Andy's Summer Playhouse is a youth theater located in

Wilton, New Hampshire Wilton is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,896 at the 2020 census. Like many small New England towns, it grew up around water-powered textile mills, but is now a rural bedroom community with some m ...

. Andy's Summer Playhouse programs foster creative collaborations between children and professional artists who work in a variety of media: performance art, theater, dance, music, puppetry, video, set and lighting design and playwriting. In addition to its unique mission to produce original and adapted plays for children, the theater boasts a number of well-known alumni and teaching artists, including

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

winning artists Stephen Karam and

Lisa Kron Elizabeth S. "Lisa" Kron (born May 20, 1961) is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for writing the lyrics and book to the musical ''Fun Home'' for which she won both the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Tony Award fo ...

, Emmy Award winning artists Paul Jacobs and

Sarah Durkee Sarah Durkee is a writer and lyricist, a television lyricist and screenwriter, and an author and humorist. Durkee and her husband Paul Jacobs are the creators of the theme song for the popular PBS literacy education series, ''Between the Lions'' ...

, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright

David Lindsay-Abaire David Lindsay-Abaire ( Abaire; born November 14, 1969) is an American playwright, lyricist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play '' Rabbit Hole'', which also earned several Tony Award nominations. Early ...

Caldecott Medal The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Servic ...

winning authors

Brian Selznick Brian Selznick (born July 14, 1966) is an American illustrator and author best known as the writer of '' The Invention of Hugo Cabret'' (2007), '' Wonderstruck'' (2011), ''The Marvels'' (2015) and ''Kaleidoscope'' (2021). He won the 2008 Caldeco ...

and Elizabeth Orton Jones,"Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938 - Present"

Association for Library Service to Children The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is a division of the American Library Association, and it is the world's largest organization dedicated to library service to children. Its members are concerned with creating a better future ...

. ALA. Retrieved 2012-07-2. as well as several Alpert, Bessie, Obie, and

Drama Desk The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fol ...

Award winning artists.

History

Named after children's book illustrator C. W. Anderson, Andy's was founded in 1971 by two teachers at the Mascenic Regional School, Margaret Sawyer and William Williams. The Playhouse found its first home in

Mason, New Hampshire Mason is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,448 at the 2020 census. Mason, together with Wilton, is home to Russell-Abbott State Forest. History Mason was first known as "Number One", the easternmos ...

, and was later relocated to a historic meeting house in Wilton. From 1980 to 1993, the playhouse grew under the artistic direction of

Dan Hurlin Dan Hurlin (born 1955) is an American puppeteer and performance artist. Life and work Performance works include: ''No(thing so powerful as) Truth'' (1995); ''Constance and Ferdinand'' (1991) with Victoria Marks; ''Quintland (The Musical)'' (1992 ...

, who attracted a number of internationally recognized artists from

PS 122 Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profitable arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building. Origin The former eleme ...

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

, 8BC, WOW Cafe and other avant-garde theatre venues in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. From 1994 to 2007, the theater was led by director and playwright Robert Lawson, and DJ Potter served as Artistic Director from 2008 to 2014. Both artists further solidified the organization's professional reputation, and increasingly involved alumni in the artistic and executive operations of the theatre. The theatre is currently led by

Jared Mezzocchi Jared Mezzocchi is an American theatre projection designer and director. In 2020, Jared was named in a Top 5 List in the New York Times as a Theatre Artist spotlit for their innovative work during the pandemic, alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber and P ...

The Building

Andy's sits on the site of the original meeting house of Wilton, a log structure built in 1752 but then torn down and replaced with a larger meeting house in 1779. The second meeting house served the town for 80 years until it burned down in 1859. The town voted to build a third meeting house (the building that stands today) on the same spot, at a cost "not to exceed $2,500" and the building was completed in 1860. The original

Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...

and Sons bell damaged in the fire was recast by Henry Northey Hooper & Sons of Boston and placed in the new building, where it remains today in the bell tower. In 1883, the town moved its business to a new Town Hall located several miles to the east in what is now downtown Wilton, so the current building was sold in 1884 to a group of interested citizens and renamed Citizens Hall. It served for many years as a public meeting hall, and was taken over by the

National Grange The Grange, officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and ...

organization in 1925, and then by Wilton

Lions Club The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, by Melvin Jones. It is now headquartere ...

in 1968. The Pine Hill Waldorf School bought the building in 1978 and for several years ran a school on the site. It was sold to Andy's Summer Playhouse on August 11, 1985.

