| Just Closed: | |  Candida by George Bernard Shaw (click poster left to go to Candida page) directed by Mort Paterson at the ActorsNET of Bucks County October 28 - November 13, 2011 At
The Heritage Center
635 N. Delmorr Ave.
Morrisville, PA
Reservations: 215-295-3694 or email actorsnet@aol.com
Tickets: $20 adults, $17 seniors, $10 children under 13
$15 WHYY Cards
Advanced tickets available for purchase with credit card online at Brown Paper Tickets.
Packet Publications' Time Off, critic Bob Brown notes that The NET has "near-perfect ensemble" performing George Bernard Shaw's Candida. He writes, "All the actors in this production, directed by seasoned professional Mort Paterson, are pitch perfect. Ms. Thompson and Mr. Hartpence, familiar in regional theatre productions, play particularly well off each other. Ms. Thompson's Candida is a woman confidently in control." Mr. Brown has high praise for the rest of the cast -- Ray Fallon, David Swartz, Susan Blair and Fred Halperin -- as well. As for the play, Mr. Brown writes, "Candida is a lighthearted, amusing probe of our assumptions about love and marriage, and about the effects of impulsive attraction.... This is a very entertaining production, well handled all around by a talented cast and production crew." | Candida, a classic comedy of the modern English-language theater, was written in 1894 by George Bernard Shaw, the prolific Irish-born dramatist who became one of the most widely-produced playwrights of the twentieth century. Set in London's East End during the Victorian era, Candida is about the domestic turmoil that ensues when an impetuous young poet comes between a progressive-minded clergyman and his charismatic wife. Though the story is centered on a classic romantic triangle, the questions it raises about the nature of love, fidelity, and the imagination of the artist are as provocative and enduring as ever, thanks to Shaw's vigorous wit and argumentative spirit. The cast includes: 
| Carol Thompson as Candida George Hartpence as Rev. James Mavor Morell | 
| Ray Fallon as Eugene Marchbanks Susan Blair as Prossy |  | David Schwarz as Mr. Burgess Fred Halperin as Lexy |
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PLOT SUMMARY - Spoiler Alert!!! The play begins in October of 1894 in the drawing room of St. Dominic's parsonage in the East End of London. Reverend James Morell, a Christian Socialist minister, discusses his busy schedule with his efficient typist, Miss Proserpine Garnett ("Prossy"). Burgess, Morell's father-in-law, a successful but unscrupulous businessman from a working class background, visits the Morell home for the first time in three years. While Burgess cannot convince Morell that he has changed his nature, he impresses Morell with the news that he has raised the wages of his underpaid workers. Morell's wife Candida returns home accompanied by the 18 year-old poet Eugene Marchbanks, whom Morell has recently rescued from the streets. Once alone with Morell, Marchbanks reveals that he is in love with Candida. His nervousness fades as he speaks of Candida's beauty and how Morell does not deserve her. As Act One ends, the Reverend Morell, shaken by Marchbanks' accusation, nonetheless insists that the young man stay for lunch. At the start of Act Two, Marchbanks is left alone with the typist Prossy. While she tries to work, he speaks of the plight of the poet and attempts to get her to confess her ardor for Morell. Flustered by Eugene's insinuations, she strikes out instead at Burgess, who has wandered in, accusing him of being a "silly old fathead." Meanwhile, Candida senses her husband's growing discomfort on the subject of Marchbanks and pulls him aside to talk. She tries to tease him but ends up reinforcing his insecurities about their marriage and his vocation. Candida suggests that his popularity as a speaker has more to do with his personal charm than his message. Frustrated, Morell considers canceling his evening's speaking appointment. He reconsiders, though, and decides to leave Candida alone with Marchbanks as a kind of test. At the top of Act Three, Marchbanks and Candida near the end of their evening together - an evening spent in poetry reading. Seeing that Candida is bored with the verse, Marchbanks is on the verge of declaring his love when Morell arrives home. Morell and Marchbanks size each other up, and Morell insists that Candida choose between the two of them. Candida takes up the challenge, asking each man to make his case. They do, and Candida, in a surprising turn of events, demonstrates that Morell is the weaker of the two, and therefore more deserving of her love. Marchbanks, realizing his future lies elsewhere, leaves Morell and Candida behind. | Dramatis Personae:  | | Candida - Candida is Morell's wife and mother of their two young children. Shaw explains that "she possesses the double charm of youth and motherhood. Her ways are those of a woman who has found that she can always manage people by engaging their affection, and who does so frankly and instinctively without the smallest scruple." She deeply loves her husband Morell, but is quite taken with Eugene Marchbanks' naïve, poetic nature. "This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me."
