Guy in rehearsal for Midsummer, with Val in the background

One of the sublime parts was getting to meet and work with Guy Adkins, a gifted and wildly versatile actor. He’s done such a wide variety of work on stage, and playing Robin Goodfellow in Midsummer was just one new facet of his skill set coming to light.

He was so witty and kind and smart, and so full of joy. We were so glad to get to know him and to become friends with him during the three months we were on this project together. At the end of Act 1, Guy sang our song “All Shall Be Well,” and moved me to tears at many of the performances. I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t get a recording of him singing it.

Guy died last week, on Wednesday, May 12. I knew it was coming–we all knew it was coming. He found out he had stage four colon cancer about 15 months ago. But he’s been so good, and so open, and so giving since he found out; he has been posting about his experiences on facebook and in a blog called “Notes from a Candyman.” His willingness to share his innermost thoughts, fears, worries, and joys these past 15 months have changed me for the better.

I know that Guy’s work in Midsummer isn’t necessarily representative of his career as a whole–but it’s the only thing we’ve ever done with him, and when we heard that he had died, we immediately put “All Shall Be Well” in the set list for our concert in Philadelphia this past week. It felt very good to sing the song again, and dedicate it to him.

Here’s that song, with a montage of T. Charles Erickson’s photos from McCarter and Paper Mill. We miss you, Guy. Thank you for everything.

They’re both terrific guys, and both have a pretty wicked sense of humor, and one of the interesting aspects of doing the same show over and over again, 75 times, is that you start to imagine perverse interpretations of certain pieces of text or song.

The song “When I Dream” started off Act 2 – it was our comment on the fluid nature of the play and our invocation of a dreamworld. We like the song, but I have to admit that we tried to take the subject matter seriously–and one of the things about the video below is that Jesse and Guy act *completely serious* as they completely disembowel our song, and man, is it funny. (Note: some of the, well, gestures may be NSFW. Be forewarned.)

Also: note: this was off-stage. These people were doing this stuff backstage, in the dark, or in this stairwell you see below, and we didn’t get to actually see any of this until Adam Lobato, acrobatic fairy extraordinaire, filmed it for us with Val’s little camera. (I’m so glad he did.)