Notable alumni and teaching artists

* Henry Akona, director and composer * Jess Barbagallo, playwright and performer * Sally Bomer, choreographer * Patrick Boutwell, musician * David Bowles, director * Rosellen Brown, author *

Matthew Buckingham Matthew Buckingham (born 1963) is an American filmmaker and multimedia artist. He is a full-time faculty member at Columbia University and is the chair of the visual arts department. Life and work Buckingham studied at the Art Institute of Chica ...

, filmmaker and multimedia artist * Lenora Champagne, playwright and performing artist *

Emmanuelle Chaulet Emmanuelle Chaulet is a French actress. She starred in Eric Rohmer's 1987 comedy ''Boyfriends and Girlfriends'' and Jon Jost's 1990 film ''All the Vermeers in New York''. Filmography * 1987 : '' L'Ami de mon amie'', directed by Éric Rohmer (Blan ...

, actress * Austin Chick, film director, screenwriter and producer * Catherine Coray, director, actor and teacher * Migdalia Cruz, playwright * Dancenoise, performance artists * Kyle deCamp, multimedia performance artist *

David Dorfman David Dorfman (born February 7, 1993) is an American attorney and former actor. He portrayed Aidan Keller in the 2002 horror film remake '' The Ring'', and its 2005 sequel ''The Ring Two''. His other film roles include Sammy in ''Panic'', Joey ...

, choreographer and teacher *

, singer-songwriter, lyricist, and writer *

Edward Einhorn Edward Einhorn (born September 6, 1970) is an American playwright, theater director, and novelist, noted for the comic absurdism of his drama and the imaginative richness of his literary works. A native of Westfield, New Jersey, Einhorn graduated ...

, playwright, director and novelist * Daniel Mark Epstein, poet, dramatist and biographer * Dan Froot, performance artist and musician * Rosanna Gamson, choreographer and director *

Janie Geiser Janie Geiser (born 1957 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American artist and experimental filmmaker. Her notable works include ''The Fourth Watch'', ''Terrace 49'', '' The Red Book'', ''The Secret Story'', ''Colors'', ''Immer Zu'', ''Lost Motion'', ...

, artist and experimental filmmaker *

Alex Gino Alex Gino is an American children's book writer. Gino's debut book, ''George'', was the winner of the 2016 Stonewall Book AwardALAnews. (January 12, 2016"2016 Stonewall Book Awards Announced."/ref> as well as the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in th ...

, children's book author *

Jonathan Glatzer Jonathan Glatzer (born 21 October 1969) is an American writer, director, and producer. Life and career Glatzer is a writer and producer for Seasons 2 and 3 of AMC's ''Better Call Saul''. He is a writer and supervising producer for Seasons ...

, writer, director and producer *

James Godwin James Basil "Gib" Godwin III (born February 6, 1951), a retired Rear Admiral (upper half) of the United States Navy, was the Program Executive Officer – Enterprise Information Systems of the Department of the Navy. His responsibilities i ...

, actor *

Mimi Goese Mimi Goese (last name rhymes with ''hazy'') is an American professional musician. Career Goese was the vocalist for dream pop band Hugo Largo. Solo Under the mononym "Mimi", she released a solo album, ''Soak'', on the Luaka Bop label, with contri ...

, musician * Ain Gordon, playwright, director and actor * Neil Greenberg, choreographer * David Greenspan, actor and playwright *

Rinne Groff Rinne Groff (aka Rinne Becker Groff) is an American playwright and performer. Biography Groff was trained at Yale University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she currently teaches. A founding member of Elevator Repair S ...

, playwright and performer * Sharon Hayes, multimedia artist *

Cynthia Hopkins Cynthia Hopkins is an American performance artist, composer, and musician. Review of Hopkins' performance of ''Accidental Nostalgia'' at the Edinburgh Festival. Performance work She has written, composed, and performed five works of performance ...

