METAMORPHOSES

A Note From the Directors

In his essay Nothing Personal James Baldwin writes, “it is perfectly possible—indeed, it is far from uncommon—to go to bed one night, or wake up one morning, or simply walk through a door one has known all one’s life, and discover, between inhaling and exhaling, that the self one has sewn together with such effort is all dirty rags, is unusable, is gone: and out of what raw material will one build a self again? The lives of men—and, therefore, of nations—to an extent literally unimaginable, depend on how vividly this question lives in the mind.”

The word Metamorphosis is translated from the greek as a transformation. This transformation is not something predetermined by an a priori form, but instead is defined by the material body in flux; i.e, my body, your body. Baldwin’s question of raw material is a soulful question as well as a physical one. It is directed towards each individual living within this changing world.

Ovid’s poem is full of unflinching violence, desire, celebration, failure, and grief. As it is a Roman poem, we see the parallels to our world quite easily. America is violent, full of desire, celebration, accelerative failures, and both visible and invisible grief. We face, or outface, many troubling and unmoving facts of modernity— the global pandemic is one, the ecological crisis is one, the simultaneous ruination of democratic values is another. Each of these struggles further and compound the crisis of our basic civil rights as well as dampen our chances to treat one another with humanity. One crisis is enough to collapse our Roman empire, for the implications of each are far reaching and often, because of their scope, out of one’s hands. I do not wish to be fatalist, but merely expressive of the feeling one has when reading about the melting ice caps, a supermarket shooting, the lynching of our fellow citizens, or the way we treat children at the border. What—if anything, is one to do? Though the issues of our modern world feel out of our grasp, they are not, out of the reach for the heart.

Our little play is far from a literal rendition of Ovid. It is, to be plain, not Ovid. Instead, it has taken Ovid’s recapitulation as the topography in which modern individuals, who share the same names as those mythic figures, find their more intimate lives to be expressed. It is about the moments between the doorway, between the inhale and exhale, between thought and expression that we find we cannot live as what we have been. This play is about the failures of changing as much as it is about the inherent fact of change in each breath. For you and I, as we sit here, as we talk together, will never be what we have been. Instead, we are always transforming.

Of course, that which our play shares with Ovid’s poem is that each character is within the terrifying gap of the ‘not knowing’ and the ‘not yet’. This too, is where we find ourselves today. And, from this, I believe we have a personal moral imperative to listen to this not knowing, to understand that we are the authorities of our own experience and to continue from what raw material we have. Only in caring for this not knowing and this not yet, can we love the sensitive and brilliant people around us, people affected by this harsh and beautiful world and, like us, need compassion and attention.

For the heart, there is much to grieve and much to celebrate. Metamorphoses require both from us.

-Will Mombello

To say that myth never was, but always is, begs the question: What myth are we living? I’m going to put all my cards on the table. I’m going to be brave and tell you what I’m thinking. The time has come, as least for me, to end the muddle of thinking that is crippling our world today. For that I’ll turn to William Blake: He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sun rise. It’s that simple, whatever simple means. What are we holding onto that denies our true being? We are creatures of time and eternity. That’s Jesus on his cross. That’s the myth we’re living. And that myth is as close to you as your neighbor’s lawn sign: We Believe that Love Is Love; That there are angles in the trees; That all humans are legal, and all the rest on down the line. Believing is seeing. And therein lies the rub.

Last summer we at TITO did not get to perform our summer show due to the pandemic. A thing of value was taken away from us. In the absence of doing what we love to do, we learned a great deal about ourselves and the things we do value. Theatre is community, and all the dynamics that come with it For actors it means that we are always in each other’s playing space. Theatre is as much touch as it is feeling. It’s an intimate space, One that call’s forth our vulnerabilities. Our fears. Our anxieties. Our aspirations, and our dreams. Along with the pandemic comes separation and grieving. It has been a season of staggering loss. Of loss almost beyond comprehension. in the hope of bringing healing to ourselves and to our community, we at TITO decided that this year’s play should come out of our own experience of grieving and healing, of separation and loss. We decided that we would have to create the play ourselves. Our premise was simple enough: Healing is a measure of creativity itself. So, we turned to Ovid for inspiration, but we set our own minds to fire. We made all his stories and all his words our own. We created our own myth. And in doing so we discovered the deeper meaning of Keat’s notion That a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.

