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Miseri alum directorial/playwrighting debut

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<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re obnoxious and disliked,&#8221; Ben Franklin matter-of-factly points out to John Adams.</p><p>And maybe <em>that&#8217;s</em> why the cause of American Independency, as the two patriots call their new-fangled notion, is going nowhere in Congress.</p><p>So maybe someone else &#8212; i.e. someone who&#8217;s not Adams, not from Massachusetts, and perhaps more genial &#8212; should be the one to introduce a resolution about breaking free from England.</p><p>&#8220;Never!&#8221; Adams cries during an early scene in the musical &#8220;1776,&#8221; which the Pennsylvania Theatre of Performing Arts is presenting through July 7 at the J.J. Ferrara Center in Hazleton.</p><p>But Adams eventually sees the wisdom of Franklin&#8217;s suggestion and, however reluctantly, soon joins old Ben in encouraging Richard Henry Lee to rush home to Virginia to get approval from the House of Burgesses so Lee can make the pivotal motion.</p><p>During a rehearsal earlier this week, Jerry Keebler, of Lycoming County, had the fun of singing one of the musical&#8217;s more light-hearted songs, a number that portrays Lee as cheerfully confident.</p><p><em>&#8220;&#8230; May my horses turn to glue if I can&#8217;t deliver unto you, a resolution on independency!&#8221;</em></p><p><em>&#8220;&#8230; May the British burn my land if I can&#8217;t deliver to your hand, a resolution on independency!&#8221;</em></p><p><em>&#8220;&#8230; May my wife refuse my bed if I can&#8217;t deliver, as I said, a resolution on independency!&#8221;</em></p><p>Keebler, who hails from the town of Montgomery, has been driving 71 miles each way to rehearsals for weeks. A professional magician, he&#8217;s also given up paying gigs to come to Hazleton.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s how much I love this show,&#8221; he said.</p><p>He&#8217;s not the only cast member who feels that way.</p><p>&#8220;I am so happy to have this role,&#8221; said Walter Mitchell of Bear Creek Village, who gets to deliver comic lines as well as sage-like wisdom as Ben Franklin. &#8220;Men of a certain age, we age out of possible roles, but this is one role I&#8217;ll never age out of.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s so much joy in being John Adams,&#8221; said Adam Randis, of Hazleton &#8220;He is a dynamo. There is no down time for John. He had such an intense drive to fight for human rights, individual rights, to be held above everything else.&#8221;</p><p>The story-line of &#8220;1776&#8221; shows Adams facing a great deal of opposition as he agitates for independence &#8212; er, independency &#8212; mainly from a Pennsylvania delegate named John Dickinson.</p><p>&#8220;He was a Quaker, a &#8216;fightin&#8217; Quaker&#8217; because he later joined the Revolution,&#8221; Randis, who teaches history at Luzerne County Community College, described Dickinson.</p><p>The play exaggerates Dickinson&#8217;s conflict with Adams, Randis said, &#8220;to make him more of a foil. In real life, he was more moderate.&#8221;</p><p>Despite some dramatic license, the play incorporates historical facts &#8212; from Jefferson&#8217;s ability to play the violin to Delaware delegate Caesar Rodney&#8217;s battle with skin cancer.</p><p>Still &#8220;it&#8217;s not a &#8216;beat-&#8216;em-over-the-head&#8217; history lesson,&#8221; said Ray Hopkins of West Pittston, a Temple University student who portrays Thomas Jefferson. &#8220;It&#8217;s a good way to show the Founding Fathers weren&#8217;t gods. They were people.&#8221;</p><p>They also had families, represented in the cast by Jessica Schafer of Lehighton as Abigail Adams and Reagan Venturi of Mountain Top as Martha Jefferson.</p><p>In her role as Abigail Adams, Schafer sings several duets with Randis, which reflect the letters John and Abigail exchanged while they were apart &#8212; while he was arguing for independence and she was running a farm, tending sick children, dealing with a shortage of pins for sewing and rounding up saltpeter to be used in the making of gunpowder.</p><p>&#8220;He wrote to her every day,&#8221; Schafer said. &#8220;That&#8217;s the only thing that got her through.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (Ray Hopkins and Adam Randis) are regaled with a speech by the animated Richard Henry Lee (Jerry Keebler) </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_1776-1.jpeg</photo0><caption0>Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (Ray Hopkins and Adam Randis) are regaled with a speech by the animated Richard Henry Lee (Jerry Keebler) </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_more.1776-1.jpeg">
<div class="neCaption">Congressional Conservatives (John Zions, Richard Kline, John Bogdon, CJ Snyder, Zachary Sessock, and Christopher Pavlick) discuss strategy to block John Adams&#8217;s moves for American Independence. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_more.1776-1.jpeg</photo1><caption1>Congressional Conservatives (John Zions, Richard Kline, John Bogdon, CJ Snyder, Zachary Sessock, and Christopher Pavlick) discuss strategy to block John Adams&#8217;s moves for American Independence. </caption1><photoCredit1>Submitted photo </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mary Therese Biebel</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<strong>,&#8217; </strong>a musical depicting the events that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence</p><p><strong>Who:</strong> Presented by the Pennsylvania Theatre of Performing Arts</p><p><strong>Where: </strong> J.J. Ferrara Center, Broad Street, Hazleton</p><p><strong>When:</strong> Through July 7 with shows at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.</p><p><strong> Info:</strong> 570-454-5451</p></factboxMeta></div>

‘1776’ musical comes to stageat Hazleton’s Ferrara Center