Banta hopes to bring big-league laughs with Gutenberg
Chapman Museum's `Summer Blast' will have front seat to LG fireworks
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You should know Martha Banta's name because she is big-league.
Thirty years ago, Banta and her husband David Turner created professional theater in Glens Falls before there was even a building.
Back in 1995, Glens Falls was a lot different.
There was no round-about, the Adirondack Red Wings were the biggest entertainment draw, most of the streets downtown were one-way, South Street had a raucous Bourbon Street vibe every weekend and it was tough to find a place to get a cup of coffee.
ATF settled in the old five and dime Woolworth's building where the setting was intimate.
No seats, just folding chairs.
When the current Wood Theater was under construction, ATF took its shows on the road, including one outdoor show in Lake George. The current Wood Theater was completed in 2004.
Banta, who admitted they had no grand long-term plans for the festival, guided ATF with Turner from 1995 to 2007, but the pair were plenty active in the New York City theater scene.
Broadway is the big leagues so before Jimmer Fredette was carving out a big-time basketball career at Glens Falls High, Banta was guiding the Broadway musical Mama Mia in its formative years as associate director.
Banta and Turner still have a home on Lake Sunnyside, but Banta has been splitting her time between New York and Glens Falls this summer.
She returns to her roots later in August as Mama Mia returns to Broadway for a limited six-month run. Previews open at the Winter Garden Theater on Aug. 2.
But over the years, Banta has never been too far away from ATF.
Left without an artistic director before the 2021 season, Banta jumped in to help salvage the season.
But before leaving for New York, she is back directing the musical comedy Gutenberg at ATF - it had its preview Thursday night and opens Friday at 7:30.
"I love to direct," Banta said before Gutenberg's rehearsal on Thursday.
Gutenberg! was a Tony nominee for best musical in 2024 and Banta believes it is just what the community needs to make it smile this summer.
"Joy and laughter is just what we need in the world right now," Banta said. "We've been laughing our way to opening night."
The two-man musical stars Coby Getzug and Sam Harvey as two historically clueless composers trying to sell a musical about the inventor of the printing press - Johannes Gutenberg - to potential investors.
"The actors are phenomenal," Banta said. "They have to have a funny bone to do this. Your face is going to hurt from laughing so much, but it does have something to say."
You don't have to worry about historical accuracy since not much is known about Gutenberg (the inventor not the play) which is kind of the point of the play. The two composers kind of make it up as they go along.
Banta said she heard one of the actors describe it this way: "It's fiction that's true."
There is also going to be a local cameo for each of the nine shows. Banta said Glens Falls councilman and mayoral candidate Diana Palmer filled the role Thursday night but they had not heard from Mayor Bill Collins yet.
Banta continues to be worried about keeping local theater alive.
She said her dream as a director is to "create something that never existed before."
I thought that was ironic.
I think she has already done that with ATF.
Sign brigade
The North Country Light Brigade has broadened its horizons from lighted letters at dusk on local overpasses to soaring signs that can be seen during the day.
I've been visiting with the Light Brigade for more than a year in all kinds of weather. On Wednesday, there were 10 of them on the Exit 19 overpass in Queensbury during a steady rain beneath a new sign saying "Due Process For All."
What was different this time was the response.
The sign faced north-bound traffic on the Northway and there was a regular stream of cars and trucks honking their horns in support of the message.
That has not always been the case.
They have also been on the receiving end of insults and obscene gestures. Right before the election last year, a man in a pickup truck started screaming at them on the bike bridge that what they were doing was illegal and he had called the police.
Apparently, he was not familiar with that "freedom of speech" provision in the First Amendment. The police did come and the man was told they were not violating the law.
The Light Brigade will be back in action on Friday, 4 p.m. at Centennial Circle in Glens Falls.
Ken to meet Ken
As the playwright, nobody asked my opinion of who should play me in the dramatic reading of The Last American Newspaper later this month. I never gave it much thought.
During an interview on WAMC Monday, Adirondack Theater Festival Producer Miriam Weisfeld said she was approached after March's dramatic reading at the Capital Repertory Theater in Albany by Doug MacKechnie, a Chicago actor who had just come home to Bennington, Vt. He told Miriam he was interested in the play.
This past week, it was announced MacKechnie would be playing me in the play.
He contacted me this week to say I was the first non-fiction character he would be playing was still alive.
I told him I was happy to oblige.
Real Ken will be meeting stage Ken over lunch next week.
Second volume
Somewhere between my first book - my collection of columns from The Post-Star called The Last American Editor- and all the excitement about the adaptation of my second book - The Last American Newspaper - to the stage, I think my second volume of columns was missed.
So many people have given me great feedback about the true-life stories in The Last American Editor, I followed that up with another collection of columns in LAE Vol. 2. If you read the first book - nearly 100 local columns from my days at The Post-Star - you are going to love the second book.
You can still pick up any of my books at Ace Hardware (Queensbury), Chapman Museum (Glens Falls) and Battenkill Books (Cambridge). Still plenty of time to get your reading done this summer.
Here is one of the several reviews on Volume 2:
“As a deeply respected editor, writer and columnist, Ken Tingley championed storytelling that illuminated slices of life, exceptional experiences and the triumphs and opportunities of folks navigating a complex world. In these pages, we see others, but we also see ourselves.”
-Stu Shinske, former Poughkeepsie Journal editor
Summer Blast
Reminder that the Chapman Museum's summer fundraiser - Summer Blast - at the Fort William Henry Carriage House is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 7 and will be capped by fireworks over Lake George.
The evening will include a swinging 60s Beatles-themed evening, buffet dinner and live auction.
Tickets are $95 per person ($85 for members). Tables of eight can be hand for $700.
Most of all, this is to support the Chapman's efforts to keep local history alive.
Work requirement
The new work requirement for Medicaid payments sounds good on paper, but paper is the problem.
States that have tried the work requirement report that there is so much paperwork involved that many qualified recipients are bumped off the roles because they did not fill out the paperwork properly or did not know about it.
But I sense that is the point of the paperwork.
Institutional memory
One of the most overlooked attributes of having experienced employees in any institution is "instituational memory."
With the retirements of Will Doolittle, Greg Brownell, Bob Condon and myself, the newspaper lost over a century of knowledge about local news and issues.
I suspect that will also have a dramatic affect on future government services because of the recent cuts to veteran leadership.
There has been a lot of finger-pointing about whether the cuts to the National Weather Service had any impact on the tragedy in central Texas.
Recent reporting has shown that the National Weather Service in Texas was staffed well enought to make a forecast and issue warnings in the hours before the flood, but here is what has not been well reported.
After the cuts to the weather service, a veteran employee opted for an unplanned early retirement and his job was not filled. His job was "warning coordination." He most likely would have know the local region well enough to know who to call and when to make sure the warnings got traction.
No bean counter in Washington could possibly know the value of that type of experience.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Light Brigade, keep shining! Ken, keep writing.
...yes [and thank you, once again] to the Diurnal Light Brigade / If you do not believe in "due process"- not only are you not, by definition, American: you are not worthy of your due process that, frankly, all human beings deserve...