RIP Apple Tree Theatre

It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. After 26 years of producing the very highest quality plays and musicals on the North Shore, Apple Tree Theatre’s Board of Directors will reportedly announce tomorrow that they are closing, shutting their doors forever.

Eileen Boevers, the founder of Apple Tree Theatre, passed away last year at the young age of 68, but she was the theater’s life blood.

I miss her and I will miss the theater.

I am blessed to have worked for many years with Apple Tree with some of the finest actors and designers and technicians and directors in the business. My first project there was music directing “The Spitfire Grill,” directed by Eileen and featuring the terrific Susie McMonagle and Marianne Thebus. (I’d directed Marianne previously, but this was her first musical and she was very nervous – she did great!)

Then I was the music supervisor (with music direction by the brilliant Doug Peck) for Susie’s star turn as Mae West in… the name is escaping me now. Something silver?

Following these shows were the great gifts of directing “My Old Lady,” “Three Tall Women,” “The Winning Streak,” and, “The Gin Game,” featuring such brilliant actors as Ann Whitney, Barbara Robertson, Gene Weygandt, Jenny McKnight, Matthew Brumlow, Tony Mockus, Bob Breuler, and others. These experiences were sublime. These productions were supported, and encouraged, and nurtured, and loved by the Apple Tree Theatre.

Times were hard, sometimes. Money was sometimes an issue, a challenge. But there was always a will to make the show as good as it possibly could be. There was always a commitment to what we were there to do: to tell a great story in a compelling way that might, just might, lead an audience member to have a new understanding, a new insight into what it means to be a human being.

I am honored to have been part of Apple Tree Theatre’s history and I wish it a fond, and very heartsick, farewell.

And Tim and Robby and Lynn and Kurt and Scott and Rita and Julia and Bill and Mark, thank you so much!

Namaste.