Theater at the United States Naval Academy a Hidden Treasure: Festival of One-Act Plays in March
By Nadja Maril
On the same day that alumni were gathering to watch the Navy football team compete against Northern Illinois, another group of alumni were preparing to gather for a centennial celebration of student theater at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). Local residents usually think competitive sports, band music, and the Blue Angels zooming overhead when they think about USNA events but there is another side to academy life, a life made richer by performances on the stage.
The Masqueraders is the name of the midshipman organization for theatrical performances. Each year the group produces two theater productions, one in the fall and one in the spring. This past November was a special time because the Masqueraders troupe was celebrating its 100th anniversary. The group performed Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, an Olivier and Tony award-winning contemporary play set in an 18th-century Australian penal colony. According to Masqueraders director Christy Stanlake, an associate professor of English at the USNA, the play had some significant parallels to the theater group, as the plot focuses on a couple of British officers who try to produce a play in hopes that the theater will help “civilize” their convicts. According to Stanlake, the very first USNA play that opened in 1846, produced by the Spirit Club, “was intended to help ‘civilize the city’ of Annapolis. Theater productions continued sporadically until the fall of 1907, when First Class Midshipman Kirkwood ‘Patsy’ Donavin, William Piersol, and Frank Townsend earned the commandant’s approval to institute a legitimate midshipman organization for theatrical performances.” Stanlake continues, “That important democratic quality of the theater is something that we not only celebrate this centennial year; it is a gift that all Masqueraders take with them as they leave USNA to join the international scene.”
The centennial celebration this past November provided an opportunity for alumni to honor Michael Jasperson, director of the Masqueraders from the 1960s through the 1980s, at a cocktail party before one of the performances. They also honored Masqueraders directors David White and Anne Marie Drew in a formal ceremony where the group also received a Congressional Citation.
USNA alumni and former members of the Masqueraders gathered from all over the United States. Deborah Furlan, Class of ’82, came all the way from the West Coast to visit family and see old friends. Jasperson, now retired and living in Ashland, Oregon, boasted that his earliest performance in Annapolis was as Tiny Tim, in 1940, in A Christmas Carol. Before women entered the Academy, he explains, the productions were all male—that is, until he started recruiting actresses from the community. Initially it was hard to get civilian women approved to participate in an activity on campus. “Lois Evans was the best actress I’ve ever seen perform the role of Gertrude in Hamlet,” he recounts proudly. “It was a real breakthrough production in 1967.” Former local actress Lucy Hood was also on hand to fete the retired director.
Masqueraders One-Act Festival of Plays
March 28–29, 7 p.m. each evening
Mahan Theatre, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis
Directed by midshipmen, the festival of play includes the recipient of the 2007 Jasperson Prize for the best midshipman-written play, If I Could Quit the Coffee, I Could Quit You, by Midshipman 1/C Joy Dewey.
Tickets are $6. For more information call, (410) 293-TIXS or visit www.usna.edu/masqueraders.
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Steve Debus, Class of ’89, reminisces about the time the pulley broke while the group was performing Aristophanes’s comedy The Birds. He broke his wrist but the performance continued. “That’s part of what creates the camaraderie,” he explains.
Mark Karabee, Class of ’86, a former member of the Masqueraders who was a naval officer for 21 years at the academy and who now serves as the officer liaison between the group and the commandant staff, relates that “being in the theater was a life-changing experience. The theater has the power to change lives and we are really fortunate to have such a group.”
David White, faculty member and director for 10 years, 1981–1991, explains, “The academy was initially a military engineering school. At one time English, government, and history were all lumped together in one department. The theater has given the opportunity for midshipmen to experience something entirely different. It’s an important part of what we do here.”