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.)

Writing this traditional end-of-the-year column is never a chore. What better way to celebrate the holiday season than to sit back and revisit all the great theater you’ve seen over the past 12 months — lingering on the high points, and fast-forwarding through the others.

Regular readers know the reach of this column covers most of north and central New Jersey, but only the eight professional theaters operating in the Daily Record area are eligible.

Those theaters are the Bickford Theatre at the Morris Museum in Morris Township, Centenary Stage Company at Centenary College in Hackettstown, The Growing Stage Theatre in Netcong, Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, Playwrights Theatre in Madison, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, Tri-State Actor’s Theater in Sussex and the Women’s Theater Company in Parsippany.

Also, full disclosure requires disclaimers regarding the subjective nature of the awards process (a committee of one, with some modest oversight from the missus) and the intangible quality of the awards themselves (winners shall receive no statue, certificate or swag). And, of course, the awards are void where prohibited by law.

With the boilerplate legalese behind us, please turn off your cell phones and pagers and applaud the winners of the 2006 Morris Stage awards:

Best drama

David Wiltse’s “The Good German” at Playwrights Theatre in Madison (not the current movie of the same name). An astonishing period drama set in Nazi Germany — a woman asks her husband (an anti-Semite who doesn’t think much of the Nazis, either) to hide a Jewish man in their home. When the Nazis kill her, the men forge a tense bond that leads to an inevitable explosion. In short, the best play I’ve ever seen at Playwrights.

Honorable mention: “Richard III” at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey was more fun than we could have possibly imagined.

Best comedy

“The Taming of the Shrew” was tightened to 90 minutes and brought outdoors this year by the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Director Brian B. Crowe energized it with food fights and silent-film slapstick. Chaplin couldn’t have done any better.

Honorable mention: “Sleeping Beauty,” The Growing Stage. Adapter Perry Arthur Kroger’s fractured fairy tale was weird and wonderful, including a cooking show, an infomercial, a ukulele solo and a yellow, 6-foot stegosaurus named Fifi.

Best musical

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This co-production from Paper Mill and McCarter Theatre in Princeton could have claimed the title in several categories, from best play to best revival or even best comedy. Visionary director Tina Landau interpreted “Midsummer” as the collective “dream” of the New York City-based pop-rock musical trio Groovelily, who perform the score and play supporting roles. Landau added “Cirque du Soleil” visuals and turned Shakespeare’s romantic fantasy into the unchallenged theatrical event of the year.

Honorable mention: Unique staging and a strong cast at Paper Mill made yet another revival, “Carnival,” surprisingly welcome.

Best actor in a drama

Paul Mullins wickedly evil “Richard III” was so much fun, you almost hated to see him get his what-for.

Best actress in a drama

At the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Laila Robins was perfectly cast as Madame Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard,” and flawless in performance, showing us every angle of this classically conflicted character.

Honorable mention: Victoria Mack at the same theater, surviving a long night of Victorian melodrama in “Pride and Prejudice.”

Best actor in a comedy

This year, almost all best comedic performances were in supporting roles. The best of the bunch was Jeffrey M. Bender as Bob Acres in “The Rivals.” Bender went into full Monty Python “twit” mode as the unsteady suitor and reluctant duelist, and stood tall among a cast of top comedy actors.

Best actress in a comedy

Lea DeLaria turned Nick Bottom into an androgynous cross between Lou Costello and Ella Fitzgerald in McCarter and Paper Mill’s “Midsummer.”

Best actor in a musical

James Clow sidestepped the ghost of James Stewart and made a three-dimensional George Bailey in “A Wonderful Life” at Paper Mill.

Best actress in a musical

Tovah Feldshuh was a feisty title character in “Hello Dolly!” at Paper Mill, cracking wise in a thick brogue, binge-eating and reminding everyone she sings as well as she acts.