, performance artist, composer and musician * Holly Hughes, performance artist *

Sam Huntington Sam Huntington (born April 1, 1982) is an American actor. He is best known for his starring role as Josh Levison, a werewolf in the Syfy series '' Being Human'', and for his role as Jimmy Olsen in the superhero film ''Superman Returns''. For it ...

, actor *

, puppeteer and performance artist * Anne Iobst, performance artist * Paul Jacobs, composer and musician * Amy Jenkins, artist and experimental filmmaker * Elizabeth Orton Jones, illustrator and children's book author *

Myles Kane Myles Kane (born 1979) is an American film producer and wizard rock artist (performing under the name MC Kreacher). Film He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the Pratt Institute in 2001. In 2002 he co-founded the Brooklyn Unde ...

, film producer and

wizard rock Wizard rock (or Wrock) is a type of novelty rock music themed around the ''Harry Potter'' franchise. The music was largely prevalent in the United States in the early 2000s. Wizard rock initially started in Massachusetts with Harry and the Potter ...

artist * Stephen Karam, playwright and screenwriter * John Kelly, performance artist * Andy Kirshner, composer, performer, writer and media artist *

, actress and playwright * Robert Lawson, writer, director, composer and visual artist * David Leslie, performance artist and stuntman *

Elizabeth Levy Elizabeth Levy (born April 4, 1942) is an author who has written over eighty children's books in a variety of genres. Born in Buffalo, New York, she is currently living in New York City. She has appeared as a contestant on "Funny Or Die's Billy ...

, children's book author * Chris Lindsay-Abaire, actress *

, playwright, lyricist and screenwriter * Sondra Loring, dancer, choreographer and actor * Erika Kate MacDonald, performing artist and playwright * Linda Mancini, actor, writer and performance artist * Victoria Marks, choreographer and teacher *

, multimedia theatre director and designer * Sarah McLellan, executive director *

Tom Murrin Tom Murrin (February 8, 1939 – March 12, 2012), also known as ''Jack Bump'', ''Tom Trash'', and ''The Alien Comic'', was an American performance artist and playwright in the downtown avant-garde art scene in New York City. In the 1980s and 1990s ...

, performance artist and playwright *

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. No ...

, poet and writer *

Jim Neu James A. Neu (November 18, 1943 – July 19, 2010) was an American playwright who was best known for his quirky, experimental plays, many of which were staged Off-Off-Broadway. Neu was born on November 18, 1943, in Brooklyn and moved to Hunt ...

, playwright *

Qui Nguyen Qui Nguyen is an American playwright, television writer, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his plays, ''She Kills Monsters'' and "Vietgone." He is also known for writing ''Raya and the Last Dragon'' and '' Strange World''. Care ...

, playwright and fight director * Brooke O'Harra, writer, director and performer * Julia Older, poet and translator * Pat Oleszko, performance artist * Claire Porter, choreographer and comedian * Dave Quay, actor * Alice Reagan, director * Jenny Romaine, puppeteer, performer and director * John C. Russell, playwright *

Dan Moses Schreier Dan Moses Schreier is an American composer and sound designer. He is best known for his theatrical music work, on Broadway and elsewhere. Schreier is from Detroit, and lives in New York City. He studied music at the University of Michigan and ...

, composer and sound designer *

, children's book author and illustrator * Lucy Sexton, performance artist and producer *

Louise Smith Louise Smith (July 31, 1916, in Barnesville, Georgia – April 15, 2006) was tied for the second woman to race in NASCAR at the top level. She was known as "the first lady of racing." She went as a spectator to her first NASCAR race at the Dayt ...

, playwright and actress * Kate Snodgrass, director and playwright *

Henry Stram Henry Stram (born September 10, 1954) is an American actor and singer. He is the son of famous NFL coach Hank Stram. Early life Stram grew up in Kansas City, while his father was the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. He performed with The Barn P ...

, actor * Carmelita Tropicana, performance artist * Fritz Van Orden, musician * Meiyin Wang, director * Washboard Jungle, musicians * Erik White, musician * Kristine Woods, visual artist

References

{{authority control Theatres in New Hampshire Youth theatre companies Theatre companies in New Hampshire Wilton, New Hampshire Education in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Tourist attractions in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire