(upbeat jaunty whimsical music) - Hello, I'm Joan Lap.

This is the River Theater on the banks of the Schoharie Creek in the Catskills in the village of Lexington.

The River Theater is one corner of a unique theatrical community.

The Lexington Conservatory Theater, LCT.

LCT is a professional theater company working and living together here in this Green County community.

A company which brings together a range of theatrical skills, a company which generates an immense amount of energy, all focused on producing quality theater.

LCT has developed a growing audience since its first season in 1976.

That audience expects ambitious and often daring productions, and consistently excellent performances.

LCT's work has evoked wear accolades from critics as well as audiences.

Brooks Atkinson has said, "I don't think there was ever a theater in this area that had such good taste in plays."

This area is tucked away in the northern Catskills, about an hour and a quarter from the capital district and two and a half hours from New York.

Traveling west on Route 23A, this side directs you left onto Route 42 to Lexington.

- I know you're not going to believe this, but there's this little town of 600 people in it, and there's this incredible theater company there.

As you look through the bridge that goes over the Schoharie Creek, you can see the bottom of the banner.

You can't see what it says, but you know there's a banner there and you see on the right a facade, and about a quarter of the left side of what was once an extremely elegant Catskill Resort hotel.

The property is owned by the Wiseberg family and who, along with Evelyn, have all been very supportive in our endeavor.

If you continue up the hill, it's hard to realize at first that there's a theater there, but what you do see are the Green Hills almost always surrounded by mist.

But indeed, there is a theater here, this one called The Barn Theater, which along with the River Theater, provides a setting for our work.

I'm the executive director of the Lexington Conservatory Theater, and the theater is run by myself and Oakley Hall III, who is the artistic director.

The Lexington Conservatory Theater is comprised of about 35 to 40 actors who are in the mainstream of theater in New York City who come up here for the summer to produce professional theater.

- We're all very close, and it's bound to create a better, and tighter, and warmer result in theater.

When three people in the company are upset, deeply upset about something, the entire company is upset about something.

When three people are jubilant, the entire company is jubilant.

The biggest single driving force we have at Lexington is simply living up to our own standard.

- [Joan] It's not unusual at the Lexington Conservatory for a rehearsal to take place here on the front lawn.

This group is preparing for the production of a rock fantasy adapted from Cyril Tourneur's "Revenger's Tragedy."

"Revenger's Tragedy" is a provost production, which refers to the new Play Wing at LCT.

The work is also being rehearsed here at the Blue Moon Cafe, which is open after all performances.

Steven Nizbit is an actor as well as a set and costume designer.

As do all members of the company, he takes on different roles and responsibilities in the various productions.

Here Steven prepares a costume for the upcoming production of the "Tragical History Of Dr.

Faustus."

Other members of the company, assisted by local residents, begin construction on the "Faustus" set.

Last minute costume work for the current production, "Nursery Land", is being completed by actresses Mary Baird and Sophia Landon.

- I found that in working here at Lexington, this is my third summer here.

Doing this kind of work and getting to know people, not just performing with them on stage, but getting to know them as a family, I mean, we really are a family here.

We have lots of fights and frustration with each other, as well as a lot of love for each other and supporting each other in our work.

It helps you make your acting work a lot better.

I feel more free to take risks and to take chances in my work, and so I'm getting a lot better as an actress as a result of the situation that we've created for ourselves here.

- Lexington is it's one of the nicest places for an actor to have the opportunity to play so many different roles.

I'm one of the big examples of that.

I've played a mother-in-law, I've played a bartender, I've played an Italian mother, and there are many other parts that I've played, but it's incredible to have the opportunity to do so many varying parts.

If I were in New York being the age that I am, I would never, never, never play a 50-year-old woman.

- [Joan] A remarkable feature of many of the LCT productions is the contribution of musical director, Joseph Lyons, formerly on the faculty of the Julliard School of Music in New York.

- What I do here as music director for the Lexington Conservatory Theater is write scores for the plays that can sustain the kind of input that electronic music can give them.

There have been three plays this year.

Two of them were on tape, that as I prepared a tape of sounds, and events, and music, and patterns that would support what the actors were doing, and one of them I played live in the booth.

That was the most exciting for me because it allowed me to clearly reinforce what was going on on the stage.

I believe that music and theater go together so beautifully because of the resonances.

What I mean by that is that the actors speak, and the voice produces a frequency, and that frequency, or pitch, or resonance, or sound can be measured and reinforced by other sounds.

