Genesius Guild Radio Productions Genesius Guild

Several years ago Genesius Guild founder Don Wooten recorded a number of long-form play introductions as a podcast. Two of those podcasts were about shows that we are producing this summer: Romeo & Juliet and Electra.

As a teaser for our upcoming season, we invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy Don Wooten's introduction to Romeo & Juliet!

Credits:


Prologue: Jim Loula (Sr.)
Romeo: Kai Swanson
Juliet: Chris Hicks

Special thanks to Mischa Hooker for cleaning up the audio recording

CREDITS

Floyd Dell, King Arthur's Socks

Gwen (Guenevere Robinson) - Chelsea Ward

Vivian (Vivian Smith) - Liz Sager

Mary - Anna Schneider

Lancelot (Lancelot Jones) - Mischa Hooker

Narrator - John Turner



Poetry Reading

John Turner read poems by Arthur Davison Ficke

Liz Sager read poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay



Director / Organizer / Sound Editor: Mischa Hooker

Opening / closing music for King Arthur's Socks: Billy Murray, "I'll Do It All Over Again"

Background Music for poetry: Bach, Aria Variata in A Minor, BWV 989 (performed by Brendan Kinsella)

Theme music for program: Chopin, Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, no. 1 (performed by Olga Gurevich)



List of Poems Read:

· Ficke, Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter, Sonnet 2: "It needs no maxims drawn from Socrates"

· Millay, "The Dream"

· Ficke, Sonnet 13: "I am in love with high far-seeing places"

· Millay, Sonnets collected in Second April, Sonnet 1: "We talk of taxes, and I call you friend"

· Ficke, Sonnet 5: "Fate, with devoted and incessant care"

· Millay, Sonnet 2: "Into the golden vessel of great song"

· Ficke, Sonnet 16: "It was the night, the night of all my dreams"

· Millay, Sonnet 3: "Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "Don Giovanni"

· Millay, Sonnet 4: "Only until this cigarette is ended"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "Like Him Whose Spirit"

· Millay, Sonnet 5: "Once more into my arid days like dew"

· Ficke, "In That Dim Monument Where Tybalt Lies"

· Millay, Sonnet 6: "No rose that in a garden ever grew"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "Snowtime"

· Millay, Sonnet 7: "When I too long have looked upon your face"

· Ficke, Sonnet 55: "They brought me tidings; and I did not hear"

· Millay, Sonnet 8: "And you as well must die, belovèd dust"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "The Birdcage"

· Millay, Sonnet 10: "Oh, my belovèd, have you thought of this"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "Meeting"

· Millay, Sonnet 11: "As to some lovely temple, tenantless"

· Ficke, Three Sonnets, "Old Wives' Tale"

· Millay, Sonnet 12: "Cherish you then the hope I shall forget"

· Ficke, Three Sonnets, "Holy Writ"

· Millay, "Ashes of Life"

· Ficke, Six Lyrics, "I Am Weary of Being Bitter"

· Millay, "The Penitent"

Welcome to our second holiday special! We give you first a touching family Christmas story, "Christmas at Red Butte," by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Next, a Christmas meditation by Charles Dickens, entitled "A Christmas Tree." In this piece, the author of "A Christmas Carol" offers, instead of a story, a set of reminiscences about the meaning of Christmas past as he contemplates life-long celebrations of presents and toys, books, and stories both silly and serious — including a long section on ghost stories — and of course, as "A Christmas Carol" itself reminds us, telling ghost stories was a major Christmas tradition in Victorian England, adding supernatural chills to the chills caused by the weather.

CREDITS

Montgomery, "Christmas at Red Butte": read by Dee Canfield

* Axletree, "Clothe the Fields with Plenty"; "Drops of Melting Snow"; "The Silent Grove" [https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Axletree/music-from-a-hampshire-farm]

Dickens, "A Christmas Tree": read by Mischa Hooker

* Borrtex, "Buying Presents"; "Happy Holidays"; "Christmas Eve"; "Love & Generosity" [https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Borrtex/Christmas_Time]

* Jon Sayles [http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/EarlyMusic.htm; http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/holidaymusic.htm]: Couperin, "Les barricades mistérieuses"; Ravel, Piano Concerto in G, Adagio (2nd movement); Fauré, Requiem: "Kyrie," "Libera me," "Pie Jesu"; Obrecht, "Pace Domine"; Dufay, "Proles de caelo," "Ce mois de May"; Senfl, "Gottes Gewalt Kraft"; Pevernage, "Secoure moy, madame"; Carols: "Deck the Halls," "Angels We Have Heard on High," "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen"

Theme music for program:

* Chopin, Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, no. 1 and Waltz in B minor, Op. 69, no. 2 (performed by Olga Gurevich)

