PLATTSBURGH — The Adirondack Regional Theatre brings playwright Anne Nelson’s “The Guys” to life in the sanctuary of Trinity Episcopal Church, 18 Trinity Place, Plattsburgh.
ART Executive Director Tom Lavin directs the one-act production starring Lee Ann Thomas, a humanities professor at Clinton Community College as “Joan” and former Plattsburgh Mayor Jim Calnon as “Nick.”
Show times are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Suggested donation is $15, and all proceeds benefit Behavioral Health Services North.
“We are doing this production as a tribute to the heroes and what happened 25 years ago on Sept. 11. We are also doing it because we want to raise some funds for awareness of mental health. We partnered with BHSN to give them all of the proceeds from the door. We don’t have any tickets to sell. We’re just working on donations, and everything that’s donated at the door will go to that purpose. It’s also a way to remember and keep this terrible day fresh in people’s mind because people that are out of college now, recent graduates, weren’t even alive when this all happened,” Lavin said.
Before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the director researched topical plays on the event. Nelson wrote “The Guys” in just nine days based on her experiences following the attacks on the World Trade Center.
“This one just struck me because it’s real life. It actually happened. These are two real people. From the standpoint of storytelling, it’s great because it’s just two people and through those two people we get to know a whole bunch of different people that were involved in 9/11, the guys, the firemen who worked for Captain Nick. We get to hear about them because telling the stories becomes an act of mourning and also healing. It’s a lot of honesty that comes out, too,” he said.
Nick lost eight men in the Twin Towers, and he tells who they were to Joan, an editor, who writes their eulogies.
“The sad part was all of his men passed away. They all died that day. The writer and the fire captain met a few days of within this all happened preparing for the funerals. The writer Ann Nelson had this all written within a very short period of time. The first showing of it was within a month of the actual occurrence,” Lavin said.
The play is staged in the living room of Joan’s Park Slope home.
“The set is very simple. It is a living room. It has two chairs, a coffee table, a coffee serving area. We are doing it in the sanctuary of Trinity Episcopal Church, and we would like to thank them, obviously, for opening their doors and allowing us to do that. They are trying to open their doors to bring more community in. Bring music in. They have their Community Dinner in the basement every Thursday. They’re trying really to extend themselves. They took a chance on us coming in to do this,” he said.
Lavin calls the duo of Thomas and Calnon “just incredible actors.”
“They really bring to life Nick and Joan. Jim’s been doing shows with us for several years now, five or six years. Mostly, he does our murder mysteries. You don’t get to see him perform on a big stage or a featured thing such as ‘The Guys,’” he said.
For Lavin, his first directorial challenge was getting over the show’s emotional aspects.
“Obviously, it’s a small play about an enormous tragedy, but at the same time the storytelling that happens between Nick and Joan, you’re learning the characters. and you’re learning they’re real interesting guys. Nick describes the guys, and he reveals their humor, their quirks, and humanity. Getting through that was at first kind of difficult,” he said.
But, the play isn’t all heavy with tragedy and catastrophe.
“The storytelling comes through. In fact, there is one sequence where they dance the tango. There’s humor in it. If you tell a story about someone, that someone comes alive. You as the third person in the audience, you get to really hear about some of these firefighters and what they were like. You also get to hear about Nick and you hear about Joan, and their interactions with each other. They are complete strangers that bonded through this. The play is emotional. Its power lies in its consistence that every life lost deserves a story, and every story deserves to be told with care. I think this is what this is. Ordinary people talking about extraordinary acts that people did,” Lavin said.