Local residents, Saint Michael's students, take part in original play

2009 Apr 1

Keelia Liptak, daughter of Alan and Ellen Liptak of Moretown, has the role of stage managerin the Saint Michael's College major spring theater production, playing in the McCarthy Arts Center on campus April 1 to 4. The show, "Professor Wellright's Library: A New Musical by Brendan O'Leary and Zachary Cooper," was written by SMC junior theater major Brendan O'Leary who has teamed up with University of Vermont senior jazz musician Zachary Cooper to create what has been described as a charming, witty, wonderful musical. This show marks the first time the SMC main-stage spring theater production is student written.

Liptak, a first-year student, theater major, graduated from Harwood Union High School before coming to Saint Michael's, a liberal arts residential Catholic college, located in the Burlington area of Vermont.

"Professor Wellright's Library," directed by SMC theater professor Peter Harrigan, with Brendan O'Leary, is a grown-up parody of the popular kids TV series "Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood." The show is described this way: "A cameraman puts his heart and soul into a children's television series he hopes will be an instant classic. But something about "Professor Wellright's Library is well, wrong."

The plot evolves around production of a children's TV show lodged within a musical that's aimed at college students, sort of a Mr. Rogers inside "Wicked" or "The Wiz." And some things are, "not camera appropriate," O'Leary said. This tension and the presence of a library full of life stories provide the playwright with endless complexities, which he has embraced. He's turned portraits on the wall into a group of sniping "Fates," who compete with the "Figs," or figments of imagination, "who come from the land that's there, but no not really." And on and on into complications.

Music carries the day when words are not enough. Cooper has animated O'Leary's poetry/lyrics into a vibrant musical production.

Saint Michael's College, www.smcvt.edu, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns, and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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