Dogtown Common

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 

WINDHOVER CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS and GLOUCESTER 400+ ANNOUNCE “DOGTOWN COMMON”, an original production performing Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20 at 7:30pm.  The performances takes place inside the back dance studio on the Windhover campus and they last 90 minutes.

Adapted and directed by Peter Littlefield and performed by Peter Berkrot, Judy Brain, Duncan Hollomon, Cass Tunick, Brian Weed and Deirdre Weed.  Music performed by Kathleen Adams. Forest form sculptures by Liz Sibley Fletcher. A pre-performance talk by Grace Schrafft on Gloucester’s 17th century witch persecutions will begin the evening.

Percy MacKaye’s 1922 poem, Dogtown Common, is a beloved document of Gloucester lore. It tells the story of two legendary figures, Tammy Younger and her niece Judy Rhines, shunned for practicing witchcraft. It was inspired by Charles Mann’s original 1896, The Story of Dogtown or In the Heart of Cape Ann, that compiles recollections about the outsiders, berry-pickers, subsistence farms and self-proclaimed witches that inhabited Dogtown after it was abandoned in the early 1800’s.

Windhover had been a dairy farm. It seemed the perfect place to stage the poem because it looks the way Dogtown must have looked before it was abandoned after the Revolution. Windhover’s production combines the idea of an installation with a staged reading like a ghost story. The performers sit around a table and build an image of Dogtown as they enact the poem. The performance is as fully staged as a conventional play, but we put the emphasis on the imaginative act of engaging a poetic text.  

Tickets are $15. For more information,

Events for May 2023 – Windhover

Events for May 2023 – Windhover

Performances of Dogtown Common are presented as part of the Gloucester 400+ celebration. For more information,

https://www.gloucesterma400.org/