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Madrone Theatre presents 'Spoon River Anthology' Back row, Ron Danko, left, Constance Jesser, David Sours, Rob Hirschboeck, and Lea Worcester; seated, David Gordon, left, and Jois Harkness are Madrone Theatre Company. Photo by David Gibb Photography Friday Oct 7, 2016 at 2:00 AM Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune Denizens of Jacksonville Cemetery are brought back to life each October when volunteers from Friends of Jacksonville's Historic Cemetery present dramatic re-enactments of the stories of men, women, children and war veterans buried there. This year, Jacksonville Cemetery Association and the newly formed Madrone Theatre Company team up to give cemetery enthusiasts their annual funereal fix with a staged production of "Spoon River Anthology." Director Ron Danko selected 50 short, free-verse poems — basically epitaphs of the residents buried near a rural Illinois town — from author Edgar Lee Masters' 1915 and 1924 books to adapt for Madrone Theatre's performances of "Spoon River." Shows are set for 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 7-8, 14-15 and 21-22, in the Performance Hall at Rogue Community College, 135 E. Eighth St., Medford. Matinee performances will be at 2 p.m. Sundays, Oct. 9, 16 and 23. Tickets are $20, $12 for students. Danko was mesmerized when he first saw a production of "Spoon River," produced in 1969 by Theatre West in Hollywood. "Its stories are so lovely," he says. "They have a way of staying with you." He first produced "Spoon River" in the early '70s with a theater company in Kalispell, Montana, then took the production to all Montana universities. He produced it again at Hartnell College's Western Stage in Salinas, California, and took it on the road to be performed in San Luis Obispo, Big Sur and Cambria Pines. About eight years ago, he and John Cole produced a student production at RCC. "Then, I thought I was finally done with 'Spoon River,' " Danko says. "Until my wife and I were at the Jacksonville library and heard David Gordon playing music of historical pioneers. We'd never heard music like it before, and my wife said, 'Wouldn't he be great in 'Spoon River?' " "I thought, hoo boy, he certainly would," Danko says. So he ran the idea past fellow RCC faculty member David Sours and musician Gordon, and they liked the idea, he says. Actors themselves, Danko and Sours needed one more actor to play the male roles. "I knew actor Rob Hirschboeck from Ashland, his wife works as a costumer at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Then three women — Constance Jesser, Jois Hartness, Lea Worcester — were selected for the female roles. And Gordon has lines, and his music weaves in and out of the show." Characters include a respected doctor who is convicted of swindling; a judge bent on revenge against those who mocked him in his youth; a mother seeking an act of pardon from President Lincoln; a telephone operator sharing the secrets she's learned while eavesdropping; and a young soldier, devoted to a girl and questioning a war, to name a few. Musician and music historian Gordon, a newcomer to the Rogue Valley, selected 30 songs to use as underscoring and transitions. The folk tunes evoke small-town life in the early 20th century. Wayd Drake, another RCC instructor, is designing lights for the production. "So we've been in rehearsal since May," Danko says. "The cast thought we were going to just present a reading, but I didn't. I knew what I wanted to do with it. I selected pieces for each one of them. Now they love it. You can't help but love the pieces." No two of Danko's productions of "Spoon River" are alike, as he pulls different monologues from Masters' books for each new production. "This is going to top all of the other productions of 'Spoon River' I've done," he says. "It's got so much soul and depth. Since we began rehearsals so early, the show has just percolated over time. It's gotten deeper and deeper as the actors found their voices. It's pretty powerful." Spoon River actually ran near Masters' hometown. The aim of his poems was to demystify rural American life. The 1915 "Spoon River Anthology" brought national acclaim for Masters, but also created scandal in small Illinois towns where the author spent time growing up. Many residents recognized themselves in the thinly veiled work of fiction, and some of the accounts were less than flattering. As one literary observer noted, “With the publication of 'Spoon River Anthology,' Masters exploded the powerful myth that small-town America was a social utopia. Here for the first time was a community that people recognized in its wholeness and complexity.” Dirk Siedlecki, president of FOJHC, and his wife, Mary, produced the pioneer re-enactments for the past 10 years in the cemetery. “This is a great opportunity for the cemetery association, as well as the community, to continue the tradition of celebrating the history of Southern Oregon and rural America,” he says. “ 'Spoon River Anthology' is a wonderful work of literature, and it will be especially wonderful to see it staged this fall.” Proceeds support the restoration and preservation of Jacksonville's Pioneer Cemetery. See www.friendsjvillecemetery.org or call 541-826-9939 for information.