So when an actor says a line, he delivers it to the audience, comes out and the hall is filled with the overtones, and the frequencies, and the vibrations that his chest and his vocal cords and the wood and everything produced, and what I do in my little booth is sit there and by knowing the actors, by knowing what they're going to do, and by knowing the way they talk, and the way they act, and the way they move, and the speed with which they do deliver their material, I can fit in underneath them, and above them, and on top of them and around them with my frequencies to reinforce and to actually change what they're saying to make my statement about the play while making their statement clearer.

You hear the actor's words coming out and on top of it, I reinforce the overtones of their voice so that you hear a whole wash of color as an audience member, and this wash of color is consciously and subliminally effective so that I can make a very important statement about a play.

I can say that I think that this and this is going on emotionally and reinforce the emotional content of that, and I think that's the major validity of music and theater.

- [Joan] Community life and shared roles extend beyond the stage at Lexington.

A thriving garden is a source of great pride here.

The garden requires a large commitment, and some members of the company speak of a time when the community will become self-sufficient.

Fresh vegetables are already abundant at lunchtime.

Lunch preparation is also a shared responsibility.

Today's team is Court Miller and Michael Hume.

- Court Miller and Michael Hume cooking lunch for LCT.

- Court and Michael.

- Court and Michael.

That's right.

Now, Court is the tall fellow and I'm the short one.

- Yes.

- And usually, we play our roles, we play a lot of roles together and we usually play antagonistic friends or something, some kind of relationship.

We would like to do the Lincoln-Douglas debates sometime perhaps for television, but in the meantime, we're cooking lunch.

- For once, I will win.

He usually wins.

- I usually win him in the arguments.

I have a, you know... Well anyway, we're making tuna right now.

We're cooking for the company.

There's about 35 people that are gonna be coming in just hollering for this.

It's just a little bit of mayonnaise, and also we're gonna put some eggs in it.

- [Miller] This is something that we do every day.

Not Michael and myself, but we have lunch crews.

- Yes.

I guess that's the point.

- And each week we...

Yes.

- Right now we're also, what are we dealing with?

We have our own garden.

These are cucumbers, they're from therein.

I think I'll cut a few of them myself.

- [Actors] One, two, three.

Lunch!

- [Actress] Oh my God.

Do we call again?

- New plays are the absolute heart of any theater company.

The absolute.

- [Actress] You don't need it anyway.

- Organ that Keeps a theater company alive I think in the end because if you don't do new plays, if you aren't into new plays, then you aren't into 100% into exploration of your medium.

We force ourselves into trying to remain as current as possible in the mind and in the fantasies in terms of creating new theater, in terms of creating something new.

You've gotta create newly on all levels.

You can't just say, well, let's find a new style of acting and then do old plays with it.

You won't find the new style of acting if you don't do new plays.

I'm presently sitting on the couch of the set for a new play we're doing at Lexington this summer called "Nursery Land" by Monty Merrick.

"Nursery Land" is a play about high school teachers who are being forced to give up smoking by their administration.

They are forced to sit in this supply room that I'm now sitting here and smoke.

The teachers and the students are agitated over this decision, and as the play progresses, we see them go through various antics and breakdowns and stages of violence as the pressure mounts from the administration trying to enforce this rule that no teachers will be allowed to smoke.

We see the comical, aberrant behavior of several different kinds of teachers and humans as they try and cope with this pressure.

A scene within this play is a scene between Viola, a French teacher, and Norm, a history teacher.

We see them trying to deal with their emotions for each other.

Norm has just lost his first girlfriend after being married for 20 years after he has strayed from his wife.

His girlfriend, Rose Scroggins, who handles the PA system in the principal's office has just been destroyed by a bomb, and he is mourning that destruction when Viola, the French teacher, comes along.

Viola's a very lonely woman.

She fancies herself as Blanche Dubois.

She has three lines of Blanche's from "Streetcar" in the play as a matter of fact, and she sees Norm in this condition and they decide to come together, as it were.

They decide to find out how to find a common ground.

We will see in this scene in rehearsal and how it develops into performance, how two actors take these kinds of situations and emotions and make that into a coherent performance.

- So we'll take it from when Doris leaves, pull yourself together, Norm.

We have a tough decision to make, and then you cross over the coach.

(coin clinking) (vending machine clanking) (Norm sobs) - Norm!

