Experience the Magic of Arthurian!

(Poster art by Judi Calhoun)

Mysterious signs began to appear across the northern hamlet of Berlin, New Hampshire.  Even greater mysteries were hinted at through portents, word of mouth, short feature articles in The Berlin Daily Sun, and the Internet destination the curious were directed to, Arthurian. Ancient secrets are about to be revealed, thanks to the luminous Jonathan Dubey, playwright and driving force behind the two-hour theater production set in pre-Camelot England, which takes to the stage starting this week in a venue unlike any other, in a region famous for -- and in desperate need of -- a healthy and thriving theater scene.

It was my pleasure to sit down with Jonathan, a talented scribe from my wonderful Berlin Writers' Group who pens poetry, short fiction, and memoir in addition to writing phenomenal plays (he's also hard at work on a murder mystery for the local dinner theater circuit), about Arthurian, which invites the audience meet a young Arthur, positing the details that created one of history's most beloved legends.

Talk me through the play's genesis.
With a low-budget theater company, I was looking for something that we could do with very inexpensive rights -- or for free.  And I thought that something written locally would be the best way to go.  I had difficulty finding the right project to work on, so I decided why not try writing something myself?  Since I was a kid, I've been fascinated with King Arthur legends, in all the various forms -- books, movies, cartoons.  And I realized that classic literature is free to adapt, and because there are so many different interpretations that contradict, I could just about do anything I wanted with the story. But I tried to keep as true as possible to the classic fantasy of Sir Thomas Malory. Sir Thomas took all these legends and myths passed down through oral tradition and put them to paper.  They got nabbed and rewritten -- still under his name, but making it very Christian and religious.  The church pulled a lot of the mysticism, paganism, sex, and magic out of it.  And now we're putting this show on in a church!

(Arthurian Playwright/Director Jonathan Dubey)

You don't appear in Arthurian but are its director.  Still, you have a lot of history with the local theater scene in this section of the great northern chimney of New Hampshire.
When  I was a teenager, I was involved in a couple of shows in Middle School, High School, and the local community theater, Theatre North.  I then took fifteen years off to grow up, get married, have a career, and buy a house, but returned to community theater five years ago.  I found it to be an organization with goodhearted people but not enough of them, and cursed by the burden of serious financial problems. That theater organization recently disbanded and Arthurian is our attempt to bring something positive out of the ashes -- and to keep the spirit of Theatre North alive as something new.

Local theater in Northern New Hampshire has something of a storied history.  Why is it so important to keep the spirit and magic alive?
It's important to know about local community theater in this area in that there isn't any here anymore. One can travel over an hour to see community theater or summer stock, but art and culture is desperately lacking in this and other economically-depressed regions.  There are artists here, and good ones.  There are writers and other talented people in Berlin and the surrounding communities, and the public needs to know they're here and to celebrate with us.

(Mario Molina as Sir Pellinore in Arthurian)

Arthurian takes a unique glimpse into the King Arthur Legend by showing his life before he was king.  What can the audience expect?
It's a real 'King Arthur Begins' bent, an origin story, starting with Arthur's heritage when his blood father, Uther Pendragon, and Merlin set in motion the events leading to the boy's destiny.  Mostly, it details the difficulties of growing up where he's so different from his adoptive family. We, the audience, steal a glimpse into the workings within the walls of Sir Ector's estate, and come to understand these legendary characters in an intimate and unexpected manner.  Arthur is tempted to make the same mistakes as his blood father, but ultimately makes the correct though difficult choices that eventually shape his fate.

(Arthurian's cast and crew)

You have an amazing cast of local actors!
We have a varied yet talented cast: young Tanner Cote, in his first performance as "Kay"; June Desmond as "Mim", the Head of the Household -- she runs the house, really! -- has over twenty-five years of stage experience; Zachary Boucher as Arthur has some theater experience, but this is his first lead role; after performing the titular role in The Diary of Anne Frank, Samantha Kilbride changes it up as "Sir Ector"; Tyler Fowler and Miranda Braziere play multiple roles, most notably the devious "Scrounger" and the sinister "Larcena"; Mario Molina commands the stage as "Sir Pellinore"; Corey Shaink brings us a quirky and mercurial new take on "Merlin"; and Mary Champlin as the ingenue "Andrivete".  Ramona Dube handles the props as well as the small but important role as "Taubitha", a servant.  Amelia Kendall deftly handles the lights and sounds, and first time Assistant Director Danielle Robichaud also serves as Stage Manager.  The entire cast and crew are local, all living within twenty miles of retrofitted church venue.

