In what is a coincidental but fitting celebration of the selectmen’s recent decision to keep open space in upper Town Hall for community use, the Harvard Historical Society will present “Talent at Town Hall” on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Still River meetinghouse. This program, which features music and dance from works performed at Town Hall over the course of a century, follows last year’s highly successful “Playing with History.” Again created and produced by Harvard residents and Historical Society board members Claire Rindenello and Doug Cregar, the cast has 28 members in all, nine of them returnees, 16 from Harvard. Rindenello searched the Historical Society archives for original programs, chose familiar songs from them, researched the music, found musicians, and choreographed the production. Cregar will act as master of ceremonies, introducing some of the acts and lending historical perspective. The Historical Society is asking for a donation of $5 to benefit the fund to restore the society’s historical organ.
Anouncement for a “Grand Dedication Ball” for the new Town Hall in 1872.
(Courtesy photos)
From cultural events to offices
In its heyday, upper Town Hall hosted an average of 100 events a year. They ranged from plays to lectures to dances, and the proceeds from the entertainments often benefitted the town. By the second half of the 20th century, the second floor of the building was increasingly needed for municipal purposes, and the number of events had sharply declined. The Three Apples Storytelling Festival in 1988 was among the last of the events held there.
The performers for “Talent at Town Hall” are all highly accomplished, said Rindenello, but they have other jobs. Many are professors or writers, or self-employed in interesting pursuits. Rindenello herself, an accomplished flutist, is a respiratory therapist at Emerson Hospital. They have volunteered their time, and separate numbers have rehearsed at different times because of performers’ schedules. Three Harvard pianists, John Chapman, Nicholas Hunt, and Deborah Sheetz, accompany different numbers. “The musicians are the ones that make it,” said Rindenello about the show. “And they’re all so happy to do it, these wonderful people.”
Announcement for a “Calico Ball” in 1879.
Appropriately, the opening number of “Talent at Town Hall” will be from the Grand Dedication Ball, the first performance at Town Hall upon its completion in 1872. The program included the “Introductory March” and “Lancers Quadrille.” Reenacting the march was not a problem, said Rindenello, but she wasn’t sure about the particular quadrille. She contacted the president of the New England Folk Festival, who put out the call for dancers. One answering the call was Lisa Greenleaf, who lives in Bolton and is a renowned contra dance caller. Rindenello found the sheet music to the “Lancers Quadrille” and played it on the flute for Greenleaf, who recorded it. The opening number is now in the capable hands of Greenleaf and the dancers she has recruited. “That’s the wonderful thing,” said Rindenello. “These are accomplished performers; they just do it.”
A brass quartet, a banjo, and Burns
In 1898 the Beacon Orchestral Club played the “Infernal Gallop,” and this will be rendered by a brass quartet. Harvard musician Joan Eliyesil will be reenacting Miss Nellie Eibel Friend’s banjo solo in “The William Tell Overture” performed in 1901. However, Rindenello is certain the original Miss Nellie did not have the amazing accompaniment that Eliyesil will have. Musicians know other musicians, and they are all happy to be part of the fun, said Rindenello.
In 1930 the Scottish Musical Comedy Co. performed a one-act sketch called “Tam O’Shanter,” which was based on poems of Robert Burns set to music. There is evidence that back in 1791 Burns collaborated with a composer friend to write words for a melody that became “Ye Banks and Braes,” which, along with “Willie Brewed a Pint o’Malt,” will be reprised by very talented local vocalists.
“You have to be flexible. I had to work back and forth between the material and the people that I had,” said Rindenello of the process by which she chose the pieces to perform. In one case she had something set, but two of the singers had to back out. She was devastated, she said, but quickly became excited about a replacement piece and the people to do it. In 1945 the Boston Philharmonic Ensemble performed “The Nutcracker.” “Obviously I couldn’t gather an ensemble,” said Rindenello. But she figured out how to adapt a section to the musicians she had available. In every case, “things morphed until they worked—people, music, space, and movement,” she said.
‘It is going to be so much fun’
In 1955 the Boston Lyric Theater performed “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” a personal favorite of Rindenello. It was the first opera ever written for TV, and she remembers how as a child she would anxiously await its airing from one year to the next. She seemed to be thinking fondly of those days when she sang a few lines from “This Is My Box.” The talent playing Caspar, one of the three Magi, is Christopher McWhite, who will also sing the best-known song from “Threepenny Opera,” a song actually written in 1928 as an afterthought.
Rindenello could hardly contain her excitement about the grand finale. It features “Little Mary Sunshine” and will be sung by Helen Batchelder, reprising the role she played in the New Harvard Players’ production in 1977. “It is going to be so much fun,” said Rindenello. “It will bring the house down.”
