Many Guilford residents own a copy of “the green book,” the Official History of Guilford, published for the town’s bicentennial in 1961. The marvelous characters and stories, from the time of the first settlers — Micha and Silence Rice in 1761 — to the town we know and live in, now come to life in a new way.
On the first weekend in October, Guilford Center Stage will present the premiere of a new full-length play, “Vermont Mythos—a small town fable,” written & directed by Michael Nethercott. Think of it as “The Unoffical History of Guilford.”
Several months ago, the theater company asked Nethercott, a Guilford playwright and longtime GCS collaborator, to create a play which in some way would recognize the town’s backstory. The play blends local legends, historical figures, and imaginative storytelling into a theatrical fable exploring the human experience with humor, mystery, and heart.
To tell its tale, the play, featuring 16 actors, uses various historical figures —such as Ethan Allen, Royall Tyler, and Lucy Terry Prince — but also a Greek chorus and a pestering jester. The best known of these is Allen, who was sent here in 1783 to squelch a rebellion. Then there is playwright Royall Tyler, author of the first American comedy to be professionally staged, and his wife Mary, who penned the country’s first child-rearing book by a woman. Guilford resident Lucy Terry Prince has the distinction of being the first chronicled Black poet in America.
The Tylers lived, in the 1790’s, in Guilford Center Village, and would surely have walked on the plot of land which later became Broad Brook Grange and the Community Center, where this play is being performed. Another character we meet was quite familiar with the stage at the Grange hall: Charles Washington Henry, born in Guilford in 1850 and himself a playwright and theater producer. The scenic theater curtains and flats, which he painted for the building about 1900, will be seen in “Vermont Mythos.”
Original settler, Silence Rice, who lived on what is now Weatherhead Hollow Road, narrates the play, and is joined by another and mysterious early Guilfordite, Old Mother Honeywell, who habituated the haunted neighborhood of Packer Corners, and the mists of Weatherhead Hollow, the region bordering the Town of Leyden where there was an 18th century religious cult. Mother Honeywell was thought to be a witch, with supernatural powers. She and her Familiar are featured characters in the play, pictured here, performed by Dyana Lee and Yayba Rios, photo by Chris Beebe.
Performances of “Vermont Mythos” are: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 1-3, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday the 4th at 2:00 pm. at the fully-accessible Broad Brook Community Center, 3940 Guilford Center Road. General admission is at the door at $16 per person, by cash, check, PayPal or Venmo.
