Richmond Hill in Geneseo Re-Opens Thursday After Over Year and a Half Intermission
It’s been an especially long, hard road to reopening live theater for Geneseo’s Richmond Hill Players and company veteran Jennifer Kingry.
She last directed at RHP for “The 39 Steps” in August 2019 and was in the midst of rehearsing the comedy “Becky’s New Car” in March 2020, when Covid-19 shut everything down. The Barn Theatre is finally opening their long-awaited 2021 season with John Patrick Shanley’s 2014
Adam Lewis and Jessica White play neighboring Irish farmers in “Outside Mullingar,” running at Richmond Hill Players Barn Theatre Aug. 5-15.
romantic comedy, “Outside Mullingar” – directed by Kingry – with performances Thursdays through Sundays, Aug. 5-15, in Richmond Hill Park, Geneseo, within a week of an equally long-awaited memorial service for the beloved RHP veteran John VanDeWoestyne.
“It was very moving but I think it was all very upbeat,” Kingry said Tuesday of the service, that took place July 31 and drew at least 250 people. “I think everybody was happy to be able to see each other in person, you know, to see the family and to share stories about John.”
VanDeWoestyne, the longtime RHP board president, actor and director, died March 25, 2020 at age 66. He directed the last full production done at Richmond Hill, “A Doublewide, Texas Christmas,” in November 2019.
Set in the rolling hills of rural Ireland, “Outside Mullingar” tells the unlikely love story of
Jessica White (center) delivers startling news to Kevin Babbitt and Susan Perrin-Sallak in Richmond Hill Players’ season-opening Irish romantic comedy “Outside Mullingar.”
Anthony Reilly and Rosemary Muldoon (played by Adam Michael Lewis and Jessica White), two introverted middle-aged neighbors, long kept apart by bad luck, a bitter family land dispute, and sheer stubbornness. Susan Perrin-Sallak plays Rosemary’s mother and Kevin Babbitt is Anthony’s father.
Full of laughs, tenderhearted moments, and Irish whimsy, this modern-day fable reminds us all that it’s never too late to take a chance on love.
Babbitt (who co-starred in Playcrafters’ “On Golden Pond” and “Tuesdays With Morrie”) played multiple roles for “39 Steps,” and this is his second RHP show, the director said. “ We are thrilled to have him at RHP; he’s a consummate pro as an actor and lovely, funny guy to boot,” Kingry said.
She serves on the RHP board, and they decided to delay the start of the 2021 season, with fewer shows.
“We kept our eye on the situation; we were a little more cautious, because a lot of places started reopening in June and July,” Kingry said Tuesday. “Let’s kind of halve the season, with only three shows, so that each one gets to do their full preparation on stage. We held auditions
Kevin Babbitt and Adam Lewis play a father and son in “Outside Mullingar,” opening Thursday, Aug. 5 at Richmond Hill Players in Geneseo.
in June for my show, the August show. We just didn’t want to rush it. To some extent, the smaller the theater, the greater the Covid issues kind of impact you, because there’s not a whole ton of room for people to spread out.”
“If you can only seat half of your capacity, can you even break even on the show?” she said. “While obviously, we don’t do this for money, still, you can’t afford to have the place lose money on each show after a year and half of being closed.”
“Honestly, when some of the other local theaters started opening up in June and July, I commented one time, by the time we open up, Covid will probably be back,” Kingry said, noting the latest rise in virus cases.
The board president (Jonathan Grafft) didn’t have a single regret in starting the season later, she said.
“You can only make your choices based upon the best information you have at the time,” she said. “You can’t predict and everybody with hindsight goes, oh well, you should have done this or you should have done that. Well, you know what, this is what we decided to do. So far, we’re getting an enthusiastic response from our patrons. Everybody seems anxious to be able to get back into the theater and enjoy live
The last RHP production was in November 2019, “A Doublewide, Texas Christmas,” featuring Nathan Johnson and Diane Greenwood.
theater again.”
Kingry was directing rehearsals for the bitter comedy “Becky’s New Car” in March 2020, when the shutdown happened, but decided not to revisit that play this year.
“Those of us that had been scheduled for 2020, we weren’t guaranteed a spot in 2021 but we were told if you want to throw the show you were supposed to direct into the play-reading mix, we’ll definitely consider it,” she said. “I chose something different, and my rationale for that was – ‘Becky’s New Car’ is a funny comedy, contemporary, but with a sort of a cynical edge to it. It’s kind of a look at married life and stuff. And in the meantime, I’d read ‘Outside Mullingar,’ which is a little romantic. It’s a little pulling at the heartstrings.
“It’s a sort of family relationship comedy,” Kingry said, noting its overriding spirit is sweetness and comfort, which everyone seems to need right now. “When I read it, at that point we were still deeply into Covid, and you know, we don’t know how long this is going to go on. Everybody at Richmond Hill and elsewhere is impacted by John VanDeWoestyne’s passing. And I was like, you know, I think we need a sweet, gentle comedy to open with, rather than something with some sort of biting humor about the difficulties of marriage.”
“I couldn’t have gotten luckier with the cast,” she said of “Outside Mullingar,” noting all four are Q-C theater vets. Lewis lives in Macomb, where he teaches theater at Western Illinois University, and is making his RHP debut now. Playwright John Patrick Shanley won the 1988 Original Screenplay Oscar for “Moonstruck,” and the 2005 Pulitzer for drama, for his “Doubt: A Parable.”
“Mr. Richmond Hill,” John VanDeWoestyne, died unexpectedly March 25, 2020, at 66, and a long-planned memorial service in his honor was held July 31, 2021.
The RHP staff includes stage manager Eugenia Giebel, light/sound designer and operator Jennifer Kingry, set builder Mike Skiles, all of Geneseo; set builder Jim Skiles, Colona; crew members Stacy and Wesley Herrick, Cambridge, and Jim Strauss, Bettendorf.
Kingry – who’s done lights and sound for every RHP show she’s directed — has a similar schedule to 2019, when after finishing “The 39 Steps,” the next day she started rehearsals on a Playcrafters show, “4,000 Miles,” done in October 2019. That’s the same thing happening this year, after “Outside Mullingar,” Kingry will start rehearsals for “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” at Playcrafters, which will run this October.
Though the CDC is recommending everyone wear face masks indoors (even if you’re vaccinated), Richmond Hill is not requiring them now, Kingry said. All the actors have been vaccinated, she noted.
An audio description performance for visually-impaired patrons will be held Friday, August 6th. New this season, Richmond Hill is offering Assistive Listening Devices (a type of hearing aid), which can be requested at the time that reservations are made.
Performances of “Outside Mullingar” will be Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.), and Sundays at 3 p.m. (with doors opening at 2 p.m.). Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling the box office at 309-944-2244 or by visiting the website at www.rhplayers.com. Late seating is not permitted; no one will be admitted to the theater after the show has started. Admission to all performances is $12.