| |  | | The Reverend James Mavor Morell - Morell is a mature man, well-established in life, and husband to Candida. He is a Christian Socialist and clergyman of the Church of England. Shaw describes him as "a vigorous, genial, popular man of forty, robust and good-looking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty, considerate manners, and a sound unaffected voice, which he uses with the clean athletic articulation of a practiced orator, and with a wide range and perfect command of expression." "These people forget I am a man: they think I am a talking machine to be turned on for their pleasure every evening of my life."
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| | Eugene Marchbanks - Shaw states that "he is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted and tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitive of very swift and acute apprehensiveness in youth." This young poet is madly in love with Candida, an affliction that torments him throughout the play. "We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the first prayer of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy."
| |  | | Mr. Burgess - Shaw states that Candida's father has been "made coarse and sordid by the compulsory selfishness of petty commerce, and later on softened into sluggish bumptiousness by overfeeding and commercial success. He is a vulgar ignorant guzzling man." Burgess is a businessman always keeping an eye out for his own advancement. "When I pay a man, an' 'is livin depends on me, I keep him in 'is place."
| |  | | The Reverend Alexander "Lexy" Mill - Lexy is a young curate chosen by Morell as his assistant. He is a well-intentioned, enthusiastic novice. He idolizes Morell, and tries to be just like him, and although he isn't very successful at it, he has won Morell over by his "doglike" devotion. "I try to follow his example, not to imitate him."
| |  | | Miss Proserpine "Prossy" Garnett - Shaw tells us that she is "a brisk little woman of about 30, of the lower middle class... notably pert and quick of speech, and not very civil in her manner, but sensitive and affectionate." She is secretly in love with Morell, and jealous of how he constantly gushes over Candida. "It's enough to drive anyone out of their senses to hear a woman raved about in that absurd manner merely because she's got good hair, and a tolerable figure." |
| Most recently seen as: Malvolio in Shakespeare `70's production of TWELFTH NIGHT by Wm Shakespeare at Kelsey Theater on the campus of Mercer County Community College tickets $10 - $14 July 1 - 10 Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 2pm | 
| | Malvolio's two sides: Serious | and seriously silly | 
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| Just Closed: as Iago in Wm Shakespeare's Othello at The ActorsNET of Bucks County  | Carlo Campbell as Othello |  | Tess Ammerman as Desdemona |  | George Hartpence as Iago |  | Carol Thompson as Emilia |  | Mort Paterson as Brabantio |  | DeLarme Landes as Montano |  | Aaron Wexler as Roderigo |  | Jack Bathke as The Doge and Ludovico |
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Review exerpts from The Packet Publications 'Othello' Actors’ NET takes on one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies DATE POSTED: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 6:33 PM EDT By Anthony Stoeckert LET’S get right to the point, Actors’ NET of Bucks County’s staging of Othello is a major achievement, remarkable for a community group in fact. Give a lot of the credit to the actors, most of whom speak their lines with confidence and who actually act their roles rather than getting caught up Shakespeare’s language. Despite its title, Iago is the play’s main character, at least in terms of driving the plot. Most of the story follows the villain’s scheme to convince Othello that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio, leading to Othello’s destruction and Iago taking Cassio’s job. George Hartpence is one of the area’s best community actors and his Iago doesn’t disappoint. Hartpence speaks his lines with such clarity and ease, as if he were having a conversation in a coffee shop — that is if a power-hungry warrior devised a plan to destroy everyone around him in a coffee shop. Hartpence doesn’t resort to mustache-twirling villainy, he’s convincingly charming when dealing with Cassio, falsely loyal to Othello and intimidating and firm with his wife Emilia. Hartpence is so good I actually found myself buying Iago’s act, thinking he seemed like a decent sort. Hartpence does get his fun and powerful villainous moments during soliloquies, where his hatred for Othello and the world pour out of him. Carol Thompson is Hartpence’s equal as Emilia, the wife of Iago (and Hartpence’s real-life wife). She’s also comfortable with the language and convincingly goes from dutiful wife to someone who realizes the awful truth of her husband. Mort Paterson gives one of the night’s best performances as Brabantio, conveying the power of an influential man, the concern of a father and the anger of betrayal. Too bad the character isn’t in the play beyond the first act because I could have watched Paterson all night. | | Earlier this season... | | 
