Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, the great American film and stage actor, James Whitmore, returns to the Peterborough Players, where he began his career 46 years ago.

Then producer Paul Lally presents a brief history on earthquakes in the Granite State and gives us some tips on how to survive if the big one hits.

And his name is David Richmond, and he is a prize winning educator and theater director at the University of New Hampshire.

We call this piece In His Mind’s Eye for you see, David Richmond is blind.

Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees, and individuals.

Today, we're in the beautiful town of Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire, over in the heart of the Monadnock region.

And when I say the center of the Monadnock Region, I mean the center.

The summit of Mount Monadnock is located in this town.

As a matter of fact, it's right there beyond those trees.

100 years ago, you could see the summit because this was all meadow land at that time.

And the summit showed up right beyond the beautiful Jaffrey Center meetinghouse, which, as you can see, doesn't have it’s steeple now, the steeple is being repaired.

Our first story on Crossroads tonight takes place here in the Monadnock region as well, in the very next town over: Peterborough.

It's a story of the theater, and Peterborough has a grand and illustrious history when it comes to theater, that dates back to the 1840s, when there was a local theater company called the Truly Rural Players.

By the First World War time, there was a theater called the Outdoor Players in Peterborough, maybe the first outdoor theater in America, and that was replaced in the 1920s by a theater called the Mary Arden, which was an illustrious theater as well.

The likes of Paul Robeson was there, and Betty Davis.

And Ruth St.

Denis and Ted Shawn had a dance company there.

Peterborough nowadays has a brand new theater.

It's called the New England Marionettes.

It's a marionette theater that puts on grand opera.

But by far the most noted theater in Peterborough is the Peterborough Players.

And that's where our first story takes place.

And that was, what, 40, 40, 46 years ago?

Since I have been in this theater.

It's a long time.

Yeah, it is a long time.

And now the great American stage and movie actor James Whitmore has come back to the place where he started his acting career.

The Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

James Whitmore is here to do a benefit performance of A. R. Gurney's play Love Letters.

His costar is the Broadway actress Audra Lindley.

Miss Lindley, not incidentally, was once married to James Whitmore.

She's never been here before.

This performance establishes two landmarks at Peterborough, two things that have never been done here before.

First, this is the first play ever to be presented here in the winter time.

You see, there was a major renovation last year.

Heating and air conditioning were put in.

Before that, the Peterborough Players had been strictly a summer theater.

One of the oldest in America, in fact.

And secondly, the Players has always been a repertory company.

James Whitmore and Audra Lindley are the first stars ever to appear on this stage.

Oh, there have been many who acted at Peterborough who went on to become stars.

Besides James Whitmore, Jean Stapleton started here.

William Hurt.

Bobby Morris.

Oh, well.

Oh, boy.

That's a nice group.

That boy right there.

Well, and all three.

I mean Jean too.

Oh, Jean’s wonderful.

But those - bright, right now, boy, that that Tru thing.

Bobby Morse and Tru.

Absolutely marvelous.

It is simply thrilling.

I taped it and - Well, I think William Hurt is one of the best actors we have in the world.

He is, he's one of the best screen actors, certainly, that I've ever seen.

Kiss of the Spider Woman.

One of the most extraordinary performances I've ever seen.

He's a wonderful actor.

The Peterborough Players have always attracted quality people.

It was a favorite of Sinclair Lewis and Thornton Wilder.

Wilder, by the way, wrote the play Our Town right here in Peterborough.

Some say Peterborough was the model he used for the play.

And some history.

The Players was created by the children of Edith Bond Stearns.

Johnny and Ibby were actors.

Sally was the lighting director.

Sally later on became the managing director of the Players.

Edith Bond Stearns and her family were Boston Brahmins.

They had purchased the Old Hadley Farm out on Middle Hancock Road as a summer home.

In the beginning, the kids put on amateur plays in the barn, but within a couple of years, the place had become a full fledged professional theater.

