Dan Burke relishes a good fight. Onstage.
The actor has played characters tough (Macbeth) and gentle (Friar Lawrence) and has directed. He will stage “The Dresser” at Gamut Theatre Group in 2014 and is a founding member of Stage Door Company, an offshoot of Gamut.
But Burke’s most unique role may be that of fight choreographer. “I like all aspects of theater,” he said. “But I really enjoy a fight.”
Burke took stage violence as an elective in his freshman year of college and liked it so much he continued with the course all four years.
He has choreographed fights for Gamut and other area theaters, including Open Stage of Harrisburg, Hershey Area Playhouse and Little Theatre of Mechanicsburg.
He’s been an instructor at Lebanon Valley College—he calls teaching on the college level “a dream come true”—and recently worked with the Harlem Shakespeare Festival and the Shakespeare’s People Project at Millersville University.
“Safety is first and foremost,” said Burke, who has his own company, Safe Violence. “Our tagline is ‘Keep your actors and audiences safe—and keep the violence real.’”
His interest arose in part from a child’s love of magic tricks. For him, stage violence is, to a large degree, magic. “Done effectively, the audience gets fooled. It intrigues me to fool people,” he laughed.
Jane Hess has loved theater for years. She sang in choruses and choirs and saw lots of shows, mostly at Allenberry Playhouse, from high school on.
But the only time you’ll find Hess on stage is “pushing a piece of the scenery,” if that’s what called for. Hess is a volunteer extraordinaire for Theatre Harrisburg—a Jill of all trades and a master of many.
Since retiring from the Harrisburg School District in 2006, Hess has stepped up her involvement. Since many of her friends perform or participate in Theatre Harrisburg, it “seemed natural” to start attending and volunteering.
She started by ushering when asked to by one friend, Rich Askey, who was music-directing a show at the community theater, but since then has produced or co-produced musicals. She has painted sets, collected props, assembled costumes, done spotlights and, yes, pushed scenery. She’s provided casts with water and snacks.
“I like doing a little bit of everything,” Hess said.
Ask Gwen Alsedek which show she liked most, and she’ll reply, “The last one I worked on.” But push Open Stage’s resident costume designer further, and she’ll admit her “favorite” is “The Big Bang.” Everything on stage becomes something else—a prop or costume. “That was a challenge,” she said.
While an undergraduate at Kutztown University, Alsedek was asked to help take care of the costume shop as part of her work-study job. “I walked into the room with a pile of clothing, which was a total mess,” she recalled.
Alsedek learned about budget limitations when a fellow student was given $500 to create five costumes for a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” She helped her friend meet that challenge.
There are others. Alsedek has had to sew people into costumes on opening nights and struggle with ornery zippers.
“I find the challenges interesting,” said Alsedek, who holds a master’s degree in fine arts and trained at the Missouri Repertory Theater.
Her interest in clothing goes back to playing with dolls and the quilting tradition of her Berks County upbringing. Not to mention her theatrical family—her mother and brother, Donald, were active in Theatre Harrisburg before he co-founded Open Stage.
In theater, necessity is often the mother of invention. That’s the case with Joyce O’Donnell, costume designer for Oyster Mill Playhouse.
Her first theater experience was in high school as an unintended assistant costumer for a musical revue. O’Donnell was in the dance group, but enlisted to make skirts with nets for herself and the other members. “Next year, I got stuck with it again,” she laughed.
At the time, “it” didn’t suggest a job title. O’Donnell didn’t know the formal profession of costume designer existed.
She has since found out. O’Donnell has been affiliated with Oyster Mill Playhouse from when it was called Met Rep. She also worked for Sharon Hillegas, one of Met Rep’s founders, at Fishing Creek Playhouse.
At first, O’Donnell did a lot of acting and directing, but has morphed into “basically OMP’s resident costume designer.”
Her interest in costumes dates back to childhood. She loved playing dress-up and exploring her mother’s jewelry box. She even got into trouble once for using the “expensive stuff.” On the other hand, her best friend had an extensive dress-up box, with freer access.
O’Donnell was also inspired by her “idol,” Theatre Harrisburg’s costume designer, Paul Foltz. And she is grateful to the many volunteers who help dress the actors and assisted in setting up a costume rental program for schools, other theaters and individuals.
A retired lab technician, O’Donnell comes into Oyster Mill six days a week. “I also lie in bed for an hour thinking how to accessorize,” she said. “Theater has always been my first love. Where else can you play dress-up with other people at age 72?”
