ENCHANTED ISLANDS Coming To DownEast Maine In July

Something magical is happening for families of all ages in the Deer Isle woods this summer from July 23-31, 2023.

ENCHANTED ISLANDS is a living art story project: a Faerie Queen Story Hour. Imagine wandering through the woods and happening upon the Fairy Queen, bedecked in otherworldly finery, book open on her lap, ready to tell you a story.

From July 23-31, writer-performer Melody Bates (R & J & Z, Avalon) will be in residence in Deer Isle, Maine, performing her new versions of beloved fairy tales in curated locations at Peter Beerits' woodland art park, costumed in spectacular garments designed for each tale by Jennifer Paar (Avalon, Desdemona).

During this week in July, the three artists will present daily live performances of three tales: "The Twelve Dancing Princesses;" "Caporushes;" and an original story, "All the Birds of the World." The sculpture, costumes, and environment are interwoven with story themes of girl heroes, magic, disguise and self-discovery, bravery, and birds-ushering audiences of all ages into the 21st century of storytelling, identity, enchantment, and our human relationship with the natural world.

This innovative artistic partnership invites you into the woods to explore the edges of what we imagine is possible. It also marks the second collaboration between Bates, Beerits, and Paar, who all worked on Bates' 2019 production of Avalon.

"It's special to find folks who feel like your art family," says Bates. "Our art forms and aesthetics are different, but Peter and Jennifer and I all share a kind of populist mysticism: a love of beauty and oddness, a delight in the magical, the weird, that which is off the beaten path. It makes collaborating on new forms feel both organic and very exciting." The creative team hopes this will be the beginning of an annual tradition, with more tales added in future years.

Beerits too is inspired by the collaboration. "At Nellieville, the woods are still ringing from Melody's majestic production Avalon," he says. "The fairies are eager for her to bring drama back to their dreamy realm. The wizards, knights and gunslingers crave her beauty, elegance and wit."

ENCHANTED ISLANDS will float into view July 23-31 at Nellieville on Deer Isle, with a special "Faerie Queen Story Hour" event at the Stonington Library on July 25th at 1 pm. Attendance is free to the public, with donations accepted and reservations recommended.

NELLIEVILLE is located at 598 Sunshine Road, Deer Isle, Maine, 1-800-777-6845. Access from Route 15 is open and unaffected by summer road closures. Full performance schedule and more information will be available in July.

Melody Bates (she/ they) is a native Oregonian actor and writer based in Brooklyn, NY whose first professional acting job was at Maine's Stonington Opera House. She is a queer femme creatrix who brings people together to make art that is radical and wildly entertaining. Her award-winning work includes Avalon and R & J & Z, both of which had world premieres on Deer Isle. As an actor, she has performed at The Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, La MaMa E.T.C., A.R.T Boston, Theatre des Amandiers (Paris), Cankarjev Dom (Ljubljana), and the Metropolitan Opera, where she has recently worked with directors Simon McBurney, Bartlett Sher, and David McVicar. TV and film work includes Law & Order SVU, PBS Great Performances, and the indie feature Ask For Jane. Her play R & J & Z, called "boisterous and splendid" by the NY Times, is available from Original Works Publishing and continues to be produced around the country. The NYIT Awards have recognized her with acting, writing, and original music awards. She was featured in Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright project, and was a finalist for the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright award. Avalon, her site-specific collaboration with Peter Beerits and Jennifer Paar, received the state of Maine's 2020 Innovation & Creativity Award.

PETER BEERITS (he/ him) studied art at Boston Museum School and completed an MFA in sculpture at Long Beach State in California. He then returned to Deer Isle and started a jam business in the kitchen of a tiny white clapboard cottage, surrounded by sculptures from his MFA show. Over time, the jam business thrived and he returned to making art in response to a growing visitor audience. He is interested in the intersection of myth and history: the gunslinger, the sheriff, the knights. The king who is born in a stable, the fairy queen who presides over the end of her era. The campus covers four acres and includes a Western town, juke joint, general store, and garage. In the woods, deeper in mystery, a Grail Castle, wizard's tower, and church. The entire installation has 95 figures and fifteen buildings and is seen by tens of thousands of people annually. His work is something like a movie set which can trigger deeply-felt emotions. It is transactional in the way that theater is, a portal to unscripted psychic terrain. Some visitors to his life's work at Nellieville are profoundly moved by what they experience there. This intersection of art and audience changes lives.

Jennifer Paar (she/ her) has worked in New York and regionally as a costume designer for over 20 years. In 2019 she designed the costumes for Avalon, a site-specific collaboration with Melody Bates and Peter Beerits. In New York, she has worked extensively with the Obie-Award winning Keen Company, having designed sixteen shows with them including: Year of Magical Thinking, Ordinary Days, Tick, Tick...Boom, and Alphabetical Order. Other New York credits include Othello (New Place Players), Transatlantica (Operating Theater), Futurity, The Musical (Joe's Pub), Every Day Above Ground with Sabooge Theatre (PS 122), and Thrill Me (York Theatre). Regional credits include Sense & Sensibility, The Fantasticks (Cape Playhouse), On Golden Pond (Bucks County Playhouse), Glengarry Glen Ross (Asolo Rep), and Rabbit Hole (Premiere Stages). Jennifer is also the Co-Founder of The Costume Studio, a non-profit organization that provides space and supplies for costume designers working on non-profit productions in NYC.

NELLIEVILLE, or Nervous Nellie's, is an eclectic campus covering several acres in an idyllic island setting, a one-time homestead and heirloom orchard at the edge of a spruce forest. Founded and run by Peter and Anne Beerits, it includes a working jelly kitchen where they make about 300 jars of jam a day by hand using mainly Maine fruits. The meadow and woods are filled with sculptures made by Peter from discarded metal, locally-milled lumber, dump-foraged material. A Western town--jail, lawyer's office, fortune teller, hotel, saloon, Chinese laundry--sits shoulder to shoulder with a Delta-style juke joint, a Deer Isle general store, a church, a Grail castle, wizard's tower, 50's garage complete with jam session: all comprise Nellieville, a lifelong work in progress.

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