All photos by Alexis Scheer.
Welcome
to Mercy
Hospital
This
play did not exist a few months ago, and now it does. It was created specifically for this company
of actors to perform, and you are one of the first audiences to see it.
Isn’t
that exciting?
As a
source, we used Mary Roach’s engaging and droll book Spook: Science Tackles the
Afterlife. This collection of essays
examines the quest by certain members of the scientific and medical communities
to prove the existence of ghosts, the afterlife and the human soul (among other
things).
Its
tone is macabre and hilarious at once.
We read
passages together and shared personal stories.
We created
compositions, scenarios and characters through projects and improvisations.
Text
and structure began to emerge.
Sometimes
I would adjust homeless material that I had wrought previously, but more often
than not I was inspired by these actors & what they had created in the
studio. This was truly a symbiotic
relationship between actor and playwright.
The
actors also created text for themselves and their fellow cast members to
perform, which is included here, as well!
We
discovered together what this world contained:
Candy
Corn, Plastic Sheets & Coat-hangers.
Syrup
and disco.
Rubber
gloves & mysterious blue stains.
We
found the shapes and sounds and gestures that seemed to repeat themselves: the
static of the waiting area TV, the gesture of a doctor preparing for surgery,
the over-wrought expressions of soap opera actors, the incidental music of 50s
pot boilers, mingled with the glittery oeuvre of Donna Summer.
From
the themes and ideas of Spook emerged the characters,
scenarios and world of Mercy Hospital.
To me, Mercy
Hospital is actually three separate hospitals that overlap each other:
In one
reality, a woman lies in a coma after a car accident, while her husband sleeps and dreams
in the hospital waiting area, a TV crackling in the background.
In
another, a Professor in paranormal psychology engages three psychics to hunt
for ghost in the deserted halls of the haunted Mercy Hospital: abandoned for
decades after the head physician, Dr. Darling, began murdering his patients in
search of their souls.
In yet
a third reality, the vaguely 80s soap opera “Mercy Hospital” is being filmed,
drawing the denizens of the other two worlds into its ludicrous plot lines. Collisions will occur.
It has
been a great adventure creating this theatrical world with this talented group
of artists.
Enjoy!
Johnny
Cast of Characters
Pom Pom Girl Roxy York
Sylvia Kathleen LaMagna
Alan
Marchant Davis
Professor
Weldon/Big Red Tom Hamlett
Dr.
Ian Wingfield
Bradley Gibson
Myrtle Sarah
Mullis
Hope Sarah Smithton
Carla Erin “Sprinkles” Kommer
Dr.
David Darling Brian Wible
Stefan Riley Brack
Isadora Von Pain Vicky
Campadonico
Production
Direction,
Set & Sound Design: John Kuntz
Stage
Manager: Grace
Tarves
Text: John Kuntz
Lighting
Design: Michael Clark Wonson
Props: Tyler Brown
Costumes: Rachel Padula
Video
Design:
Sarah Smithton, Adam Stone & Kuntz
“Mercy
Hospital Opening Credits” &
“The
Frosting Montage”
- filmed and edited by Sarah
Smithton
Poster Design: Matthew Rodin
Crew: Styles Speights and John Cardoza
Additional Text:
“I’m
so bad at being crazy” (speech) & “This goes here and that goes there”
(speech) by
Sarah Mullis
“Love
Poem” by Roxy York
“Love
Poem Response” by Riley Brack
“I
need to cut the voices out of you” (speech) by Brian Wible
“Making
love in the Partridge Family’s Tree house” (speech) by Kathleen LaMagna
“He
poisoned me” (speech) by Marchant Davis
“MacArthur Park”, “Hot Stuff” &
“Last
Dance” by the Company
Special Thanks:
Adam Stone, Matthew Rodin, Alexis Scheer, Richard Malcolm
and his staff, Jennifer Smith, Rebecca Butler and the Boston Conservatory
costume shop, Tommy Derrah.