Now James Whitmore arrived the summer of 1947.

He'd been a marine in the Pacific during World War Two, and after his discharge had traveled the Pacific again with the USO troop.

And then, Peterborough.

That - yeah, this is dear Ruth.

How old was he?

But I'm really more than - I have 25.

I'm looking at the other people, you know, that we had in the cast and Howard Fisher.

Did you know Howard?

I knew Howard very well.

Oh, boy.

And Jimmy Welch, I knew Jimmy well.

Did you?

Oh wow.

Great.

Lovely people.

They were.

Yes.

And Lillian.

You were so young.

Oh, dear.

Lillian, here's, here's Outward Bound and Johnny Marsh.

Probably more (inaudible) Nobody knows who these people are, but they're they're very dear in my in my memory.

And, one of the guys here, just before the curtain went up, the stage manager said, curtain going up.

And he, we were backstage and he whispered to me, if it does, we’re late.

I love actors like that.

Now, the summer of 1947 was a momentous time for James Whitmore.

First of all, he fell in love.

Her name was Nancy Mygatt and she was an apprentice at the Players.

Before the summer was out, they had married in Dublin.

The reception was held right here in the theater.

23 years they were together.

Three children.

The couple honeymooned, by the way, at the Hancock Inn, which is where James Whitmore stayed this time.

Now, marriage, of course, meant a great change in James Whitmore's life, but a great change in his career came that summer as well.

A call from New York City to audition for a Broadway play called Command Decision.

I went into the little house over here where Mrs.

Stearns lived at that time.

And I called Mary Hunter and she said, Kermit blah, blah, blah has the play, you - And she said their reading for the part right now, I said, I can't do it.

We're rehearsing a show during the day here at Peterborough and we're doing another show at night.

I have no time.

I simply cannot do it to go into New York.

Plus, the fact I had no money.

To go in, it cost $23 in those days to fly to New York.

And Mrs.

Stearns overheard the conversation on the telephone, and she said, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, nor did I. I simply couldn't avoid hearing what you said.

But is it important?

I told her what it was, a part for a Broadway show.

She said, We'll work something out.

She worked it out to the extent that she gave me the 20, not gave, lent me the $23 to fly down.

They put an apprentice in rehearsal in the other show, and then I took the night off, the dark night of this theater.

I flew down after the show the night before.

I got down to New York.

Read and read.

And that was that, as far as I knew.

They called me and said, you're in the running.

This, and incidentally, it's important not you shouldn't have asked this question because I'm answering it.

It was the best part available for any young actor in New York City.

I ultimately got the Best Newcomer award, a Tony and so on and so forth.

The Donaldson Award.

So to be in the running for that part, every young actor in New York wanted that part.

And she said, you're in the running.

It's between you, Eddie Binns and Josh Shelley.

She said, can you come back tomorrow?

And I said, no, I can't come back tomorrow.

And anyway, I called Mrs.

Stearns with, you know, full of emotion and tearfully said, you know, this is and she said, we'll do something.

Jimmy Welch, incidentally, who you know, was a part of this, and he said, okay.

And, you know, and it was awful thing to do to, you know, the cast.

I read the next day and I got the damn part.

46 years.

Time to grow old.

Time to become world famous.

Thanks to some TV commercials for Miracle-Gro, time to become quite wealthy.

And time to come back to a place where your life once took a great turn.

And nothing was ever the same again.

James Whitmore, nice to see you again, good friend.

What's good for Miracle- Gro is good for me.

I don't know, I know I (inaudible) That weekend, there was a press conference with James Whitmore, and one of the reporters brought up the fact that he is a nationally famous actor, a very serious actor or an actor who has won prizes for his one-man show.

It was about Harry Truman, Will Rogers, Teddy Roosevelt.

And after this long and wonderful career, the thing that he is most noted for is that he is a spokesman for a fertilizer company, Miracle-Gro.

