Worden and Murphren Team Up For THE VERY DICKENS At Town Hall Theater 6/20

Vermont based theatre artists Neil Flint Worden and Gaen Murphree team up to create The Very Dickens! The one-man show features Worden as Charles Dickens performing selections from David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby and embodying an entire cast of characters.

The Very Dickens! will premiere in a workshop performance (with minimal design elements) at Middlebury's Town Hall Theatre, June 20, 7pm. A post-show discussion with the artists will be led by Margo Whitcomb, a veteran of new play development, currently teaching at Johnson State College.

Dickens-an unstoppable human locomotive of an artist-carried out a vastly lucrative side career the last twelve years of his life, performing his work onstage. Hailed as "the greatest reader of the greatest writer of the age," Dickens played to rave reviews and ecstatic audiences. Motivated by personal crisis, his need to perform became so obsessive that many of his closest friends believed it drove him to an early grave.

"I got fascinated by this aspect of Dickens' life a number of years ago," says Murphree, who is adapting and directing the piece, "when I was working on A Christmas Carol at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, and have been working on it ever since. Dickens was a master storyteller with an ear for the theatrical, and the stories themselves are hilarious one moment and immensely moving the next. It's been a rare delight to collaborate with an actor of Neil's abilities who's also the perfect Dickens. We're trying to recreate the essence of Dickens' performance. He didn't just read; as eyewitnesses describe it he literally became the characters-and that's the fun of it.

"Dickens is the 19th-century Shakespeare, his language and characters are so rich, " says Worden, "and getting to portray both Dickens and this array of characters is an amazing challenge for an actor."

Worden and Murphree are longtime colleagues from the prestigious University of Washington School of Drama. A veteran of over 200 performances, Worden recently appeared with Olympia Dukakis in Another Side of the Island. Other favorite roles include Claudius and Henry IV at the Utah and Wyoming Shakespeare Festivals, respectively, Louis XIV in Las Meninas at the San Jose Repertory, and El Tigre in Spain at Half Moon Theatre, of which he is a cofounder. Before coming to Vermont, Worden ran the acting program at Vassar College. Murphree's first play was produced at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. Favorite directing projects include an all-women Hamlet at Marlboro College and a Butoh-inspired Antigone. She taught and directed in the MFA Program at the American Conservatory Theatre and has worked in such diverse theatres as the Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

"We're so thrilled that Doug Anderson and the Town Hall Theater are supporting the development of new work," says Murphree. "It's giving us a chance to bring The Very Dickens! to a live audience and see what we've got. We're hoping to create something of the likes of Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight. And it all begins here."

The Very Dickens! will be performed at Town Hall Theater at the top of Merchants Row in Middlebury on Sunday, June 20, at 7 p.m. Tickets, $5, are available through the THT Box Office by calling 802-382-9222, online at www.townhalltheater.org, in person Monday - Saturday, noon - 5 p.m., or at the door if available.

Photo caption: Neil Flint Worden is Charles Dickens in a workshop performance of The Very Dickens! at Town Hall Theater, June 20 at 7:00 pm. Tickets available at 802-382-9222, www.townhalltheater.org.

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