1776 on Stage at Prickett's Fort

Fairmont State University's Town & Gown Summer Theatre concludes its 2008 season with the patriotic musical 1776. Performances will be held July 4-6 and 9-13 at 8 p.m. at the Prickett's Fort Amphitheatre.
Tickets are available from the FSU Box Office at (304) 367-4240. Prices for the performances are: $12 general admission, $10 seniors and $8 students with ID. Group rates are available for groups of 10 or more.

Even now, 39 years after the first performance of the play, audiences will be drawn to the characters of the founding fathers. The musical is certainly about the momentous year 1776 and its dramatic politics, but it is also about the relationships of the signers, their frictions and their harmonies, fragments of their private and public lives, and it allows audience members to have a glimpse of the personalities behind the familiar names.

Town & Gown cast members for 1776 are Jim Matthews (John Hancock); Michael Woods (Dr. Josiah Bartlett); Troy Snyder (John Adams); Matt Scanlon (Stephen Hopkins); Shawn Dunn (Roger Sherman); Joe Riesen (Lewis Morris); Roger Banks (Rev. John Witherspoon); John Fallon (Benjamin Franklin); John O'Connor (John Dickenson); Anthony Host (James Wilson); Bruce McGlumpky (Caesar Rodney); Jeremy S. Crawford (Col. Thomas McKean); John Piscitelli (Samuel Chase); Christian Cox (Richard Henry Lee); Daniel Crowley (Thomas Jefferson); Don Trisel (Joseph Hewes); Marc Cornes (Edward Rutledge); Jonathan Shay (Dr. Lyman Hall); Michael Vozniak (Charles Thomson); Virgil Rogers (Andrew McNair); Linda O'Connor (Abigail Adams); Loralee Simpson (Martha Jefferson); and James Clegg (a courier).

The play opened on Broadway on March 16, 1969, at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers Theatre) and closed on February 13, 1972, after 1,217 performances. During its run, 1776 played in three different theatres.

The show was nominated for five Tony Awards in 1969 and won three: Best Musical; Best Featured Actor in a musical (for Ron Holgate as Richard Henry Lee) and Best Direction of a Musical. It also won the 1969 Theatre World Award and two Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Book and Outstanding Costume Design. Peter Stone wrote the book and the music and lyrics were by Sherman Edwards. Peter H. Hunt directed the original Broadway production.

There are departures from the actual historical events, as poetic license allows, but the play remains true to the spirit of the characters and the majority of debates and decisions that culminated in the Declaration of Independence.