Chester’s Lary Bloom Debuts New Play November 12th – November 14th
From a press release provided by Claudia Van Nes:
Lary Bloom came home from his tour of duty in Viet Nam safely. His close childhood buddy from their days growing up together in Cleveland did not.
An Air Force navigator and a new husband, Harmon Polster was not found after his plane went down. He flew into the Blue Yonder, ending up in the Wild Black Yonder which is the name of the play Bloom has written four decades later taking his inspiration from Harmon’s disappearance.
The play, to be performed at the Katharine Hepburn Theater Nov. 12 through 15, is about the cost of war particularly on those who live on after a loved one is declared Missing in Action. Bloom, a Chester resident, whose career was in journalism and who has written several books and plays, has found a way to deal with it through writing this play.
But the play wasn’t even on paper when Jeanie Rapp from Deep River, who directed one of Bloom’s earlier plays, “Worth Avenue’’ came along. She needed another full length drama out of Bloom so she could debut it Nov. 12, the time she had been given to stage a production at the new “Kate,’’ as the Katharine Hepburn Theater in Old Saybrook is already known.
Rapp says, “I saw Lary at the gym and I jumped off the treadmill and said to him “I need a play from you for November.’’ That was April.
But Bloom spent a lot of years with Harmon on his mind and had in fact spent time researching the impact of Harmon’s and others’ disappearance while serving in the armed forces in Viet Nam, thinking there might be a book in it. Besides, he’d worked in daily journalism when quick turnaround time is an imperative.
As of three weeks before the debut, Bloom jokes he’d just finished his “637th revision.’’
Meanwhile , Rapp, a Deep River resident, who always “dreamed of having a theater company and now does, called Margreta Stage Company, was also teaching adult acting classes in Essex. Last winter, she welcomed as a student Janet Peckinpaugh, the former Connecticut news anchor who’d recently moved to Essex.
Peckinpaugh, who grew up in Canton, Ohio, had her own long-help dreams – of being an actress. “I wanted to be a theater major in college but my parents wouldn’t let me and they were paying. I left it behind begrudgingly,” she says.
She was lonely when she moved to Essex with her son away at college for the first time and “I signed up for Jeanie’s six-week course,” says Peckinpaugh.
With considerable trepidation, this summer Peckinpaugh auditioned for the part of the coincidentally named Janet, the widow of the missing pilot in Wild Black Yonder and “she blew us away. She has real natural instincts,’’ says Rapp.
“Doing this is beyond my wildest dreams,’’ says Peckinpaugh who can be seen in the Wild Black Yonder, Nov. 12 through 14 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Kate.
On opening night, Jonathan Rapp, Jeanie’s husband and owner of the River Tavern in Chester, will serve food and wine after the performance. Wine will be offered on the other two nights.
To learn more or reserve seats, call 877-503-1286 or go to:katharinehepburntheater.org. Tickets are $25.
