PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Thirty years ago a group of nine community members with various professional and local experiences in theater came together with a mission: to perform at least two productions per year and showcase the theatrical talents of everyday folks in the Presque Isle area.
Today that group is known as the Presque Isle Community Players and since 1989 they have performed over 50 musicals, comedic and dramatic plays, Broadway revues and dinner theaters for generations of local audiences.
According to records kept by current Players president Gary Bowden, the group’s first performance was a Broadway musical revue titled “A Celebration of Irving Berlin” in the fall of 1989. They followed that show with two one-act plays “An Episode in the Life of an Author,” “A Thurber Carnival” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” in 1990.
“We were all interested in theater and had been involved with the Pioneer Playhouse,” said Dan Ladner, referring to the former summer theater program at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. “Originally we wanted to provide dinner theaters because that was a type of entertainment that people in Presque Isle never really got to see.”
Ladner is one of the founding members of the Presque Isle Community Players along with his wife, Barbara Frick-Ladner, Cissy Libby, Julie Daly, Jeannette Perry, Glenna Johnson Smith, Rick Landeen, Sylvia Weinberg, Barbara Demsey and Margaret Coffin. Four of those members — Perry, Weinberg, Demsey, and Coffin — have since passed away.
The Ladners had been immersed in the theater world long before forming the Players. Frick-Ladner previously taught acting in New York City before moving to Aroostook County in the early 1980s. She went on to become the director of the Shipmates’ Playhouse, the drama club of Presque Isle High School, for 12 years. Ladner taught theater at Presque Isle High School for 15 years and then taught speech and theater at Caribou High School for 10 years. He also served as director for the Caribou Performing Arts Center, located at the high school.
Frick-Ladner has directed or co-directed nearly 20 productions for the Players, including “Middle-Aged White Guys” in 1998, “Moon Over Buffalo” in 1999, “You Can’t Take It With You” in 2015 and most recently “Last Gas,” a play by Presque Isle native and acclaimed actor/playwright John Cariani, in 2017. This spring she is directing another Cariani production, “Love/Sick,” a series of nine short plays, which the cast will perform at UMPI’s Wieden Auditorium on April 5, 6, 12 and 13.
Directing “Last Gas” became one of Frick-Ladner’s most memorable experiences, as Cariani is one of her former PIHS drama students. She said that discovering talented people of all generations has been a great part of her life in high school theater and the Community Players.
“I had no idea that I was going to discover all these people who were so talented,” Frick-Ladner said, about her early days with the Players. “We have people up here who are very talented actors, musicians and singers.”
In their earliest days, the Players rehearsed in the basement of the local Methodist church and performed at the Northeastland Hotel, where they would serve dinner before the first act of their play and then dessert during intermission. Throughout the decades they have performed musicals such as “Guys and Dolls,” “Annie” and “The Music Man” and Broadway revues with the themes “A Time to Remember: A USO Tour,” “Reunion: The Class of ‘58’” and “Those Oldies But Goodies.”
More recently the Players began holding their shows at Wieden Auditorium and have struggled to attract new members and regular audience members in a time of an aging population in Aroostook County. But one thing that hasn’t changed is how the group remains entirely made up of various volunteers, who often balance full-time work with being an actor or production crew member for the annual shows.
Libby had joined the Caribou Choral Society and acted in a Lion’s Club production of “The Man of La Mancha” before helping to found the Players. She said that one of her favorite experiences with the group was performing in a play called “Voices of Aldenville,” written by member Glenna Johnson Smith, in fall 2005.
“Where else would you be able to perform in a play written locally?” Libby said.
The close bonds that the Players have formed throughout the past three decades have been what keeps Libby coming back for more music, acting and personal growth.
“By the end of a play everyone becomes like a family,” Libby said. “People become very proud of the roles that they get to play and it’s special to see them become that person and gain confidence.”
Both Libby and Ladner have also directed or co-directed many of the Players’ revues, musicals as well as both classic and contemporary plays. Though he has played numerous memorable characters, Ladner said he most enjoyed reviving the role of Grandpa Vanderhof during a 2015 performance of “You Can’t Take It With You,” 25 years after the Players first performed the comedy. This spring he will take on the role of the “singing telegram man” in “Love/Sick.”
“The support from the community has been there here the beginning,” Ladner said. “I think one of our goals will be to continue doing shows that people enjoy.”
