Summer 2024
Building Locally with a National Reach
As we close out our Summer Season (June 15 thru September 30), we look back on some exciting projects and thank our patrons and donors for their support of another successful summer.
In July, over 100 people – patrons, politicians, business owners and followers – attended Pendragon’s Groundbreaking event on its new theatre facility (to open in 2026). As everyone in the community knows, this project is a long time coming with dozens of Pendragon team members working hard to see it to completion.
Nearly 3000 audience members saw a Pendragon production over the last four months as the Summer began with new faces and returning artists for our hit jukebox musical, The Marvelous Wonderettes which ran for two weeks of performances as well as participated in PRIDE weekend in Saranac Lake. BroadwayWorld award winners and nominees Kelly McCarty, Hannah-Kathryn Wall, Danielle Pecchioli and Julia Squier were led by Jessica Wagner and Hawkins Gardow for a wildly charming show.
Coinciding with our productions were our selected artist presentations of the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Residency Program. Chanthou Lam led a three week summer intensive involving technique and choreography followed by a community performance. Jazen Reuss produced her six-month community driven mural made of beads. And Brittany Sternberg planned and executed an outdoors mural with the help of 30+ other artists in the community.
The summer continued with our Camp Pendragon production of The Little Mermaid Jr which matches home-school, public and private school students grades 6-12 in the area to work with professional theatre makers to create a production. 18 wildly talented students took the stage this summer.
Further, Pendragon produced the Moveable Feast series, which brought unique Pendragon events to various businesses in the area in order to cross-pollinate audiences and engagement.
From Lake Clear Lodge to the Sunset Bistro; from The Garagery to BluSeed Studios, Pendragon collaborated with local businesses to share resources and showcase each others’ strengths.
We also remounted our hit Winter Carnival show, Guys & Does, for a two-night event at Paul Smith's college. There were 240 attendees in total.
In the midst of the summer season, one of the most successful Pendragon galas to date took place at Paul Smith’s College, honoring NCPR’s Todd Moe and welcoming over 150 guests to the event.
Also, Pendragon premiered a new play called Tracks, which for the second year in a row, was invited to further premiere Off-Broadway in New York City. The show once again ran to critical success and put Pendragon’s name above a marquee in Manhattan, showcasing the longstanding talent and artistry of the theatre to nearly 1000 patrons who had never seen a Pendragon production before.
“Tracks was moving, relatable, and engaging— heavy even in moments of levity but worth the emotional commitment”
– Mason Pilevsky, Pages on Stages
And then closing out the summer were three events: Glenn Mcclure completed his Residency with a free-to-the-public workshop performance of a new musical, Voices in the Wilderness: A dialogue between disability and nature.
Then, Pendragon welcomed in the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts touring production of The Cure: An Adirondack Story which ran to a full house and also saw many talented local actors on stage.
Further, Pendragon collaborated with St. Joseph’s to not only provide free artistic collaborations with Veterans in recovery, but to share the script War Words. Pendragon continues its partnership with St. Joseph's Addiction Treatment and Recovery Center in Saranac Lake, where we welcomed Veterans at St. Joseph's to read through War Words – a dramatic retelling of Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans and discuss its relevance and impact.
Thursday, September 26th, there was a free reading presentation of Michelle Kholos Brooks' powerful play War Words at The Library of Congress in Washington D.C., directed by Artistic Producer Sarah Norris and co-produced by Pendragon Theatre.
Based on the playwright’s interviews with veterans of the 20-year war and their families, the play – along with Pendragon Theatre’s name – was entered into The Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress which collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served from World War I through today so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service.
Thank you again for your patronage and we’ll see you soon!