Imagine the ability to go back into time and be a guest at one of Gertrude Stein’s famous salons in Paris in 1925, and you get the idea behind the Friends of the Talbot County Free Library’s third annual “Among Friends”. In this case, attendees will chat and talk with the likes of Stein, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Harpo Marx and George Bernard Shaw this Friday with the help of some of the area’s most talented actors. All of this makes for a fun event, and ends with a nice contribution to the Library, but it’s easy to forget the extraordinary research and time commitment on the part of the evening’s cast to make their characters come alive for almost three hours of performance.
That is why the Spy caught up with local actor John Norton yesterday in St. Michaels, who will be channeling the playwright George Bernard Shaw at the salon. During the day, John has a very successful career as a medical videographer, but in his evening hours, he has long been associated with the Tred Avon Players and takes very seriously the task of getting his character fully developed before arriving for libations and hors d’oeuvres on Friday.
In our interview, Norton talks about the extraordinary life of Shaw, and the extra steps he takes as an actor to prepare for the evening, and the fun he himself experiences in the sometimes spontaneous but always historically correct interaction he has with some of Shaw’s counterparts during the roaring 1920s.
This video is approximately four minutes in length
Friends of the Library will host the third annual Among Friends event from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on January 29, 2016 at the Easton branch of the Talbot County Free Library. In honor of the library’s 90th anniversary. Admission to this adults-only fundraising event is $50 per person for reservations made before January 15 and $60 per person after January 15. Information is available by contacting Julie Barnett at (703) 424-6445 [email protected] or Susan Sherman at (410) 770-4568 [email protected].
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.