📍 What Returning to Theatre in Vermont Means to Me

When I moved to Vermont in 1986 one of the most astonishing discoveries for me was the White River Theatre Festival. I couldn’t believe my luck that in this rural part of the country, a professional theater company was doing work by Shakespeare, Brecht, Voltaire, Chekov, and Tennessee Williams. I saw Puppetmast of Lodz, an original adaptation of Journal of the Plague Year, Children of a Lesser God, and Caucasian Chalk Circle—all of it in a refurbished 225-seat opera house.

The very first thing I did after unpacking my boxes of books was to call the festival office and offer to volunteer. They were running on a shoestring and if you were willing to pitch in there was plenty of work to do. Within a few years I was the Executive Director—raising money, paying bills, solving problems. I felt honored to be part of such solid, risky, important work. I received far more than I gave. There are countless performances and performers I remember as if I saw them last week.

So it is a thrill for me to be returning nearly forty years later to perform my own solo show Buen Camino in the exact same spot: The Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, Vermont with David Briggs, my former colleague, producing and promoting the show in collaboration with the Shaker Bridge Theatre company on July 23.

And it’s an additional thrill to have two more performances on July 25 and 26 at The Phantom Theater in Warren, Vermont as they celebrate their 40th year as a local theater. I have the softest possible spot in my heart for regional theater and the vital art they bring to their communities. It matters.

I will also rendezvous with my dear circle of friends in the Northeast—friends I made as we all put our shoulders to the wheel volunteering at the theater, friends from the northern tip of Vermont to southern Connecticut to Maine, some of them friends I haven’t seen in forty years.

Thanks to David Briggs of the Briggs Opera House and to Tracy Martin of Phantom Theater for making this all possible. This is, for me, a dream come true. I will bring to my show my heart and my soul. It will be wonderful to be back in Vermont.

Alone on stage, Susan becomes 23 characters to take the audience on her solitary walk through 540 miles of rain, resentment, and redemption. Buen Camino is a moving story of how grief can lead to surrender and ultimately to freedom.

Briggs Opera House & Shaker Bridge Theatre (White River Junction, VT) July 23

Phantom Theater (Warren, VT) July 25 & 26

Edinburgh Fringe July 30 – August 24 (not 8/11 or 18)