Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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Clockwise from opposite, Heidi Dallin, Andrew Burgeen, and behind the scenes. in Gloucester. Besides Carnival, the 2012 season will be rounded out by two dramas— Athol Fugard's Master Harold...and the Boys and Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart. In addition to Crouse, regulars like Paula Plum, Nancy Carroll, Sandra Shipley, and Paula Bryan have become favorites of the Gloucester Stage audience over the years. With Horovitz and Engle's connections be- ing what they are, there has also been a cad- re of young playwrights ushered up from Boston and New York over the years whose work, first presented at Gloucester Stage, has opened the door to future success in the industry. Richard Vitteri, now a Hollywood name, and more recently Joanna Rush, whose work was read during the Monday night reading series held throughout the summer, are two such recent finds. "It's about keeping it in the family," says Heidi Dallin, publicity director for Gloucester Stage, when asked about the advantage of reusing talent year after year. Like Crouse, Dallin should know. Although Lindsay Crouse was not among those nominated this time, the Academy Award-nominated actress (Places of the Heart) and a regular at Gloucester Stage since 2006, when she starred in the The Belle of Amherst under Engle's direc- tion, seconds that there is no better prov- ing ground for a play than putting it before a Gloucester audience. "Gloucester is real; it's the weather, the rocks, the multiplicity of the people," says Crouse. "The aus- terities of this area make for a hard-bitten discipline in the residents." Crouse should know. As the daughter of Hollywood leg- end Russell Crouse, whose many successes along with partner Howard Lindsay in- clude the production of The Sound of Music, she has been summering in Annisquam her entire life. "It's a magical place. My mother still lives there; she is always in the audi- ence [at Gloucester Stage]. In that way, my life has come full circle." This season, Crouse will star in Round and Round the Garden at Gloucester Stage under Engle's direction, June 14 thru July 1. As the third and final installment of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests trilogy, it is one of two plays in the upcoming season to be precast. The other, Nine Circles, a play that Engle launched in 2011 at Boston's Pub- lick Theatre to much acclaim, will reunite the award-winning Boston cast this summer Having haunted the place since high school in the '80s, Dallin wears many hats there these days, not the least of which is Director of the Youth Acting Workshop (YAW), which runs weekend classes year round and longer sessions throughout the summer. Last December, YAW staged a Christmas production, Holiday Delights, conceived and directed by Dallin, that included a cast of 35 actors, age six through 16. Making theatre accessible to children on Cape Ann, especially to those that might not otherwise be able to afford it, is Dallin's main mission. "One of the great things is that some kid who lives down the street from here, just around the corner, can perform on the same professional stage where the Paula Plums and the Lind- say Crouses were performing just a few months prior," says Dallin "We'd like to make it so big that we're ultimately able to call it a conservatory," says Burgreen, whose job since he came on board two years ago has been to position the theater for a capitol campaign that will take it to the next level within five years. To that end, Epstein & continued on page 164 153