Herein lies the healing power. The beauty of coming together as a community endeavoring to make art. To create a sandcastle out of wet sand. All art is simply the concrete moment before you let it go. Art is a cry, not a grasping. A depth, and a duration. Not the thing itself, but the memory of the thing itself. A creating only to let go. Art is truer than history. We are living in the age of the great letting go while clinging to what we think we know. But the soul would have it otherwise. The spirit of the child tells us that the soul of the world is Eros in hiding. And as Blake says, beauty is as clear as that. For beauty hides in eternity’s sun rise.

-Stephen Haley

Meet the Cast of Ovid’s Metamorphosis

ELyse B. Brown as galatea

ELYSE B. BROWN is a theatre maker in Greater Boston. In 2019 she debuted her solo clown piece, Io Ballo, at PortFringe in Portland, Maine, and appeared as Putin in Bitter Pill's We Are Pussy Riot (Portsmouth, NH). Elyse is an MFA Physical Theatre graduate of Accademia dell’Arte (Arezzo, Italy).

Elyse makes her Theater in the Open debut with Metamorphoses.

Emma Finnerty as eurydice and echo

EMMA FINNERTY (she/her/hers) is an actor and recent graduate of Boston University with a BFA in Acting. This is her first project with Theater in the Open and she is thrilled to have met such a wonderful group of people and artists! Some of her favorite past credits include Katrin in The Europeans and Marion in InMotion Theatre’s Sunlight Interior. Emma is also thankful that she has yet to get a tick this whole rehearsal process, her worst fear. Check Emma out at emma-finnerty.com

Emma makes her Theater in the Open debut with Metamorphoses.

MICHAEL VALLADERES AS ORPHEUS And narcissus

Michael Valladares (he/him) is an actor, writer, and dramaturg on a radical humanist mission to archive life and liberate the imagination. He recently graduated with a BFA in theatre arts from Boston University and is thrilled to join Theatre in the Open in sharing this poetic reflection on transformation. Previous physical theatre credits include 6 Ft Apart, All Together and I Am the Baron at Double Edge Theatre; and Sunlight Interior at Boston University.

Michael makes his Theater in the Open debut with Metamorphoses.

Allegra Dubus-Brandolini as persephone

ALLEGRA DUBUS-BRANDOLINI is thrilled to be joining the cast of Metamorphoses. Area credits include Waiting for Godot (Firehouse Center for the Arts), Emotional Creature (Firehouse Center for the Arts), The Little Mermaid (Firehouse Center for the Arts), and School of Rock, the Musical (Ogunquit Playhouse). She has performed in countless productions at Sarah Lawrence College such as Head over Heels, the Musical and Twelfth Night. She is currently studying theatre and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and looks forward to continuing her studies abroad in London at the British American Drama Academy in the fall.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include Antigone (2017), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017), Medea (2018), Lost Songs (2018), Julius Caesar (2018), and A Snow White Panto (2017).

Edward F. SPeck as zeus and hades

Teddy Speck has served as the Artistic Director of Theater in the Open since 2009. He has been seen in TITO shows for the past 25 years, including the Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Medea, and Much Ado About Nothing. He is a proud member of Exit Dance Theatre. He holds degrees from the New School in New York City, and the Harvard Extension School.

Sierra Gitlin as gaia

Sierra has been working with Theater in the Open as an actor since 2017, performing in Antigone as part of the chorus. She has appeared as Medea and in several pantos since. Sierra serves on the Board of Directors of Theater in the Open.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include Antigone (2017) and Medea (2018).

Fontaine Dollas dubus as demeter

FONTAINE DOLLAS DUBUS has been immersed in theater all her life as a dancer, choreographer, director, writer and an actor. In 1987 she co-founded Exit Dance Theatre, a modern company based in Newburyport, MA. Exit performs throughout the North Shore, in Boston and beyond. She teaches dance at The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, and at her own studio, The Dance Place in Newburyport. She also co-directs a youth dance troupe, Joppa Dance Co. Her favorite acting roles include Peter Quince in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Native American rights activist, Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, (monologue written by Leslie Powell for Women’s Herstory Month Festival - The Actor’s Studio of Newburyport). She is married to author André Dubus III.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017).

