Page 70 July 30, 2021 DAN’S PAPERS danspapers.com
BY DAVID TAYLOR
Rounding out this exciting, experimental
summer season at
Bay Street Theater is musical classic
Camelot, which shall be retold as a
staged outdoor concert in Bridgehampton
beginning Thursday, August
5. With a story as timely as ever, told in
a magical setting that allows for more
intimate connections between characters,
actors and audience members,
this is shaping up to be one of the Sag
Harbor theater’s most fascinating productions
to date.
Bay Street Artistic Director Scott
Schwartz is directing the production,
translating the book and lyrics of Alan
Jay Lerner and music by Frederick
Lowe to this new outdoor format and
taking notes from the small cast David
Lee adaptation. By “taking the show
and stripping away the pageantry”
Schwartz intends to zero in on the
complex relationships and interactions
between the show’s love triangle—Arthur,
Guenevere and Lancelot—and
demonstrate how deep and rich these
characters truly are. However, fans of
the show know that there’s much more
at play than just romance, and the
themes of justice, peace and righteousness
are especially relevant today.
“I’ve been thinking about what we’ve
been through in terms of the pandemic,
and I was certainly thinking about
all of the strife that our country and
the world has been going through politically,”
Schwartz explains. “I thought
that to do a show about people who are
in a time of struggle but working to
make things more equal, more just and
more fair felt like exactly the right kind
of work to be exploring right now.”
While unable to receive Sag Harbor
Village approval for the use of Steinbeck
Park, the alternative—located at 2011
Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton,
across the street from the Bridgehampton
Commons in the field behind
Carvel—turned out to be more than
Schwartz could have hoped for. “It’s so
magical! It feels like you’re in this Celtic
circle of trees,” he says, adding that with
nature being so important to the beliefs
of the Camelot era, the space furthers
the connection between the show and
its source material. “Camelot felt like a
show that would not only work outside,
it would actually benefit from being outside.”
The main cast chosen to breathe
passion into the story’s love triangle
comprises Jeremy Kushnier as Arthur
(Rent, Jersey Boys, Footloose);
Britney Coleman as Guenevere (Company,
Sunset Boulevard, Beautiful: The
Carole King Musical); and Deven Kolluri
as Lancelot (Pride and Prejudice,
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, The
Boy Who Danced On Air). Their supporting
players include Amaya Grier,
Kyle Lopez Barisich, Aaron Dalla Villa,
Hope Hamilton, James Harkness, David
LaMarr, Cecelia Ticktin and Kevin
Wang.
With the play’s emphasis on interpersonal
connections between its three
main characters in mind, we gathered
the actors around the Round Table to
discuss their personal connections to
these characters and their thoughts on
this outdoor retelling.
BRITNEY COLEMAN, GUENEVERE
“She brings a lot of the bubbly joy to
a lot of the sections of the show. Having
gone through what we’ve gone through
in the last almost two years, thinking
about the effort it takes to dive into
self-care, to bring joy into your life, I
think it’s much more of a conscious decision
now than before the pandemic.
“There are references to magic in the
show, it talks about seeing Merlin in
the moon in one of our scenes, and it’s
just that glorious moment in theater
when you can look up and the moon
is in front of you. … I think the design
of our show is really cool, mixing this
modern edge with the softness of nature
and Celtic undertones, and I think
that’s going to be something that’s really
interesting, an image that people
recognize and can connect with when
they come see the show. … We don’t
really have a backstage, so it’s all open
and I feel like we’re going to be in this
space just as much as the audience.
And I’m thinking from an audience
perspective, being wrapped up in this
story where there isn’t as much of a
boundary from onstage versus offstage
will be a really cool, almost communal
experience.”
DEVEN KOLLURI, LANCELOT
“One part of the life of being an actor
that I really appreciate is being in process—
this idea that the work is ongoing—
and that’s something that’s very
true for Lancelot, as well. Even though
he’s achieved some sense of perfection
in a lot of people’s eyes, for himself, he’s
constantly going through this process
of becoming better and becoming this
ideal. … My interest in being in process
as a theater artist finds that in a really
fun and interesting way, and I can allow
myself to be in process while figuring
out this character.
“The character is a foreigner who
finds that in a lot of ways his world gets
broken when he gets introduced to
this woman and shows up in this new
place, and there’s something about being
outside … and finding this sense of
what feels like home onstage and then
everything being broken and having
to put it back together again and make
sense of something. That process of
theater … I’m excited to do it again, in
a new space and with a bunch of new
faces, and for the character’s journey,
to put these things back together so he
can understand himself in a new and
different way.”
JEREMY KUSHNIER , ARTHUR
“In the early stages of discovering,
for me, Arthur and how he exists in
the world, the one thing that jumped
out to me was how earnest he was as
a character in general. For me personally,
I tend to play very opposite types
of characters; I tend to be shoved into
Mordred and Iago just because of the
way I look. I love playing those characters,
but I never really connected the
same way. … I’m enjoying the connection
with this character that I feel more
connected to in his hopefulness for
wishing for something better, a place
where people can just be good to one
another and that the powerful use that
power to take care of the less powerful.
“For most of us in the show, it’s our
first time back on a stage with lights in
our faces and other people that close
and not in a Zoom box. One of the big
themes in this show is storytelling; it’s
what we do for a living, and it’s what
we do because we love it, and it’s something
that has sort of been taken away
from us in a lot of ways for the past
little while … so getting to do that again
but also getting to tell this story, which
is a story about finding a way to exist in
a world where the rich people pay their
g*ddamn taxes and the people that are
supposed to take care of us take care of
us. To be able to try and tell that story
now is, I think, really important.”
Tickets to Camelot, which runs August
5–29, start at $45 and are available
through the box office by calling 631-
725-9500 or by visiting baystreet.org.
The outdoor Bridgehampton space
allows for 200 guests to be seated at
a safe distance from one another, plus
plenty of room for parking.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Approach the Round Table of Bay Street Theater’s Outdoor Show
Camelot
THE LEADING STARS OF BAY STREET THEATER’S “CAMELOT,” JEREMY KUSHNIER,
BRITNEY COLEMAN AND DEVEN KOLLURI
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