Anita and Bill Brown: Of Montauk Theatre Productions

The community theater enthusiasts Anita and Bill Brown have reached into every nook and cranny of easternmost Long Island to ferret out performers and technicians, carpenters and set designers for their Montauk Theatre Productions and Theatre in Montauk.

Far more than the average local impresario, Ms. Brown, an actress and director, and Mr. Brown, an actor, have made use of down-home talent. And if the unsuspecting citizens they targeted had no theatrical aspirations, well, that didn't stop the Browns.

"At first we didn't even hold auditions," Ms. Brown said of their beginnings 10 years ago. "I'd just go up to people on the street and ask them if they'd like to be in a show. I got neighbors from motels and marinas, laundromats and restaurants, some of whom had never been on a stage in their life."

"Then I'd round up kids and pop them into the cast, too, to make it more fun."

Started A Theater

The Browns had vacationed in Montauk for years and finally bought a house, supposedly for weekends, in 1988. But Mr. Brown turned out to be such an avid gardener, "planting things even in the snow," according to his wife, that weekends lengthened into weeks, and the absence of a local playhouse began to get to them.

"When we saw there were none here, we just went ahead and started a theater," Ms. Brown said. They commandeered the Montauk Community Church basement, and even talked the minister into playing his guitar on their first opening night.

Suddenly, eager co-founders came out of the woodwork, such theater people as the veteran actor Frank Borth, who wrote "Montauk Follies," their first show, Edward Ecker, a community leader with vaudeville experience who did some routines, and Ada Gigante, now in her 80s, who sang French songs.

Shows For Kids

Other talents emerged: Velaine Pfund, a gifted actress and dancer, and Sybil Tuma, who starred in "Montauk Follies." Henry Uihlein of Uihlein's Marina also put on skits, and Mr. Borth's wife, Bobby, who'd done a lot of performing, joined in the fun.

"There was no overall plan," said Mr. Brown. "But the church basement, by its very nature, prevented us from doing anything too heavy-duty, or with less than a G rating. We had no money to build a theater, and trying to renovate the crumbling Montauk Manor[Playhouse] was not feasible."

So they went with the flow, putting on holiday shows with lots of kids for Halloween and Christmas, and staging scripts with large casts written especially for community theater.

Murder And Intrigue

"Meet the Creeps," a send-up of "The Addams Family" and other monster shows, famously starred Joanna Steichen of Montauk as the loathsome Tarantula Creeps. "Phantom of the Soap Opera," an old-fashioned melodrama of murder and intrigue in the backstage world of daytime soaps, also gave community actors some juicy roles.

But like all troupes, they craved their own space and four years ago, they got it. Now operating out of adjoining storefronts on South Elmwood Avenue, Montauk Theatre Productions runs the 40-seat Drama Stage One and a dance and acting studio next door.

Here the Browns have room not only to teach, but also to stage more serious and avant-garde plays and to experiment with readings of works-in-progress.

Recent Productions

Recent productions have included A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters," starring Mr. Brown and Montauk's Veronica Keough; Mark Twain's "The Diaries of Adam and Eve," and, most recently, the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" by Paul Zindel, all directed by Ms. Brown.

Woody Allen, David Mamet, and Elaine May's "Death Defying Acts" was staged over two recent weekends, and Marilyn Sokol's "Mrs. Dally Has A Lover" is scheduled for Aug. 5.

The Browns met, not surprisingly, while acting in summer stock, in New London, N.H. Mr. Brown was taking a break from his first year in law school at the University of Delaware, where as an undergraduate he had studied acting.

Actor And Teacher

Ms. Brown grew up in New York City and got her first professional job at age 16 as a dancer in the Gae Foster Roxyettes at the old Roxy Theater. However, as a near-sighted person in the pre-contact lens era, she found she excelled at ballet rather than jazz and tap dancing, with their fast-paced, demanding routines.

She studied for a time at the ballet school of the Metropolitan Opera, on scholarship, before taking up acting, and has appeared off Broadway, on TV, and in regional theaters.

Ms. Brown also has extensive teaching and directing credits in New York and vicinity, including a long-term association as head of the Double Image Theatre's young people's department and as the director of publicly funded shows for New York City schoolchildren. In Montauk, besides directing numerous shows for M.T.P. and for community functions and benefits, she has regularly taught dance and acting classes.

She has recently discovered another voice, as a singer. "I'm taking lessons," she said. "It's an absolutely thrilling new form of expression."

Blossoming

Mr. Brown, after completing his law degree, became an insurance broker in New York. The couple has an apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where he stays during the week.

In Montauk, he has blossomed as an actor, appearing in numerous local plays and musicals including "The Diaries of Adam and Eve, "Dreamboats," and "Seems Like Old Times."

As a member and former chairman of New York's Caravan Theatre Company, he helped sponsor new playwrights and plays, including productions of "China Dream," "Half Life," and "Full Moon," a role he continues to perform locally.

Shakespeare

"Last summer Will Eno, a fellow from the Edward Albee Foundation, wandered in off the street, and we ended up putting on a short play he was working on," Mr. Brown said.

"He came back in the fall with other new pieces we did readings of. And two weeks ago, another playwright we'd sponsored did a piece for the library."

A year ago Gerard Doyle, director of the London Shakespeare Company, also dropped in, according to Mr. Brown. He gave a series of workshops for actors and nonactors, and a very successful outdoor performance of Shakespeare soliloquies.

"I love new writers and new pieces," said Ms. Brown, "but the weekend crowd doesn't like experimental stuff. Maybe we'll do them on Monday nights."

Upcoming Musicals

In their new venue, Upstairs at the Downs, the second-floor dining room at the Montauk Downs Golf Course, the Browns will produce the musical reviews "Wanted, Dead or Alive" and "The Boy Friend," and the East End premiere of an Off Broadway murder-mystery musical, "Split Ends."

Nor are their ubiquitous community appearances limited to theaters. When the Montauk substation of the East Hampton Town Police Department asked them to enact various types of crimes for the edification of rookie cops, the stalwart troupe threw itself into improv presentations of family disputes, armed drug-dealer holdups, muggings, and hostage crises, among other risky situations.

"We're a resource for many different events: community shows, musicals, new works, cabaret, and performing arts workshops," Mr. Brown said. "It's sort of unfocused, but we like it like that. Our function is to develop talent and make things happen."