Fernanda Greco Quentel as Ensemble

My name is FERNANDA GRECO QUENTEL (Fern), I'm originally from Brazil and moved to Boston not so long ago. I'm studying clinical mental health and dance movement therapy at Lesley University. I started doing movement through yoga and other contemplative practices, I also love dancing, climbing tall trees and playing Capoeira. I'm excited to be working with the Theater in the Open, it is my first time doing something like this.

Fernanda makes her Theater in the Open debut with Metamorphoses.

Meghan Guilfoyle as ensemble

MEGHAN GUILFOYLE is a Set Decorating coordinator in the greater Boston area. For the past three years, she has worked on tv series and full-length feature films. Meghan has served on teams creating Sound of Metal, Little Women, Knives Out, Defending Jacob, and Dexter.

When she’s not busy working; she loves reconnecting with dance, getting lost in nature, immersing herself in her travels, and spending quality time making delicious food with her friends & loved ones.

Meghan makes her Theater in the Open debut with Metamorphoses.

Francis Hellums as ensemble

FRANCES HELLUMS made her Theater in the Open debut in The Tempest in 2019. Originally from Houston, Texas, Frances received her BFA at Boston University's School of Theatre with artistic concentrations in Musical Theatre and Directing and an academic concentration in Applied Developmental Psychology. Favorite credits include; InMotion Theatre's Sunlight Interior (Melody/The Usher/The Dancer), Boston Playwright's Theatre’s Rx Machina (Stevie), and Mainstreet Theater's staged reading of Kilgore! (Mykelti). Learn more about her at franceshellums.com

Previous Theater in the Open credits include The Tempest (2019).

Cailin Mcfarland as ensemble

CAILIN MCFARLAND is a Newburyport based actor, educator, and costume designer. She is thrilled to return to in person performances with Metamorphoses.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include Antigone (2017), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017), and POE (2017).

KATHRYN TOLLEY AS ensemble

KATHRYN TOLLEY (she/her/hers) is a Boston-based opera singer and actor. Previous credits include Dorabella (Così fan tutte) with Lowell House Opera, Metella (Silla) with Cambridge Chamber Ensemble, Jo March (Adamo's Little Women) with Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Siebel (Faust) and Hansel (Hansel and Gretel), both with Opera51, and the title role of Handel’s Rinaldo with Chicago Summer Opera. Kathryn holds a Master of Music in Voice from Boston University.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include Orpheus (2013), The Flies (2011), Adventures in Zoomland (2020), and Sunset Picnic in the Park: Garden Music (2021).

Erin Staffiere as ensemble

ERIN STAFFIERE grew up at the Dance Place in Newburyport, where dance and theater closely intertwine. She continues to explore that relationship, learning from experience, as well as her mentors and collaborators. Both as a member of Exit Dance Theatre and, more recently, working with Theater in the Open, Erin is increasingly inspired and moved by the experience of dancing to text in addition to music. She shares her passion for telling stories through movement at The Governor’s Academy, The Dance Place, and Theater in the Open’s Summer Arts Workshop. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, daughter, dog, and two guinea pigs

Previous Theater in the Open credits include Poe and Antigone (2017).

willow dixon as ensemble

WILLOW DIXON has been performing with Theater in the Open for the past four years, getting her start as the changeling child in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2017. Since then she’s appeared in A Christmas Carol Panto and Poe, as well as Waiting for Godot at The Firehouse Theater. Willow has attended TITO’s Summer Arts Workshop every summer since the age of 6.

Previous Theater in the Open credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017), POE (2017, 2018), and A Christmas Carol Panto! (2019).

Will Mombello, Director

WILL MOMBELLO has been performing with Theater in the Open for eight years and returns as a director for the second time, having directed Maudslay is Haunted in 2020. A Newburyport native, he earned a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Select Theater in the Open credits include Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and, Twelfth Night.

Stephen Haley, Director

STEPHEN HALEY is a writer, performer and director based in Newburyport, and has been working with Theater in the Open for several decades. A founding member of Exit Dance Theater, he has spent his artistic career exploring the convergence of poetry and movement. He holds a PhD in Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Credits with Theater in the Open: Antigone, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Medea, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, King Lear, The Flies, Orpheus, and Grimm. Area credits include Waiting for Godot at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts.