Robert Frost: This Verse Business at Roberts Studio Theatre at Calderwood Pavilion

Emmy-winning actor Gordon Clapp (NYPD Blue) will bring his acclaimed portrayal of poet Robert Frost to Boston this Spring in the one-person show "Robert Frost: This Verse Business" by local playwright A.M. Dolan.  It’s an entertaining portrait of the great poet and platform legend whose public “talks” were hot tickets for nearly half a century and an illuminating glimpse of the old bard at home, aware of his fame and failures, with poems still to write and “promises to keep.”  Directed by Gus Kaikkonen, performances will run from April 23-28, 2024 (Press Performance April 23 or 24) in the Roberts Studio Theatre at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, Tuesday - Friday, 7:30 PM; Saturday and Sunday, 2:00 PM. Tickets are $75 - $25. For more information, visit bostontheatrescene.com or call 617 933 8600.  

“The Boston performances reflect a homecoming of sorts for the poet, who had a home on Beacon Hill and then, for the last two decades, in Cambridge on Brewster St.,” said Dolan.  “He died in Boston, just weeks after giving his final ‘talk’ at the Ford Hall Forum.  2024 is the 150th anniversary of his birth, and April is ‘Poetry Month.’  The time felt right for the Boston premiere.”

"Frost is a voice that we need in this century," Clapp said. "I feel like I'm bringing him into this time again." 

In Clapp’s acclaimed portrait, the flinty old poet shares his verse from memory, along with witty “wild surmises” on art, religion, science, “radicals,” and “conservatives.” Culled from actual recordings and Frost’s writings, the production reveals in measured glances both the public and private faces of an American icon, whose poems about rural New England became a canvas for exploring deeper philosophical and social ideas.  Included in the play are best-known poems such as “Birches,” “Mending Wall,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and ‘The Road Not Taken.”

Clapp said that when he performs, he can feel an aura of expectation from certain audience members, hard-core Frost fans whom he calls "Frost-aceans" (like crustaceans). But he doesn't attribute this energy to his acting.  "They're addicted to the poetry, and they're so moved by it," Clapp said. "I don't give myself a lot of credit for that. It's Frost himself right there."