My New Hampshire Chronicle

(Miked for the camera -- and showing plenty of sweaty nostril on a day so
humid it was nearly impossible to breathe)

It started two weeks ago, when I gave an interview to our local newspaper, The Berlin Daily Sun (an abbreviated version of the article can be found here).  The feature, splashed over the front page and accompanied by a vibrant full-color photograph of me seated at my desk, eldest cat keeping company, circulated around our new home town -- and far beyond. So far, in fact, that on the following Tuesday, I received an email from Sean Mcdonald, a newscaster on WMUR-Channel 9/ABC in Manchester.  Sean pulls double-duty as host of our wonderful all-things-Granite-State lifestyle program, New Hampshire Chronicle.  He'd read the article on our move north to Xanadu, my body of work, and the founding of our new Berlin Writers' Group, and felt I would be a good subject for a Chronicle segment.  I was thrilled.  And a bag of nerves, which is so unlike me.

I've worked for Paramount Studios as a freelance writer, covered The X-Games, building demolition, and written a bazillion feature articles in which I've interviewed celebrities -- all of my childhood icons, in fact.  And though I rarely get star-struck or nervous anymore, I didn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time the night prior to the day of taping.  Adding to the mix of nerves and exhaustion was the weather's shift from Arctic (it snowed up here the last week of May!) to Okefenokee.  Miserable humidity swamped our fair mountain town, making even the simplest of movements like wading through neck-deep water.

(With Chris, Chronicle cameraman extra-ordinaire, and the luminous
Sean Mcdonald)

As the Tuesday night writers' group has been such a dynamic part of life's new chapter here North of the Notches, at the last instant we pulled together an impromptu Monday meeting of the talented folks I count as friends and blessings. The first to arrive, Kyle Newton, helped set an energetic and uplifting tone that only grew as the rest of the gang wandered in, most with luscious desserts and finger foods in hand.  To commemorate the day, talented pal Judi Calhoun -- the next author feature to grace my blog -- not only brought brownies, but gorgeous hand-crafted journals for Bruce and me, and two silkscreened tees to enhance my literary couture wardrobe.  I'm wearing the one that proudly says, "Gregory Norris, Writer" as I write this post.  You couldn't meet nicer or read better than Judi-Beauty Calhoun!

Through the heat barrier, Sean Macdonald and Chris the Cameraman arrived, and from the start I knew the day would forever be memorable for many wonderful reasons.  The camera was set up, writers settled down in our volcanic living room, and we were asked to hold an impromptu version of our Tuesday night meeting some twenty-four hours early.  We went around the room and read short stories, synopsi, and back covers.  The camera recorded all of it.  Seated among us and soaking up the very good vibe, Sean conducted spot interviews.  Then good pal Jonathan Dubey, whose brilliant play Arthurian is being staged this summer, made a nifty suggestion: we all lined up with our published books in hand and, together in unison, said, "We're the Berlin Writers' Group -- and we'll tell you the story" for the camera.  It may or may not make it into the final cut.  Either way, it punctuated a wonderful dialogue between this vibrant creative community and our visitors.