| “Chekhov lived only forty-four years, and during the last third of his life he was surely conscious of the likelihood of a premature death. Those of us who do not live under such a distinctly stated sentence of death cannot know what it is like. Chekhov’s masterpieces are always obliquely telling us.” ~Janet Malcolm, Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey (Random House, 2002) “Came home dazed and soul-scarred by your play, wrote you a long letter and tore it up. One cannot express fully and coherently the effect your play has on the soul, although I felt, as I watched its heroes, as though someone were sawing at me with a blunt-edged saw… For me Uncle Vanya is…a completely new form of dramatic art.” ~Maxim Gorki after seeing Uncle Vanya
“Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal at the table. Just having a meal. But at the same time their happiness is being smashed up.” ~Chekhov “Chekhov was always extremely fond of everything comic, humorous; he liked listening to funny stories, and sitting in a corner, his head propped on his hand, pinching his beard, he would go off into such infectious laughter that I often left off listening to the story and enjoyed it second-hand through him.” ~Olga Knipper on Chekhov | The Morrisville-based Actors’ NET of Bucks County continues its fifteenth season with Anton Chekhov’s masterful comic gem, UNCLE VANYA. Translated into English by Jenny Covan and adapted by George Hartpence and Cheryl Doyle, this classic but surprisingly modern comedy about dysfunction and longings remains as relevant as anything written today. Directed by NET Co-founder and Artistic Director Cheryl Doyle of Morrisville. Starring George Hartpence of New Hope as Vanya, DeLarme Landes of Doylestown as Astrov, Cat Miller of Bristol as Yelena, Alexa Newton of Yardley as Sonya, Mort Paterson of Philadelphia as Serebryakov, Susan Blair of Philadelphia as Maria, David Bohn of Ewing, NJ as Telyegin and Elaine Good of Doylestown as Marina. Assistant director, Carol Thompson of New Hope. Stage managed by Michael Krahel of Hillsborough, NJ. Set design by George Hartpence. Costume design by Cheryl Doyle. Lighting design by Andrena Wishnie of Morrisville. DATES: Jan. 28 – Feb. 13, 2011. TIMES: All three weekends, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. PLACE: The Heritage Center, 635 North Delmorr Avenue (Route 32), Morrisville, PA – near the Calhoun Street Bridge. ADMISSION: $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and $10 for children age 12 and under. To reserve, call the nonprofit Actors’ NET at 215-296-3694 or email actorsnet@aol.com. On- line tickets can be purchased via www.brownpapertickets.com. |  | Love Letters by A.R.Gurney one night only at The Yardley Inn Thanksgiving Weekend on "Black Friday" - November 26th - "All inclusive menu" - 3 course meal & show = $65 dinner starts at 6:30pm curtain is at 8pm call the Yardley Inn for reservations 215-493-3800 On Friday evening, November 26th -- one night only -- popular Actors' NET performers George Hartpence and Carol Thompson star in A.R. Gurney's two-character comedic drama, Love Letters. Married in real life, the New Hope couple has costarred in recent years in such Actors' NET productions as My Fair Lady, Hamlet, Macbeth and more. "We couldn't be more excited to present Love Letters as the first of what we hope will be many evenings of dinner theatre at the Yardley Inn," restaurant general manager Michelle Mohullen said. "Our amazing dinner theatre package is only $65 per person, which includes tax and tip. The meal will consist of choice of appetizer (soup du jour, house salad or marguerita salad), entree (roasted chicken, grilled flat iron steak, grilled salmon or crab cake) and dessert with coffee or tea." "Serving will begin at 6:30 p.m. on the show night," Ms. Mohullen said. "The show will begin at 8 p.m. " "Love Letters is one of playwright Gurney's most popular plays," explained Actors' NET Artistic Director Cheryl Doyle. "In less than two hours, we see two star-crossed American lovers -- Andrew Makepeace Ladd 3d and Melissa Gardner. Gurney carries them over a period of 50 years from second grade through the trauma of adulthood, marriage, divorce and middle age. It is a staged reading of unadorned theatre. As one actor reads, the other reacts, communicating