And what did he think of that?

Well, he said, first of all, he thinks it's good stuff, Miracle-Gro.

He uses it.

And his father used it before him.

And yes, James Whitmore is a gardener, an accomplished gardener.

But secondly, it's made him a lot of money, and it has allowed him the freedom to go around and do benefits for places like the Peterborough Players.

So he is very, very pleased at what has happened to his life because of this.

Our next story is by producer Paul Lally.

It may shake you up.

Things are pretty quiet around here right now.

Not, I mean, the world around me.

I mean the world beneath my feet.

Down there where the earthquakes happen.

And what got me thinking about earthquakes was when Harold, a friend of mine who's a terrific mechanic, left this gas station here in Dover, New Hampshire.

Now, it's one of those convenience stores, a place for gasoline and candy bars, and very inconvenient for me.

I lost the one guy who really cared about my car.

That was six months ago.

Well, about a week ago, I meet a fellow by the name of Gordon, who works here, a terrific mechanic.

This guy thinks about my car even when I'm not thinking about it.

And suddenly everything is wonderful in the world for me.

From my feet up.

What about for my feet down?

Down there where the earthquakes happen?

But let me tell you about some other folks I met.

The state of New Hampshire has a department called the Office of Emergency Management.

Gregg Champlin is a project director there.

While the department itself is concerned with all sorts of calamities like fires and floods.

Gregg's job and Gregg's passion is earthquakes.

Most of us think of, I think the photograph, the aerial aerial photographs and so forth of the San Andreas fault.

And, you know, the famous photograph, I think of the aerial view that shows it going from miles and miles.

And of course, they, they affiliate the earthquakes with these faults, which is correct, which is very much correct.

But we're not on a plate boundary.

If you look at a map of the plates of the Earth, we're on the North American plate.

We sit just about dead center.

The western edge of the North American Plate is in California.

The eastern edge is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Mid-Atlantic rift.

Now, I show that with graham crackers, particularly to the to the schoolchildren when I look, when I'm talking to them.

Could you show that to me, the graham crackers?

You mind, let me be a (inaudible) child?

Sure.

Well, you got a graham cracker.

And think of one side this side as the, California, the western edge of our plate.

Okay.

This is the eastern edge and Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and we're located dead center.

And during the Ice Age, tons of ice sitting on top of New England tend to push the crust down.

Now the crust is rebounding.

It's coming back up into place.

If you apply pressure to a side.

And remember that we're in the middle to this side and just a little bit of pressure, you get a snap.

Where Gregg know the how and why of earthquakes, historian Kathleen Langone of Londonderry knows the when.

She loves to study the history of earthquakes in New Hampshire, and the one that probably shook the state the most happened in 1755.

When you think about the damage you want to get a historical perspective of the buildings and structures at that time.

Most of the buildings were wood frame and the wood frame buildings very generously handle earthquake waves when they go through.

There, of course, were chimneys and stone walls and some brick buildings.

So those structures suffered the most amount of damage.

There were about 1500 recorded broken or fallen chimneys, many stone walls.

One of the most famous items in Boston was the grasshopper weathervane on top of Faneuil Hall.

It broke off.

The ministers at that time took these earthquakes as a great opportunity to bring the flocks and masses into their churches.

You see in the registers of churches throughout New England how attendance went up phenomenally right after that earthquake and for about three months after.

I think the Cape Ann earthquake and all of these earthquakes interest me because we don't truly understand what causes the New England earthquakes.

The earthquakes out in California, which we’re probably most familiar with, have obvious causes.

You have faults down there, subduction zones.

But we have nothing similar in New England.

The earthquakes here do not correlate with known faults.

There really aren't active faults in this area.

And it's a mystery.

And I love a mystery.

What's no mystery is the number of earthquakes to hit New Hampshire.

Every red mark you see here represents a measurable earthquake that happened in New Hampshire since records began back in 1728.

