Pets of the Week

Matthew B. Dugas

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; If you&#8217;ve never seen the musical &#8220;1776,&#8221; Matthew Kropp said, you might assume the Founding Fathers &#8220;got together for two hours in Philadelphia and happily, harmoniously signed the Declaration of Independence.&#8221;</p><p>But if you attend the show that opens at King&#8217;s College on Oct. 1, you&#8217;ll get an idea of the weeks of arguing, political maneuvering and Declaration editing that took place.</p><p>Kropp, 21, of Laurel Run portrays Thomas Jefferson, who reluctantly agrees to write the document after John Adams, one of the more forceful characters, insists it&#8217;s his duty.</p><p>&#8220;Oh, he&#8217;s a bugger!&#8221; said A.J. Krier, 22, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, who portrays Adams, the &#8220;obnoxious and disliked&#8221; &#8212; at least, that&#8217;s how one song describes him &#8212; representative from Massachusetts. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t want to spend much time with him. I&#8217;d respect him, but I wouldn&#8217;t want to work for him.&#8221;</p><p>One of the most humorous parts of the play depicts Adams trying to convince delegates Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston to write the declaration.</p><p>Franklin defers, claiming &#8220;The things I write are only light extemporania &#8230; so I refuse to use the pen in Pennsylvania.&#8221;</p><p>Sherman won&#8217;t do it either, saying he doesn&#8217;t have the etiquette or &#8220;know a participle from a predicate. I am just a simple cobbler from Connecticut.&#8221;</p><p>As for Livingston, because his wife just had a baby presented &#8220;by the noble stork&#8221; he wants to go home and &#8220;pop the cork with all the Livingstons together back in old New York.&#8221;</p><p>That leaves Jefferson to write it, because if Adams did it himself, his political opponents would &#8220;run their quill pens through it.&#8221;</p><p>With personality conflicts, harsh words and plenty of distractions, the Continental Congress doesn&#8217;t run smoothly. So the workers who watch and perform tasks for the delegates &#8220;don&#8217;t have a very high opinion of them,&#8221; said Tom Kozerski, 18, of Bear Creek, who plays custodian Andrew McNair.</p><p>&#8220;We get a lot of rum for them,&#8221; said Sabrina Rios, 18, of Hanover Township, who plays the custodian&#8217;s helper, Leather Apron.</p><p>Along with Leather Apron and the custodian, actor Jon Vojtko said, his character, a courier who periodically arrives with dispatches from General George Washington, is a third &#8220;everyman character.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;You see what the upperclass guys are doing; these three guys just keep trudging along,&#8221; said Vojtko, 22, of Wyoming, adding the common folks are the people likely to face the greatest danger.</p><p>The courier sings &#8220;Mama Look Sharp,&#8221; a poignant song about young soldiers who didn&#8217;t come home for supper so their mothers go out and look for their bodies. &#8220;It&#8217;s a luscious song but so heart-breaking,&#8221; Vojtko said.</p><p>Director Dave Reynolds has cast the King&#8217;s production without regard to gender, so in some songs, Alexis Wylam said, &#8220;We had to play around with the octaves.&#8221;</p><p>Wylam, 18, of Hanover Township, portrays Richard Henry Lee, the wealthy Virginian who gets permission from his home state&#8217;s House of Burgesses to get things rolling. Or as Lee puts it musically, &#8220;May my blood stop running blue if I can&#8217;t deliver unto you a resolution on independency.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Betty Montgomery portrays Abigail Adams and A.J. Krier is John Adams in the musical production &#8216;1776&#8217; at King&#8217;s College in Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_1776-57-1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Betty Montgomery portrays Abigail Adams and A.J. Krier is John Adams in the musical production &#8216;1776&#8217; at King&#8217;s College in Wilkes-Barre. </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;1776,&#8217; the Tony Award-winning musical about the signers of the Declaration of Independence</p><p><strong>Where: </strong> George P. Maffei II Theatre, Administration Building, 133 N. River St., Wilkes-Barre.</p><p><strong>When:</strong> Oct. 1 to 10 with performances 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays.</p><p><strong>Tickets:</strong> $12; $5 students and seniors.</p><p><strong>Info:</strong> 570-208-5825.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

King’s College play ‘1776’ shows Declaration of Independence took some doing