Abigail Adams talks 46 years, and directing 60 plays, with People’s Light

After she “retired” from her position as executive artistic director of People’s Light, Abigail Adams kept waiting for her workload to lighten.

Didn’t happen.

Even though she turned over the reins to producing artistic director Zak Berman in March, Adams kept busy consulting on fund-raising, including a current campaign. “We’re also in the midst of a feasibility study that explores making the backstage fully accessible and reconfigures the front of the house.

“I haven’t really experienced time opening up until now,” said Adams, now senior director of special projects and executive artistic director emerita.

The now has to do with the ebb and flow of the life of a director. Adams directed “The Vinegar Tree,” People’s current show. Like all directors, her work built to a crescendo through final technical rehearsals with props and actors on set, culminating in previews and the official opening night.

Since the show’s opening on July 3, it has been mostly sit-back-and-watch, sending the occasional note via the stage manager. “My work is done,” on The Vinegar Tree, Adams said.

The show is on a COVID-related pause through July 17 and closes July 24.

Adams will be directing one show a season for the foreseeable future. Next one? Lettie, Boo Killebrew’s play about a woman newly released from prison’s effort to regain custody of her children (coming June 2023).

That was then, but even for this production, “it was nice to direct and not have to run in and sign checks during the break,” Adams said with a laugh.

Adams joined People’s Light in 1976 and led the organization since 2013. During her 46 years with People’s, she has directed more than 60 plays. Adams suggested People’s stage The Vinegar Tree, playwright Paul Osborn’s rarely produced comedy of manners written in 1930.

“It’s a romp with substance,” she said. “What we’ve been hearing from people is, ‘I needed this — I needed something that would make me laugh and feel good.’ ”

The show reunites many cast and crew members from another Osborn work, “Morning’s at Seven,” also directed by Adams, which had a successful run at People’s in 2018.

The Vinegar Tree has “three very strong roles for women, which was unusual for that point of time,” Adams said. “These women are really trying to figure out what they want, particularly in terms of love and sex and who they are meant to be. It can be, on the surface, kind of silly, but there’s a really deep questioning.

“What you think you want may not be what you actually want,” she said.

At The Vinegar Tree’s heart is Laura Merrick (played by Teri Lamm), whose marriage to Augustus (David Ingram) is both secure and disappointing. Guests arrive at their country home and romances tangle, along with mistaken identities and foolhardy love affairs. A quotable line? “I used to be charming, too, you know. But after a while, one grows tired of those things.”

The Vinegar Tree “is very rarely produced because it’s very hard to do well,” Adams said.

“The actors have to walk a fine line that could suddenly become too broad, too farcical, or too dark, so it’s a real challenge for the actors,” Adams said.

“It requires a lot of skill to do what they are doing. They bring a level of truthfulness to this material that is unusual,” she said. “You could do it without that and it would probably fall flat. They brought a lot of imagination and care and truthfulness to the work and it’s palpable in the house.”

Rehearsals posed their own challenges, particularly because of the pandemic. “We had actors who hadn’t been on stage for two years,” Adams said. “I wouldn’t say they were rusty, but their confidence was fragile.”

Current events, including gun violence and recent Supreme Court decisions, also impacted rehearsals, Adams said.

“How a play hits us has changed in the last two years,” she said. “We are becoming so fractured as a culture. It’s hard to keep despair at bay and to be hopeful. Even doing a comedy is hard — very necessary — but hard.

“Every day we would start rehearsal with [each person saying] what they were looking forward to. Sometimes it was just lunch and that was OK,” Adams said. “Every day has to be worth us being together.”

July 19 to July 24, People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, 610-644-3500 or peopleslight.org

After turnover at the top and the pandemic, PlayPenn, which supports playwrights as they develop their work, is back in person with its annual conference. Eighty readers combed through 123 plays by Philadelphia-area playwrights. After three reviews, six plays were chosen for two readings each during the conference.

“Audience is a very important part of the process,” said Che’Rae Adams, PlayPenn’s new artistic director. That’s why admission is free, through reservations are required.

The process includes professional actors who read from the scripts. They’ve gone through a rehearsal process with direction, but the readings themselves are deliberately kept simple. The actors sit on chairs and read from scripts on music stands. There’s no scenery, no stage lighting, no movement. The idea is to focus the attention on the words, character development, and story line.

After the readings, the audiences can respond via talkbacks, comment cards, and emails.

In between the first and second readings, the playwrights revise, revise, and revise, making changes to their scripts on different colored paper, taking in audience feedback, plus more help from their PlayPenn peers.

To get an idea of how the revision process works, think about going to see first and second readings of the same play.

“The first reading is for the playwright to hear actors performing their play,” Adams said.

For the second reading, the audience should look to see whether characters are more fleshed out. “Look especially for clarity,” Adams said, and “see if the through-line is clearer. It’s OK to be mysterious, but confusion isn’t cool. One of the main things is to look for the scenes to see if they’ve been reordered. Most of the time, scenes will move around a bit.”

Here is what you can see this week:

“Goddess at the Lucky Lady Motel” by Nimisha Ladva. A widow works to keep her family’s motel afloat amid generational and caste differences. (First reading, July 13, 7:30 p.m.) Ladva teaches writing and speaking at Haverford College.

“Fat Muslim Girls” by Ken Kaissar. Risqué photographs of female students are found in a professor’s office. Who is to blame? Academic, religious and body-shaming agendas overtake the facts, with consequences. (First reading, July 14, 7:30 p.m.). Kaissar is coproducing director at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol.

“Whispers of My Sister,” by Stephanie Kyung Sun Walters. Inherited trauma within immigrant families lies at the heart of this play which includes a ghost that materializes in the light of the refrigerator. (First reading, July 15, 7:30 p.m.). Walters recently won the Philadelphia Theatre Company Terrence McNally Award for her play, “Acetone Wishes and Plexiglass Dreams.”

“Gente Del Sol” by Santiago Tonauac Castro. Valeria and Leonardo’s relationship is faltering, so Leonardo seeks help from Mexican cultural and Indigenous practices. Meanwhile, she’s falling for Fern. (First reading, July 16, 2 p.m.). Castro works with Mural Arts Philadelphia.

“All the Emilies in All the Universes” by Ian August. Time travel allows four mothers, all named Emilie, to search for their stillborn son “somewhen” in the metaverse. (First reading, July 16, 7:30 p.m.) The New Jersey Council for the Arts recently awarded August a 2021 Independent Artist Fellowship.

“The Pigeon” by Brie Knight. Four characters are always dissatisfied with their lives. How do they react when they find themselves in an adjacent universe in the middle of an apocalypse? (First reading, July 17. 2 p.m.) Knight is currently collaborating with Steel River Playhouse to develop a community-based theater project honoring the spirit of Pottstown.

Through July 24, PlayPenn at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St. 215-242-2813 ext. 406 or playpenn.org

The dog in the dog days of August will actually appear in July for the Hedgerow Theatre Company’s production of “The World According to Snoopy,” a revised version of the musical “Snoopy!!!” Based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, Snoopy!!! is directed by Peter Reynolds with music direction by Cristina Dinella Makowicz and choreography by Shannon Murphy.

The cast includes: Ben Carino (Woodstock), Claire May (Sally), Aidan McDonald (Charlie Brown), Maria Mohajir (Lucy), Chris Monaco (Linus), Emily Sampson (Peppermint Patty), and Jay Thien Nguyen as the beloved beagle, Snoopy.

Through July 31, Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Media, 610-565-4211 or hedgerowtheatre.org

Check with individual venues for COVID-19 protocols.