Well over 250 of them, and more to come.

So what do you do if one does happen?

Last thing I want to show you that concerns me more than anything.

I don't know, man.

Yeah, well.

I think I got a problem Well stop right immediately.

Because, I mean, what's the most important part of your body?

Not your butt.

All right, now, this may not be flattering, but I think it's, This is what I'm supposed - That.

That's it.

Geez, Gregg.

Okay.

If there's an earthquake, you wouldn't even think about it, Paul.

You just go under.

You go under.

Well, so, okay.

All right, then I'm willing to do that.

And again, you know, it’s the old noggin and so forth that you care about.

Let's say you're in a situation where you're in a hallway and there wasn't anything to duck under.

What would you do then?

Well, what do I do?

Move to the interior as far interior as you can.

You got to remember, this earthquakes happen in seconds, so you're not gonna be able to move very far.

So let's, okay let me just - Throw yourself to the ground.

Let's try this then.

Okay.

Let's.

Well, let's do that.

All right.

All right.

So I'm I'm typing away wondering how I'm going to do this story about earthquakes.

And one comes.

You hear a rumbling.

Yeah a rumbling.

And a noise.

And a noise.

And everything starts to shake.

And I look up.

And it's getting louder and all of a sudden, bang, the first wave hits you.

Yeah.

So cover.

I’m under.

That's it.

Hey, I'm getting better.

Yeah.

This this desk isn’t a great example, but if you're, a kitchen table?

Yeah?

So forth?

You want to duck, cover, hold.

Hold on to the table.

I have an interesting anecdote from from California.

I was out in California after an earthquake.

Yeah.

And a woman that told me the story lodged herself in a doorway between a kitchen and the den.

And her friend threw herself underneath the kitchen table, but she didn't hold.

And she said, Gregg, as scary as it was, I couldn't help laughing because her friend spent the entire earthquake chasing the table around the room because she didn't hang on.

Luckily, they weren't hurt.

But she said, you know, it was quite comical.

So hang on to whatever it is you’re underneath.

What you’re under, right.

Gregg's the kind of guy that hangs on to everything he can about earthquakes, whether it's examining age-old evidence of earthquakes past or talking with people who remember earthquakes in their own lifetime, his focus is very simple.

If there were a legacy to leave behind, I mean, it would be, I’m gone and off somewhere and there's a damaging earthquake, and hundreds of people are saved because they all ducked under their desk.

I mean, that's what I like to say.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, California can keep whoever it is they have that worries about earthquakes.

New Hampshire has Gregg Champlin See, for Gregg, he's thinking about earthquakes.

Even when I'm not.

And in a way, he's like my mechanic, Gordon.

And because of both of them, all is right with the world for me, both above the ground and beneath.

For now.

If you live in Franklin, New Hampshire, you might be interested to know that that truck you heard rumbling by at 11:30 at night on October the 9th of last year, wasn't any truck.

It was, yes an earthquake rumbling by at 3.4 on the Richter scale.

This building you see behind me is the Little Red Schoolhouse here in Jaffrey's center, or a perfectly restored 18th century one room schoolhouse, which is open, of course, in the summertime.

You can see it's snowed in right now.

Our next story was featured on New Hampshire Journal some four years ago.

It is the work of producer Maryann Mroczka, and it features a teacher, an instructor and director at the Paul Art Center at the University of New Hampshire named David Richman.

And the reason that we are replaying this is because David Richman recently received a university-wide teaching prize.

Now, Maryann called this piece In His Mind's Eye.

An apt title, as you will see.

I went to plays all the time, and I discovered that I had a talent for exercising what was a great interest of mine, and that was a great, both a great surprise and a great joy, because I, of course, never thought being blind, that I could ever make a career in theater.

When people first hear about David Richman, they're sometimes taken aback.

How is it possible for a man without sight to direct plays in the highly visual medium of the theater?

He faces this question all the time.