What's the matter?

- [Norm] I lost a quarter!

(Norm sobbing) Did you give it a kick?

(vending machine clanks) (coin clinks) Oh, here, here it is.

- Oh, thank you, Viola.

What would I do without you?

- Oh, you'd probably survive.

I'm sorry about Rose.

- [Norm] You saw us in the bar, didn't you?

- Yes.

- [Norm] We didn't see you.

- I hid behind the jukebox until you left.

Did you love her very much?

- Yes.

At least I thought I did.

I thought it was love, but now that I look back on it, it wasn't love at all.

It was just wild, red hot, flaming passion, nothing more.

(audience laughing) - Sometimes that's enough.

(audience laughing) - Yes.

- Is there anything I can do?

(audience laughing) - No.

Thank you anyway, Viola, but it's all over.

- Of course I know I couldn't possibly compare with Rose Scroggins.

We're so completely different in appearance.

She was such an an imposing woman.

(audience laughing) - Fat.

- A fat woman.

(audience laughing) And I'm slim.

- [Norm] That's a very nice quality.

- Oh, thank you, but I am available, and I'm awfully fond of Sodom and Glocomorras.

It has a respectable decadence, wouldn't you say?

(audience laughing) - Exactly.

- [Viola] And their guacamole is not to be believed.

(audience laughing) - Sensational.

- I always leave something behind whenever I go there.

A scarf or lighter so I'll have an excuse to go back.

But it's much nicer when the excuse is a (speaks foreign language).

- Thank you.

(audience laughing) Would you say six tonight?

- In the back near the potted fern?

- I'll be there, but we'll have to be careful.

(Viola speaks foreign language) - After all, I'm a married man.

I never wanna hurt Ethel.

(Viola speaks foreign language) - Ethel always comes first.

(Viola speaks foreign language) - From the point where Norm and Viola have this scene, the tension and the pressure mounts very rapidly.

The scene is very close to the end of the play.

It's about 15 minutes from the end, and from that point on, the students get riotous and try and break into the boiler room.

Several teachers, Norm, the wood shop teacher comes in after being stabbed by several pencils and they try and staple his fingers together.

Several teachers come in a bedraggled condition.

The students try and riot, try and break into the smoking room, ask for one of the teachers to come out as a kind of sacrifice.

One of the teachers is chosen, refuses to go out, and the young substitute hero finally comes into the room after having gotten through the dreaded corridor number five and called the police and no one has to be sacrificed to the students, and the play concludes.

(audience applauding and cheering) - Ladies and gentlemen, we wanna thank you.

- [Actress] Gimme your attention.

Get outta my light, Ryce.

Ah, this Friday I'm going to give the evening announcements tonight just for a change.

This Friday in the Barn Theater, Joseph Lyons, who has written scores for many LCT shows, will give a performance of original compositions.

The concert will be at 11 o'clock.

Everyone is urged to attend.

(audience laughs) On Tuesday, August 15th and Friday the 18th, "Revenger's Tragedy", a rock fantasy will be performed also in the barn.

"The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus", the final production of the season will open August 23rd.

Now don't put off making those reservations.

Okay, Ryce.

(audience laughs and cheers) - I like to introduce myself.

I'm Michael Van Landingham.

I'm the executive director of the Lexington Conservatory Theater, and I have a couple of extra announcements tonight.

One, I'd like to introduce Monty Merrick, whose play you just saw, "World Premier."

(audience applauds) Secondly, Thursday night is insiders night for subscribers.

For everybody actually, and after the show we have a discussion with the playwright, and the cast, and the director, and we invite the entire audience to stay and ask any questions you want about how a play gets developed, how it gets written, how actors work, how we all work.

Secondly, I'd like to bring Peggy Shotti, the director of the play out, wherever she is.

(audience and actors applauding) - It would seem to me that given the particular audience that might appear, it's gonna take some adjusting because you are taking a quote sacred institution and playing games, doing things with it.

In terms of whether or not does the audience immediately accept it, it's just pure laughter because there's a tremendous amount of pathos in it.

I mean, I find it somewhat different than the average commercial comedy that's being written, and I'm curious, number one, where did the stimulus come for the particular style that you chosen, which to write a quote, comedy, if that's a fair question?

And in general, given two nights of performances, if the cast can distinguish anything in terms of the variety of reaction.