Honorable mention: Gwendolyn Walker fearlessly reprised her title role in “Always, Patsy Cline” at Tri-State. A welcome encore.

Most acting range

Karen Case Cook and Gayle Stahlhuth played frontier women from childhood to AARP status in the Women’s Theater Company’s production of “Two-Headed.”

Hardest-working man in show business

Paul Mullins, who both directed (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”) and starred (“Richard III”) on the mainstage at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.

Hardest-working woman in show business

Barbara Krajkoswki, who moved her Women’s Theater Company to Parsippany over the winter, staged a benefit for the company (starring her daughter, Tony winner Jane Krakowski) in the spring at the Bickford Theatre, then returned to the Bickford in the fall to direct “Catch Me If You Can.”

Best score

GrooveLily’s original music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was both modern and in perfect harmony with lyrics written 400 years ago.

Honorable mention: The rock-me-gently songs of Ellie Greenwich stoked “Smokey Joe’s Café” at the Women’s Theater Company.

Best bad guy

Mark H. Dold was so much fun as the vengeful Cloton in the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of “Cymbeline” that we were disappointed when he lost his head–literally. Honorable mention: Peter Ludwig as womanizing artist in Centenary Stage Company’s “The Dew Point.” This wolf in sheep’s clothing could have used the same close shave that Cloton got.

Best bad girl

Beth Glover was an unapologetic whiskey-swilling mom who left her children, without regret, in “The Good Girl Is Gone” at Playwrights Theatre.

Best director (drama)

Tina Landau won honorable mention in this category for “Of Thee I Sing” at Paper Mill in 2004. After “Midsummer,” I’m starting the Parsippany chapter of her fan club.

Honorable mention: Vivienne Benesch moved from supporting actress to director status at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and, in her first crack, turned “Richard III” into a devilishly guilty pleasure.

Best set

“Carnival” opened on a dark, barren stage at Paper Mill and built a unique world of color and imagination with puppets, atmospheric lighting and a caravan of carts.

Best lobby

The café-style lobby at the Parsippany Arts Center is a great place to gather before and after shows by its new tenant, the Women’s Theater Company.

Best costumes

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey can always be relied on for stunning costumes, but at three hours-plus and 44 scenes, none had more than “Pride and Prejudice.”

Best new actor

Alex Zalenty, a 13-year-old Stirling resident, stole “A Thousand Clowns” from his Equity professional costars at the Bickford Theatre.

Best new actress

Another 13-year-old, Beth Codey, carried two hours of “The Wizard of Oz” on her still-growing shoulders at the Growing Stage.

Shakespeare challenged our imaginations some 400 years ago with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Now, director Tina Landau is challenging our senses with an early spring “Midsummer” at Princeton University’s McCarter Theatre that leaves dazzling in the dust and rises to mind-blowing in 15 minutes short of three thrilling hours.

Here’s the skinny — phone a friend and offer two choices: Princeton or Paper Mill? The good news is that, following its run in Princeton, this enchanting, exciting, exhilarating musical — yes, musical — will move to Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. The bad news — the Shakespearean tragedy of it all — is that this magnificent spectacle will cease to exist after May 21.

Say it ain’t so. Broadway, are you listening?

There are myriad elements of Landau’s “Dream” that distinguish it from other “Midsummer’s” and just about any other play you might ever see. While the visual elements are mesmerizing, it’s the music, composed and performed by the eclectic musical trio GrooveLily, that plays the most integral role.

Landau worked closely with the band — Valerie Vigoda on electric violin and vocals, Brendan Millburn on keyboards and vocals and Gene Lewin on drums and vocals — to reconceive Shakespeare’s fantasy-comedy as GrooveLily’s collective dream. The characters spring from their minds, and instruments, and the musicians become characters even as they perform the score.

The music — and much of the production’s visual appeal — will remind you of a Cirque du Soleil show. The mischievous fairy, Puck, appears as a manifestation of Vigoda’s dreamy violin, while other characters are similarly colored by music. A change in melody or tempo often signals a scene change or segue of mood.