the bittersweet reactions to the words. This work speaks equally to the heart of anyone in love or anyone who has loved and lost. It is, quite simply, brilliant." It’s appropriate George and Carol would launch our new partnership with the Yardley Inn and star for us in Love Letters,” Ms. Doyle said. "For them, it’s a labor of love. They love each other, this play, our theatre company and the Yardley Inn. They are enthusiastic regular patrons of the Yardley Inn, always extolling their great food and atmosphere. We’ve secured one of their favorite directors, Susan Berry Cadoff, to direct. She previously directed them in this stage play for a benefit performance elsewhere.” “By the way,” Ms. Doyle added, “George Hartpence noted recently that the show will be staged in the same room where he and his wife held their wedding rehearsal dinner seven years ago!” “Reservations are now being accepted for the Nov. 26th performance,” Ms. Doyle said. “Space is limited. To feed yourself, your heart and your soul, call the Yardley Inn Restaurant at 215-493-3800." The Yardley Inn Restaurant & Bar is located at 82 East Afton Avenue, Yardley, PA, 19067. | 
| 1776 | reprising the role of: Edward Rutledge representative from South Carolina | | The ActorsNET of Bucks County revival of the Sherman and Stone musical: August 20th, 21st & 22nd, 2010 
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| Much Ado About Nothing
May 21—June 6, 2010: Shakespeare’s timeless comedy. Young lovers Hero and Claudio are to be wed in one week. For a lark, they conspire with Don Pedro to set a "lover's trap" for arrogant confirmed bachelor Benedick and his favorite sparring partner, Beatrice . Meanwhile, the evil Don Jon conspires to break up the wedding by accusing Hero of infidelity, which leads to denunciation, tears, and a faked death. In the end, though, it all turns out to be "much ado about nothing." Amidst the two love stories, the members of the local constabulary provide some hilarious slapstick. Directed by : Janet Quartarone Assistant Director: Mort Paterson George Hartpence appearing as Benedick Carol Thompson appearing as Beatrice other casting news: Mort Paterson as Leonato Ray Fallon as Claudio Rupert Hinton as Dogberry Jamie Bradley as Don Pedro more to come... | | "Much Ado" Rehearsal Photos by: | Rich Kowalski | 
George Hartpence as Benedick | 
Carol Thompson as Beatrice |  a rare moment of peace between Beatrice and Benedick | 
Mort Paterson (right) as Leonato & Jack Bathke as Friar Francis |  The Watch takes the examination of vagrom men | 
"...but by this light I take thee for pity." |  big finale | 
Ray Fallon (left) as Claudio & Jamie Bradley (right) as Don Pedro |  masque | 
Three little maids... Susan Fowler (left) as Ursula, Alyssa Marshall (center) as Hero, and Emily West (right) as Margaret |  reconciled | 
the challenge | | News | | | | | 
| Actor and Playwright Austin Pendleton visits the ActorsNET of Bucks County Sunday, June 7th, 2009 performance of Booth | Recent Voice Over Work: - RFBD & American College of Clinical Pharmacy
- ACCP - PSAP (Pharmacotherapy Self-Assessment Program) VII Cardiology Audio Companion
- PSAP is the premier home study tool for the pharmacotherapy specialist. This series of continuing education activities provides subscribers with pertinent pharmacotherapeutic updates with an emphasis on quality patient care. Neither a textbook nor an overall review, each book in the PSAP-VII series presents the latest information on a specific topic. This allows pharmacists to develop and assess their knowledge in the science and application of pharmacotherapy and to enhance their educational competence in this specialty, with an emphasis on providing quality pharmaceutical care
| to listen to a sample, follow this link then select the sample |
Use the drop down menu on the left to access the following and more: Geo's Stage Bio chronological listing of theatrical productions with links to more detailed information on many of the shows 
| Headshots 
headshot portfolio by Kresimir Juraga | Show Photos see a chronological progression of photos from every production 
| Featured Performances use this page to link to pages on this site dedicated to favorite non-Shakespearean roles 
| Shakespearean Roles navigate to pages created on this site to document Geo's appearances in the Shakespearean cannon of plays. In-depth information on these pages includes production photos, slide shows,scripts, commentary, analysis, and reviews. 
| Set Designs see photos and other details of sets designed by Geo 
| COMING ATTRACTIONS! For upcoming and recent show information and links, just scroll down this page... | and a specal page dedicated to Geo's favorite costar: Carol Thompson 
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