- Well, for me, I've always tended to write in a style that included both comical elements and more dramatic or sympathetic sort of elements, and I've always been told that it doesn't work in the theater.

That people wanna come to laugh, or they wanna come to be dramatically involved and you can't mix the two, and I have refused to believe that, and I think to some degree, the kind of reactions we're getting prove that.

I don't know, maybe the cast would like to answer the second part.

- I've heard several reactions from different people.

Some took it very seriously and were somewhat alarmed at presenting a school in this way, and that it was they admitted that there was a lot of truth in it, but they felt it was sick.

Other people just found it funny on just a, you know, a farcical level.

I think that I like the fact that there are all those elements in that play.

To me, there's a lot of texture in the play that makes it just a richer experience to perform it because you don't simply play a level of gags and jokes.

There's a reality there that you have to work for to find, and I think that enriches the play.

It makes the experience for me more rewarding.

- What do you feel about working in this kind of arrangement in the theater seating, three quarter round or a theater in the round?

This is question of the whole cast and the director.

I mean, is it effective, does it work, or do you have to sacrifice the focus and some of the dramatic feeling for having people on both sides and the audience being able to see each other?

- It's a good question.

I guess we all have different opinions about it to some degree.

I find, well, for me, seeing this room used in different ways, this seemed like a very logical way to use this space.

Our alternative would be to use one end or the width of it, and for this play where I wanted a close, cramped low room, I wanted people in as many places as possible to really fort the cast in their feelings of openness.

So that was one of the reasons that I jumped to it.

- [Moderator] Yes.

- I'm interested in knowing how you dealt with the age discrepancy, particularly Norm and Viola.

- It's harder in this space, I must say.

It's easier just because of makeup, and in this space, the audience is so close.

I mean, I was supposed to be 53, and I really can't pull it off here.

So I'm 43.

(audience laughs) - It's a problem, it really is.

It breaks- - [Moderator] How old are you?

(audience laughs) - I'm 26 now.

But it breaks, it's an acting problem for me in this play actually.

It's a problem.

It wasn't in another play earlier this year, but it breaks my validity and it's something I've got to deal with.

- For the actors, since you did have a playwright here working with you, what was the feeling that you had?

Was there a dialogue between you and the playwright about rewriting scenes?

Was there a sensitivity that you could go to the author and ask, you know, saying, this isn't working.

Is there something I'm not understanding, or is there some rewriting that we need done?

Was there a dialogue happening through the playwright, and the director, and you, and I'd like to know.

- Yes, I'll say a little.

Yes, there was.

It's very exciting working with the director and the author.

It's a little nerve-wracking in the beginning because you're going to be a person that he's written, and you're creating this person for him, and you don't really know what he's created.

So there's a little tentativeness there, but there is dialogue between the two of you.

If I didn't understand something, or if he didn't understand something, or if the director didn't understand something, we did talk and we would work on scenes, and generally, either the director or the author sensed that something wasn't working.

We as actors, it's our job to try and make something work so we don't have that vantage point.

We don't look at it from outside of ourselves, and they did that.

So Monty took it upon himself to say, "Well, let's just hold off on this.

Let me look at it."

And he would do that.

- Michael, I must ask, after what we've seen today, the preparations, the background, the rehearsals, the living situation you have here, and you are really responsible for all this in the sense of directing it, two questions.

How is it possible to be the administrator of all this and make it all work?

And then how do you keep intact all of those really sort of sensitive emotions and egos of all the people you're dealing with?

- Since both questions are how do I do it, I can answer that with one word.

I do it with a lot of kindness.

We are a group of people who are very dedicated to each other, and we very much believe in what we're doing, and because of that, the actual details of administration, the details of making it all happen aren't the normal.

They aren't forcing people to do something that they are only doing for money or don't want to do.

They're simply keeping track of 40 people's energy is going crazy, and I explained to someone the other day I would rather get up in the morning and run all day until eight o'clock at night, have lunch and dinner without even realizing it, and find myself exhausted at two in the morning and realize that I didn't stop all day.

Just keeping up with people's demands and the demands that I get from the people in the company are all demands to help me straighten out situations so they can work harder, and I find that singularly the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

- [Joan] To receive a kit of schedules and brochures on the region, including the schedule for the Lexington Conservatory Theater, as well as information on Green County and neighboring Ulster County, send $1 to cover postage to The Summer Show Lexington, WMHT, Box 17, Schenectady, New York 12301.

(upbeat jaunty whimsical music)