Director / Organizer / Sound Editor: Mischa Hooker

INFORMATION ON STORIES AND PLAYS REFERENCED BY DICKENS

Dickens refers to many children's stories and plays in the course of his meditation, some still very familiar to young readers, others less familiar. Alphabet rhymes ("A Was an Archer") are still popular in easy readers; "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Little Red Riding-Hood" are also very commonly read. Far less well known today are some of the plays Dickens mentions, such as "The Forest of Bondy, or Dog of Montargis"; or "The Tragedy of Jane Shore"; or "The History of George Barnwell." The internet provides immediate access to many of these historic works of children's literature, and it can especially be quite fun to see the old illustrations in the earlier editions even of familiar works. Apart from massive collections of scanned facsimiles offered by Google Books or the Internet Archive, one initiative to digitize and make available scans of numerous 18th- and 19th-century chapbooks is also worth pointing out: https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/chapbooks/index.php. We have gathered together a goodly collection of these old books mentioned by Dickens from these sources, in order to offer them for your interest in one spot. Warning! Looking into what another century considered good or appropriate is sometimes surprising or shocking — especially, adults should look over any such material before handing it over to children to read! Our repository of downloadable material is here: http://www.tinyurl.com/DickensChristmasTreeReferences

Stephen Leacock's "Oroastus: A Greek Tragedy" is a satirical essay by the early 20th-century Canadian humorist (who lived 1869-1944) on contemporary perceptions and performances of Greek tragedy in a college setting. "Oroastus" was published in 1923, and included in Leacock's collection of pieces on the theatre, "Over the Footlights." Performed by Patti Flaherty.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is best known as one of the most popular 19th century British poets, the author of famous pieces such as "Ulysses," "Crossing the Bar," and his multi-part treatment of Arthurian legend, "The Idylls of the King." Like many poets before and after, however, he also turned his hand to poetic drama, somewhat in the vein of Shakespeare. Although some works of this kind by poets like Byron, Shelley, and Keats, were closet dramas, not meant to be staged, the majority of Tennyson's were indeed staged, and staged quite successfully. One of his shorter verse dramas, The Cup, retells an ancient story from the times of the rise of Rome as the supreme power in the ancient Mediterranean world: in this story, the Galatians (a Celtic people akin to the Gauls, but living in the interior of Asia Minor – the area now known as Turkey) are coming to terms with Rome's rise – by way of resistance or accomodation. The proud heroine Camma resists Roman encroachment in the person of the turncoat Galatian leader Synorix, but in the end her fate, and the fate of her people, is tragic.

CREDITS

Narrator: Alaina Pascarella

Synorix:  Aaron E. Sullivan

Synnatus: James J. Loula

Camma: Denise Yoder

Phoebe: Joie Stoefen

Priestess: Zoe Grabow

Chorus of Priestesses: Denise Yoder, Joie Stoefen, Alaina Pascarella, Zoe Grabow

Attendant: Nathan Elgatian

Boy: Josef Bodenbender

Maid: Katie Phillips

Antonius: Bryan Woods

Publius: Steve Trainor

Nobleman: Michael Callahan

Messenger: Jacob Lund

Director / Organizer / Sound Editor: Mischa Hooker

Sound Effects: Mike Koenig, Dominic Treis, BBC, and Mischa Hooker

Music for Tennyson: Brahms, Tragic Overture, opus 81 (performed by Czech National Symphony Orchestra)

Theme music for program: Chopin, Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, no. 1 (performed by Olga Gurevich)

Original Music: Denise Yoder, Mischa Hooker

In 1915, two Davenport, Iowa, natives, Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, started a theater group in Provincetown on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which turned out to have a profound influence on American drama forever. This visionary new company, the “Provincetown Players,” had humble beginnings in the private home of some sympathetic friends: Neith Boyce and Hutchins Hapgood. Many of the Provincetown shows featured a number of short scripts presented together in a single night of performance, and this program follows that tradition.

First on the bill today is a script by Eugene O'Neill, first produced in January 1917. This script, unjustly neglected beside some of the playwrights more well known works, combines O'Neill's recurring fascination with the sea, including a setting especially reminiscent of the dangerous Atlantic crossing that had proved disastrous for the Titanic less than five years before the play was performed — with a lively debate on practical life and poetry, and a supernatural eeriness.

The second play on today’s bill is a shorter script entitled "Enemies" — it was first staged in the summer of 1916. It was written by those hospitable friends of Jig and Susan, Hutchins Hapgood and Neith Boyce, whose house was the first Provincetown Players' performance space, and who were Midwesterners just like Jig and Susan — Hutchins from Illinois and Neith from Indiana. Each of them reportedly wrote the lines for one of the two speaking parts, He and She respectively, in this collaborative, argumentative exploration of the meaning of love, marriage, and fidelity in the modern world.

CREDITS

(FOG)

Narrator: Susan Perrin-Sallak

A Poet: Merlin Nelson

A Man of Business: Marc Nelson

Third Officer of a Steamer: Philip Tunnicliff

Sound Effects: BBC, LG (freesound.org), oldestmillenial (freesound.org)

(ENEMIES)

Narrator: Mischa Hooker

He: Mike Braddy

She: Andrea Braddy

Director / Organizer / Sound Editor: Mischa Hooker

Opening and closing music: Borodin, String Quartet No. 2 in D Major, 1st and 4thmovements (performed by Musopen String Quartet)

Theme music for program: Chopin, Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, no. 1 (performed by Olga Gurevich)