Although I didn’t realize it at the time, an undergraduate summer gig in 1994 at Astors’ Beechwood in Newport, Rhode Island, was a theatrical gem of an opportunity that encouraged certain artistic proclivities which still shape and inform my improv devising to this day.
The Basic Premise: Servants, peers, and members of the Astor family welcome “guests” to the Newport estate, providing them with an opportunity to tour various rooms while learning stories of the prestigious family, catching glimpses of the trials and tribulations of the various characters, and experiencing life in Victorian America.
For the longest time I would tell friends that I spent that summer in 1891, and this description wasn’t far from the truth. Astors’ Beechwood was a rare and peculiar mix of a gig combining historical research, living history, and improvisational tour guiding. Company members (except for some locals) lived in the actual servants’ quarters on the third story of the Estate – though they had been somewhat modernized. And boy did we do research. The directing team provided robust binders full of information, and we spent time in the local library adding to these tomes. Some of us adopted historical figures connected to the Astor family – prior owners of the “modest” estate. Others, including myself, crafted fictional characters who were guests or servants. I became Alfred Gordon Forster, a newly wed Englishman who was summering with his bride, Magdalena (Traci Crouch). This was before the internet made almost anything easily available, so I remember picking my English mother’s brain over the phone as to possible details to include in my backstory. There are a lot of impressive mansions in Newport, and Beechwood was modest by comparison especially in terms of décor and preserved furniture; however, this was the only Estate that offered the hook of an interactive living history experience.
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1994 (Partial) Company:
Traci L. Crouch
Mike Sears
Allyn Woghin
David Charles
Sharon Forsher
Thomas Meier
Michael Roeschlein
Lori Johnson
John Butterfield
Lucy Hunter Poland
Lisa Nanni
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With apologies to anyone omitted as these names were drawn from the Murder Mystery program. I was unable to find a more exhaustive list for the 1994 summer company.
Lessons
I have such fond and random memories of this summer: I was working to complete my science competency at Roosevelt University so was slogging my way through a geography workbook in my off-time; there was a great local pizza place and I could make one of their huge pizzas last for many days if I was careful; and at times it felt like there was as much romantic drama and intrigue between the company living in the upstairs quarters as there was in the fictitious worlds of our characters downstairs. One of the cooler parts of the experience was a true “day in the life” exercise where we moved through the rituals of our characters. It’s perhaps important to note that as a guest character, this was probably much more fun than it was for the servants who had to stand and serve us an approximation of a 7-course meal.
This was one of those rare occasions that a gig appealed to me on multiple levels: my history geek got to dive into the specifics of 1891 and Victorian etiquette; my actor geek got to really sink his teeth into a character of my own design; and my improv geek got to play daily on an amazing Estate-sized set. Now in reality, once you layered on the tour guide elements and responsibilities, this was quite a structured affair with performers picking up a group of tourists in one room, hitting important facts from their character’s point of view, and then moving through several spaces until they were essentially tagged out by another improviser. During this brief interaction, you’d get to play a little bit of status – “what is a servant doing on the grand staircase?!” – or perhaps move a bigger story arc a little step forward. It was an ornate and complexly orchestrated affair, with many moving parts. I still remember the phrase MUBADI, which was an abbreviation for the room combination of the Music Room, Ballroom, and Dining Room. I think LIFOMO was the antecedent downstairs combination of the Library, Foyer where Lady Astor’s portrait was prominently displayed, and the Morning Room, followed by the circle of upstairs bedrooms, and then finally the servant’s quarters, staircase, and kitchen where anachronistic disposable cups of lemonade awaited our guests. If you were really lucky, you might also get to play as a “drop-in” character whose primary function was to just provide atmospheric life to the house and grounds.
No one used the term at the time, but this was certainly dramaturgical improv. The commitment level to the historical underpinnings of our tours quite likely varied from actor to actor and season to season, but the company was deeply vested as a whole in a shared historical knowledge and it was from this base that we played and breathed life into our characters and central relationships. A major lesson was that the more that we cared and invested in our characters and their arcs, the more we ultimately gained from the experience. Our hardworking directing team, Julia Murphy, Sheli Beck, and Lisa Nanni also judiciously planted character secrets that they activated over the course of the summer as little drama bombs ready to explode. I remember that a standard piece of shtick I had as Alfred in the Morning Room was to joke about how I wanted a whole “cricket team” of children with my new bride, and as the summer drew to a close her secret of possible infertility was unveiled which provided a whole new emotional truth as I escorted Lady Astor’s guests through the house. I have deployed similar strategies of carefully constructed secrets in many of my projects since, although I’m not sure if I’ve always made the conscious connection back to this initial experience with the device.
Other seeds that were planted and nurtured include a palpable joy and belief in research for the simple sake of research, a calling for crafting a context that is rich and nuanced even if only a sliver of this background might make it to an audience in any given performance or tour, and a desire to imagine and embody characters and scenarios of weight and import. I think these tropes would ring familiar for many of my collaborators since those days in 1891, especially those involved in Upton Abbey: An Improvised Comedy of English Manors that certainly explored some similar upstairs/downstairs ideas and dynamics.
I’m truly grateful I had an opportunity to explore this historical playground and it’s a little strange to think that I probably haven’t spent more time occupying any other character save, perhaps, my short-form persona. Sadly, this venue no longer serves as the home to a resident theatre company. (In addition to the daily Living History tours, we also performed a site-specific murder mystery and other specialty events.) It’s not every day that you get to step back into history!
Cheers, David Charles.
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