(Taping Chronicle in my Writing Room)

Soaked in sweat, we then retired to my beautiful Writing Room, where we covered the full range of my life and career up until that balmy afternoon, June 24, 2013.  We discussed my humble beginnings as a strange and imaginative boy in Windham, New Hampshire, through my even stranger adulthood/second childhood here, in Berlin. We talked Space:1999 and Xanadu, Star Trek and Star Trek: Voyager; Sci Fi Channel, The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse and my newest book contract, its far-smaller sibling, Shrunken Heads: Twenty Tiny Tales of Mystery and Terror, forthcoming at the end of summer.  I showed him my files, shooting scripts (we improved a reading from the Voyager episode "Gravity" with he playing Tom Paris, me in the role of Tuvok; Sean aced it while I, clearly, need to stick to the writing side of the business).  At one point, I was asked to write on the spot.  I uncapped my favorite cobalt blue fountain pen, put it to paper, and spontaneously created a few powerful paragraphs that, later the same afternoon, got married to a project I'm working on behind-the-scenes.  And then they taped me standing outside in front of our beautiful new-old home among the hills, for a Trek-style beam-down, complete in post-production with strobing special effects.

This short documentary on my literary odyssey is scheduled to run in the not-too-distant future (updates to follow).  It was a lovely experience, the latest in a long list of fun and exciting adventures since uncapping my pen some thirty-three years ago when I first dared to dream big dreams -- and, more important, to chronicle them on paper.

May 2013 Writers Group Party

(with the brilliant poet/writer Esther Leiper-Estabrooks)

So much has changed in recent months.  Not taking into the equation the lurking malevolence of a cranial cyst that landed me in the hospital for four-plus days, those changes have been mostly for the better. We love our new life up here in the Great White North of New Hampshire, our beautiful new-old house, Xanadu, and the many new friends we've made -- not a full day in town, and I was seated at the monthly meeting of the local writers' group, where it was my pleasure to meet the legendary Esther Leiper-Estabrooks, who has since become a vibrant source of inspiration. And one of the things that remains the same in this new life is a love for breaking bread and sharing stories with my creative comrades, and so a week after my release from the hospital, we hosted our first writers' group(s) open house, and seventeen lovely scribes -- faces both familiar and new -- graced us with sumptuous offerings of food and fresh pages.  It was, in a word, spectacular!

The theme for the day's readings was 'Rebirth' (or variations: 'Spring', 'Resurrection', 'Renewal').  A week after our momentous move north from our former world to this big, bright new adventure, I sat in our living room and wrote a shiny, fresh idea based upon the cobalt blue lamp in our bay window.  The story, "Occupy Maple Street", inspired the theme, which seemed appropriate given our renewal here in a formerly sad old house that rises daily from neglect, and now -- dare I think it? -- smiles as a result of the happiness of its occupants.

The buffet was incredible. Among the many offerings, which stretched around our kitchen (you grabbed a plate, hopped in line, and traveled along counters, stove top, table, and finally the drinks station set up atop our big antique server with the marble top) were: maple-glazed pork roast, baby sausage torts, stacked, stuffed sandwiches, salads (potato, pasta, and green leaf), baby rolls and butter, perhaps the best dip for chips I've ever tasted, creamy mac & cheese, and an assortment of desserts almost too sinful to imagine -- berry pie, pineapple upside-down cake, and delicious little vegan-friendly coconut cupcakes by the fabulous Judi Calhoun, author of the Ancient Fire series.  In honor of the last big writers party we hosted, I made the same chocolate coconut cake, which suffered a bit of a volcanic meltdown during the baking process.  However, there's no cake snafu that frosting can't correct, and it was scrumptious.

While a warm, sunny day blossomed outside the house, and a sweet green breeze stirred the living room curtains, we read our stories, novel excerpts, poetry, and even staged part of a play penned by the brilliant Jonathan Dubey, Arthurian, which is being performed in town this coming August.  Six of us assumed roles and the results were delightful!

(Writers Kyle Newton and Lorrie Lee O'Neill)

Five of my favorite writers from my beloved Southern group made the long trek north -- the lovely and talented Lorrie Lee-O'Neill, with whom I share cover space in the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction series; Philip Perron, who runs the Dark Discussions podcast; the luminous Brad Younie and Ralph Mack, and Douglas Poirier, who always surprises and amazes me with his creativity.  The fit with the many creative geniuses from my new home realm was seamless, and many new friendships resulted.  The day was about celebrating the writing, and we did so with verve!

And we'll do it all again in September -- if not before!