People have asked me, depending on on how friendly they were.

Some people have asked me facetiously, and some people have asked me quite seriously.

Well, of course your plays aren't particularly interesting, visually.

Lights up.

Hello baby.

Hello.

It looks - But the visual element is one of Richman's highest priorities as a director.

Though he has always been legally blind, until he was 12 years old, he could distinguish some colors and objects.

And it is these memories of sight that fuel his ability to conceive images.

He has developed, he says, a strong sense of the relationship between sounding good and looking good.

I have a visual imagination and I can communicate to people in visual images.

So I can, when I when I talk to designers or actors, I can I can talk in terms of color and I can listen in terms of color.

They can they can describe things to me and I will know what they look like.

So I, I draw on the memory of, of vision.

When I, when I work.

The baked potato was good.

Chris, glare?

Talked about glare and turning away?

That worked okay?

Okay.

I can't know that what I want something to look like is always the best way for it to look.

And I can't always know even that what I'm asking for is, is physically possible.

In fact, a question I find myself asking most often in rehearsal is, can you get from that bassinet to that couch in two seconds?

Is that physically possible?

And then prove it to me.

Prove that you can't.

And they often discover they can.

What is this that we're getting reaction to here?

Oh, Heather.

She's got her.

- Oh, Heather's flower child dress?

She’s pregnant and she's got her flower child dress on, yeah.

Okay, okay.

She looks very pregnant.

Okay, okay.

She looks like you feel?

She looks like more than I feel.

Yeah.

Does she look like a 60’s (inaudible), though?

You know, that kind of flower child?

Let me see.

Heather!

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

I think one of the difficulties and one of the risks of working, of working with me is, that I cannot tell an actor or an actress the thing that every actor and actress has to hear.

You look good.

You look good is the, is the one thing that I can't say.

Theater's naturally a highly collaborative process with directors, designers and actors continually feeding off each other.

But for Richman, that collaboration is intensified.

I have to have an assistant with sight who's, to put it very bluntly, whose eyes I borrow.

I know what I want to tell the actors to do.

I know the kinds of directions I can give actors, but I have to really, every moment, to turn to my assistant and say, how's this looking?

And at times, that can be frustrating.

It would be enormously simpler for me if I could, if I could just see the stage once, I could correct every little thing very quickly, that is, that sometimes takes us working together, you know, working in collaboration, maybe an hour, an hour and a half to correct.

Why does she keep running to buses?

What's the matter with her?

Nothing's the matter with her.

She's just depressed.

But for all the difficulties encountered, working with Richman has many fringe benefits.

His actors say they feel a stronger sense of trust from him than from many other directors.

More emphasis is placed on the spoken word, and from this, they say, the true soul of the play emerges.

I think I have a better understanding of the proportion between what is said in a play and what is done in a play, but I don't, I don't allow the words, the character's lines, to take a kind of second place to the character's actions.

I'm always concerned with getting at that, at the relationship between the character's soul, if you will, and the and the character's words.

(inaudible) my cue 2, my cue 3 visual?

(inaudible) For David Richman, the rewards of being a director are much the same as for any other person.

For me, a director is very much a catalyst, and I like being a catalyst.

I like taking these enormously bright and talented people that I have the privilege of working with and stimulating their, you know, their imaginations and their intellects and then watching them develop performances, which surprised me and I think even surprise them.

Theater is a risky business to begin with, and with a director like me, the risk is going to be intensified.

Music Currently, David is directing a production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

They are at the theater at the Paul Arts Center at the University of New Hampshire.

The production runs now through the 27th of the month, 7:00 at night, except on Fridays and Saturdays when the curtain is at 8:00.

I understand it is a very funny production.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week, producer Chip Neal takes us to the library.

And if you haven't been to the library lately, have you got some surprises coming!

Yes, they still have books, but everything else has changed.

Until then, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I’m Fritz Wetherbee.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees, and individuals.

Theme Music