The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will bring to life soldiers, spies and ordinary citizens trying to make sense of a changing world when it presents “Voices from the Delaware Frontier,” a living history program to mark the 250thanniversary of the Revolutionary War.
The performance, to be held at The Open Eye Theater, Margaretville July 11 and 12, will feature eight local actors in period costume describing how their lives were upended by the rupture with Great Britain in 1776. Middletown was part of Ulster County at the time, and the area along the East Branch of the Delaware River was considered the “frontier” between Indian territory to the west and the more heavily populated and strategically important Hudson Valley.
“Voices” will introduce audiences to survivors of battles and prisons, to local Loyalists who sided with Britain, to area settlers kidnapped, murdered and burned out of their homes. There is even a doomed love story in the mix!
“Voices” players include Gary Falk as Valley Forge veteran Elijah Parker; Burr Hubbell as Issachar Robinson who survived six months in the infamous Sugar House prison in New York City; Michael Fairbairn as militia man Jacob VanBenschoten, and Amy Taylor as tavern keeper Catherine VanWaggonen who comforted the dying Harmonus Dumond, shot in a case of mistaken identity.
John Bernhardt and Steven Hitt will portray wealthy Patriot George Sands and his Tory son Abel Sands. Rebecca Newman will appear as Mary “Polly” Yaple Avery recounting her teenage tryst with the Native known as Teunis.
The youngest member of the cast, Casey Eminowicz, 15, a freshman at Kingston High School, will describe the trials of Benjamin Burgher who was kidnapped and taken on a 300-mile journey by foot and canoe to Fort Niagara.
Directors of this living history presentation are Joyce St. George and Frank Canavan.
The themed program, presented as a series of monologues, replaces for this year the Living History Cemetery Tour for which HSM has become famous. The tour (both armchair and on-site versions) will return in 2027.