Much of the familiar dialogue, conveniently written in rhyming couplets, is scored and sung with contemporary GrooveLily melodies so well suited to the words that it’s hard to believe they were written centuries apart.

Two original songs are featured, but this is still unmistakably Shakespeare’s “Midsummer.” Those unfamiliar with the script may be hard-pressed to single out the pretty pretenders.

Despite disclaimers that deny it is a musical, this production is very much a musical comedy. Much of what is not sung is underscored, making the music as essential as the script.

Choreography and aerials are also a huge part of this incredible package. Aerial designer Christopher Harrison’s AntiGravity Company has been frequently featured on Broadway as well as the Grammy Awards and the 2002 Olympics. He obviously shares Landau’s fertile imagination.

Oddly, the choreography goes uncredited. Maybe no one wanted to sign for wild sequences that featured the Macarena and hilariously veered into “Riverdance” territory.

Purists may find it all a bit much and wonder if Landau’s indulgences don’t threaten to render the Shakespeare element as irrelevant. She also makes it that much harder for the cast to get your attention, and a few of the actors appear slightly overwhelmed by the immensity of it all. Guy Adkins, as a memorably outrageous and androgynous Puck, and Lea DeLaria, who channels both Lou Costello and Ella Fitzgerald as Bottom, are the most successful. The aerialist fairies, flashing more sweaty flesh than a Chippendale revue, are also quite amazing and join with the entire ensemble in soaring choral harmonies.

Are you beginning to get the picture? I doubt it. I’m not that good a writer. Instead, I’ll quote the guy sitting behind me, word-for-word, hand-to-God. As he settled into his seat before the show, he read the program and declared, voice dripping with nasal Ivy League cynicism, “Original music and lyrics? So, they think they can improve on Shakespeare, eh?”

Immediately after the curtain call, he stood and squealed, with childish excitement, “That was the best play I have ever seen!”

The best play I’ve ever seen? That’s asking a lot. But I can say this with a clear conscience — I can’t remember ever being more entertained, and I’m grateful that I’ll get to see this one more time in Millburn.

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is believed to have been written around 1596 for an actual wedding festivity of a prominent person. No one can agree on whose wedding, but one thing is fairly certain, the guests could not have had a better time than did the audience at the opening last Friday evening at the McCarter Theater. Countless productions have taken great liberties with the play’s mixture of fantasy and folklore. The outrageous farce of some scenes and the elongated hallucinatory magic seem to inspire directors to go bananas trying to bring new freshness to one of the Bard’s most fragile but nevertheless beguiling, comedies.

There are no bananas but plenty of fruitcakes in this delectable production, under the spell of conjuring director Tina Landau. This Dream is not only embraced by an original score and songs by GrooveLily, a New York-based trio, but is set in motion by them. This is a particularly lively, comedy-driven production that also revels in the formidable and fantastical.

Undoubtedly the result of too much rehearsing, Gene Lewin (drums), Valerie Vigota (electric violin) and Brendan Milburn (piano) have fallen fast asleep on their blue neon-lit bandstand. They are off on a concerted dream to which we are all invited. The small black frame that has contained their bandstand expands to reveal a thoroughly intoxicating dreamscape. The trio becomes part of a magical world as musical creators and conduits and as characters/participants in the action. Their music, sensual, glib, romantic and raucous, delights throughout with its varied and eclectic musical vocabulary traversing rock, blues, Broadway, folk and jazz, even a passing nod to Kurt Weill, but mostly defined by its originality and independence. A program note acknowledges that all the lyrics are written by Shakespeare (no wonder they are so good) with exception of the songs “When I Dream” and “While You Were Sleeping” (almost as good). Curiously the program does not list the songs, some of which are no more than snippets. We are transported to the silver and white royal court of Athens, its courtiers in white and gold 18th century attire and gathered beneath flickering sconces that adorn the walls.

