SPOTLIGHT: Goshen Players 75th Production Season

Image Description: The Goshen Players’ Old Town Hall theater at 2 North St, Goshen / Eric Warner

The Goshen Players, Connecticut’s second oldest continuously performing theater group, is celebrating their 75th Production season this fiscal year.

First established in late Winter 1949 by Albert Dolloff, the players were originally composed of a small group of local theater enthusiasts and acting amateurs striving to produce a community theater of their own. The players chose to perform their first musical production of the 1875 comic opera Trial by Jury in Goshen’s Old Town Hall in May 1949. This first production became so popular that the players were requested to perform repeat showings in Cornwall, Litchfield, and West Torrington. Since then, the players have produced shows throughout the Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons annually, culminating in over 100 performances produced to date.

Image Description: The Goshen Players’ 1949 cast of Trial by Jury, their first official production / Eric Warner

“It’s very much a close-knit family,” said Lydia Babbitt, a second generation Goshen Player. “We all support one another whether you’re onstage or offstage or doing whatever job you need to do to make the production a success… Everybody’s on an absolutely equal footing, Everybody’s working hard cause the goal is to put out the best product you can.” Babbitt’s family has long participated in Players’ productions with her father first joining the theater in 1954 and mother later joining in 1959. While Babbitt herself wouldn't take to the stage until the theater’s 1980 production of Fiddler on the Roof, she and her siblings helped the theater in any way they could before adulthood including helping with costuming, painting, and set construction. “I’ve done pretty much everything except design lights,” Babbitt recollected. “I’ve done costumes, I’ve been the stage manager, I’ve been on-stage, I’ve runned the light board, I’ve directed, I’ve produced. My favorite is to be on-stage though.” Babbitt is still involved with the Players’ to this very day, operating as a house manager overseeing staff during live show productions.

Babbitt’s story is one similar to many who’ve sung, danced, and performed on Old Town Hall’s stage. Dozens of Goshen residents and fellow Litchfield County theater enthusiasts have helped make each production a reality. Many have stayed in the area and continued to help the theater for their entire lives while several Goshen Players went on to spread their love for theater beyond Connecticut. Perhaps the most famous Goshen Player was Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic 1962 young adult science fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time.

Image Description: Goshen Players rehearsing for Arsenic and Old Lace / Joseph Guttadauro

Before A Wrinkle in Time became a bestseller, L'Engle was a Goshen Player and it was at Old Town Hall that the Players’ debuted her original 1957 production of Come to the Ball. According to Players’ Board of Directors President Joseph Guttadauro, the theater often helps up and coming playwrights make their scripts a reality, typically through small stage readings. “Just this Fall right before All is Calm[:The Christmas Truce of 1914], we had a reading of a new musical that we did for two days. It wasn’t highly publicized because really it was someone in the area [who] wrote a musical. They rehearsed [for] a couple of weeks, they cut it, and they did a stage reading in the space just for invited guests.” In the theater’s Summer off-season, the Players’ often host small public readings of original plays or musicals before rehearsal begins for the next production season in late August or early September.

Not every aspect of the Goshen Players’ history has been without issues. Like so many entities in the entertainment industry at the time, the theater was impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, unlike other theaters that were faced with the prospect of shutting down, the Players’ came out of the pandemic relatively unscathed. “Our production of Lost in Yonkers that we were working on for the Spring of 2020 got delayed [for] a couple of years,” Guttadauro explained. “While we didn’t present live theater… we did streaming. So we streamed some productions where we had the actors at the theater or we had actors all on camera… When it was warm enough, we started doing stuff in the yard so we had some, what we called Evenings on the Lawn. So we were just as busy, I’d say, during COVID if not busier.”  Beginning in early Winter 2020 and ending in Fall 2021, the Players’ hosted four virtual productions including Clybourne Park, It’s A Wonderful Life, Peter Pan, and The Puzzle With the Piazza. Rehearsals for Lost in Yonkers began in 2019 but the show was delayed for two years till Fall 2021 due to complications from the pandemic. Each virtual production was shared to audience members registered with the Players’ mailing list.

The Goshen Players is solely supported by volunteers and donations from local communities with the majority of profits going towards the upkeep and improvement of the theater itself. The theater seats roughly 90 audience members but occasionally offers in-theater dinner nights or hosts pre-show dinners at the neighboring Goshen Church of Christ Congregational. This year the Players’ are dedicating the majority of their profits towards restoring the windows for the aging building.

Image Description: The cast and crew of Arsenic and Old Lace / Joseph Guttadauro

Upcoming Goshen Players productions include Arsenic and Old Lace and 9 to 5: The Musical. Arsenic will premiere on February 24th starting at 8 pm with March 1st, 2nd, 8th and 9th showings also starting at 8 pm. February 25th, March 3rd, and 10th showings will start at 3 pm. On Saturday, March 2nd’s showing, the theater will partner with the Church of Christ Congregational to host a special theater showing of Arsenic; dinner will be provided first at the church at 6 pm and attendees will later walk to the theater for the performance at 8 pm. 9 to 5 will premiere on April 27th and continue showing till May 12th. To conclude their 75th season, the Gopshen Players will host a celebratory gala at the theater on Saturday, June 1st featuring food, drinks, entertainment, and a silent auction.