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SOSO Players open their first season Mail Tribune / Andrew Mariman Bob Burgoyne, left, and Grant Shepard rehearse a scene from a play called "The Plight Before Christmas," a spin-off of the Charles Dickens play, "A Christmas Carol." The Act III production will run Thursday through Dec. 14 at the Windmill Inn in Ashland. Act III will perform an old-fashioned seasonal melodrama as it provides older actors with a chance to work By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune Remember when good was good, bad was bad, and everybody knew the difference? Kicking off the first season of ACT III, the Seniors of Southern Oregon (also known as the SOSO Players) will perform the old-fashioned melodrama "The Plight Before Christmas," by Fred J. Cusick and Diane Moore. It's a takeoff on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Act III is a new, nonprofit theater company formed by Rogue Valley residents 50 years old and older. The group plans melodramas, olios (plays with vaudeville or songs between the acts), variety shows and readings. The company's start goes back to former Hollywood writer Creighton Barnes, 75, and his wife, Estelle, bemoaning the lack of good acting parts for older folks. "We grumbled that in so many plays, all the parts were for younger actors," Barnes says. Then they met Bonnie Vorenberg of Portland, a former Ashland resident and a focal point for the senior theater movement. Senior theater started in 1978 with Stuart Kandell's Stagebridge, in Oakland, Calif., and has grown rapidly. (For more information, visit www.mindspring.com/ academytheatre). "Plight" is set in a sarsaparilla bar in circa-1890s Ashland. It begins with the wicked Ebeneezer Humbug's threat to foreclose on the mortgages of the town's widows and orphans unless the beautiful and innocent Felicity agrees to marry him. Will heroic Bob Scratchit be able to save the day? This is a chance to cheer the hero and boo the villain. Mike Holstein, of Ashland, stars as Scratchit. Bob Burgoyne, of Medford, plays Humbug. Suzie Brewer, of Medford, is Felicity. Holstein, who has taught English and history at the college level for 30-something years, says melodrama appeals to a deep desire to believe in pure good and pure evil. "It's the poor sister of literature," he says, "the basis of daytime television and a lot of film. It's satisfying." Melodramas - romantic plays with sensational plots, hackneyed characters and sentimental endings - date from at least the late 18th century, when Frederick Schiller wrote "The Robbers." They were popular in frontier America and have never really gone away. A popular one ran in Jacksonville for years. "There's melodrama in Shakespeare," Holstein says. It's Holstein's first time in a play since the third grade. "So this is what happens," he remembers thinking as the company moved from reading to casting to rehearsals. Barnes, 75, moved to Ashland in 1999. A native of New Bedford, Mass., he earned an engineering degree before working as an actor in the 1950s. He was a staff writer at Filmation Studios and a long-time free-lancer for Hanna-Barbera and other studios, writing hundreds of TV scripts, including "Heckle and Jeckle," "Mighty Mouse," "Spiderman" and "The Smurfs." He was a founder of the Garden Grove Theater (now the Grove Shakespearean Theater). Barnes envisions Act III mounting four to six productions a year, including theater standards such as "Harvey," "You Can't Take it With You" and "Never Too Late." Possible venues include Actors Theatre in Talent, the Rogue Valley Manor in Medford, Mountain Meadows in Ashland and even area schools. Barnes acknowledges that 50 doesn't exactly qualify for senior citizen status these days. "We started at 60," he says. "Then we said 55, then 50. We're seniors who allow the middle-aged." Act III aims to give folks the chance to get involved with live theater by reading scripts, designing and building sets, painting, fitting costumes, directing, stage managing, acting, helping with advertising and publicity, whatever. Holstein says there's also a feel-good angle. "Getting involved in drama is therapeutic," he says. "And the best kind of therapy groups have people of similar backgrounds. These people have all been through it." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.