performances by an ensemble cast comprised of four actors making their Vermont Stage debuts. Ashley Nicole Babtiste as Rachel, Angella Katherine as Abby, Monica Leigh Rosenblatt as Sarah, and Starnubia as Dee each had standout moments and managed to create characters that spanned the play’s two timelines effectively. Sarah Sophia Lidz’s costumes captured not only the two time periods (1960s and today), but also the personalities of the characters. Jess Wilson’s sound design and Dan Gallagher’s lighting both beautifully created a sense of time and place. Gallagher’s lighting in Act 2 was particularly effective at capturing the eerie danger faced by four women driving the backroads of Mississippi.  

Vermont Stage had already programmed And Then They Came for Me before the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, but the show undoubtedly took on greater relevance to the local community when it was presented in November. Vermont Stage described the piece as a “multimedia reading performance, combining videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Éva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from their lives during World War II.” Directed by Wendi Stein, the show had a limited run at a local temple before being made available for tours at local schools. The production was produced in partnership with the Stop Hate Campaign and was followed by a talkback on the rise of anti-Semitism led by a local Rabbi. Vermont Stage’s website included the following: “Please note: there will be a security presence on-site at each performance.” 

Gina Stevensen’s new play Breakfalls, perhaps the most experimental piece of Vermont Stage’s season, premiered at Main Street Landing in March. Set in a Vermont karate dojo, Stevensen’s play takes its name from a karate technique that allows participants to fall safely. The production was a moving meditation on the mental and physical strategies people use to create a sense of safety which heavily relied on the artistic interplay of Director Delanté Keys and fight coordinator José Pérez IV. Local critic Alex Brown reported that director Keys used the “space elegantly, expressing the meaning of distance visually and, for the characters, sometimes viscerally.”  

Artistic Director Cristina Alicea directed Vermont Stage’s final production of the season, Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…BOOM! The musical, which Alicea described as Larson’s “most personal,” featured strong performances by the small ensemble. Coleman Cummings, who played Jonathan, somehow managed to rise above the cloying earnestness of the role. Kianna Bromley as Susan and Connor Kendall as Michael rounded out the cast. Unfortunately, the day I saw the production, it was plagued by technical errors. There were out of sync light cues in which the actors found themselves out of their spotlights, and Kendall’s microphone pack shorted out and had to be replaced mid-song by a stagehand during one of the show’s most poignant musical numbers. Although the technical side of this production was not as effective as the actors’ performances,Padula’s set provided opportunities for Alicea’s inventive staging. A bank of lockers against the back wall opened in various ways, allowing the actors to transform the space into Jonathan’s apartment in one scene, and a bodega in another scene. The lockers also allowed the three performers to seamlessly gather and return props without exiting the performance space. Similarly, Alicea utilized two black benches in a variety of ways to create a piano and bench, a desk in Michael’s office, and a conference room. The actor manipulation of props and scenery added a metatheatrical element and helped keep the show moving.  

Vermont Stage began its 2023-2024 season with a new management structure in place and a season line-up that reflected a subtle shift in its programming with some older plays and a musical breaking up a season of lesser-known, newer work.  

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