Landau’s concept of fairydom is delightfully capricious, as it fairly re-invents our belief in fairies as Landau has opted to ignore their dark side which usually affords another dimension to the story. However, she commands our attention with her vigorous and lively approach to the action scenes. There are issues of pacing that will undoubtedly be ironed out during the run. Otherwise, there is rarely a dull moment as we watch the consistently strong stage pictures, including a floating garden for Titania. An ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, Landau is a director/writer who takes risks with risky projects. Her lauded collaboration with composer Adam Guettel on the musical Floyd Collins is a notable achievement, as was the delightfully re-vitalized Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing for the Paper Mill Playhouse, a few seasons back.

Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons (Ellen McLaughlin, who also doubles as Titania, the Fairy Queen) appears elevated for a fitting, as if she were the figure to be placed on the top of an all-white wedding cake. She is about to be wed to Theseus, Duke of Athens (Jay Goede, who doubles as Oberon, the Fairy King.). As you may guess, this wedding isn’t about to go off without a hitch. There is nothing 18th century about the trendy mod clothes worn by those love-possessed Athenian youths Lysander (James Martinez) and Demetrius (Will Fowler) who both claim to love Hermia (Stacey Sargeant), who prefers Lysander.

The young lovers were well paired and perfectly at ease with the rhymed couplets either sung or spoken. But Sargeant’s Hermia was an especially delightful little vixen, bringing a vivacious and exhilarating quality on stage “though she be but little, she is fierce.”. And there’s nothing 18th century about the hip body language or rock styled singing that is ignited by their passions. Things are only destined to get more complicated when Hermia and Lysander take refuge in a forest wherein they are confronted by Helena (Brenda Withers), who still loves Demetrius, who loves…well, you know.

It’s also into the woods for Shakespeare’s most adored amateur actors, here re-considered as city laborers and hard hats, who meet to rehearse “The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.” The laughs they generate are prompted and sustained easily by Lea DeLaria, who assumes the role of Bottom, a city sanitation worker. DeLaria, who earned her Broadway stripes in Rocky Horror Show and On the Town, has her best role yet. She makes an attention-getting entrance across an aisle hauling a huge garbage can. Although I didn’t know what to make of that raw carrot she periodically pulls out of her overalls and chomps on, I was smitten with her as much as was the drugged Titania when Bottom is turned into a most endearing ass. DeLaria gets plenty of comic mileage playing Thisby whose protracted death does not come easily or without the prone DeLaria’s tuba solo. As Pyramus, Demond Green gives drag a new dimension and brings down the house with his octave-spanning vocal dexterity. Gravel-voiced Stephen Payne gets his prescribed laughs as the boozing Peter Quince, and as Hermia’s stubborn father Egeus.

As designed by Louisa Thompson, the forest is a breathtaking vision of silver ladders, poles, harnesses and swings on which muscular fairies float and fly with grace in their spandex briefs, with credit to the aerial design/choreography of Christopher Harrison. The forest is also prone to whimsical changes of weather from falling snow to falling autumn leaves, the thunder of an incoming storm, and the appearance of a starry moonlit sky. Committed to stealing some of the thunder and doing so is Guy Adkins, as a glistening Puck, with a flair for accessorizing his red briefs, and a penchant for mischief.

Best of all, this production is performed with an awareness of its bubbly poetry. Combining gaiety of spirit and belief in the incidents, a diverting evening has been created. Luckily, and considering the ability of many of the performers, we don’t have to be overly concerned with the depths of character analysis since the play’s interest seems primarily to deal with incidents and coincidence, and in this case, everyone’s ability to perform the Macarena.

Kudos to costumer Michael Krass, who knows who to dress and undress with equal panache. This first co-production between the McCarter Theater and the Paper Mill Playhouse (where it will be performed beginning April 19 through May 21) is a visually stunning and generously funny entertainment.