Exactly 42 Years Ago This Summer And Throughout The 1980s, The Enchanted Hills Of Northern Indiana Were Alive With The Sound Of Some Very Talented Young Stage Performers - Particularly In A Well-Received 1981 Summer Stock Playhouse Revival of Lionel Bart's Tony and Oscar-winning musical masterpiece OLIVER!
" ANOTHER SPOT northern Indiana travelers like to visit is the Enchanted Hills Playhouse at Lake Wawasee. Those who have seen plays there during the past two seasons may remember Darryl Maximilian Robinson, the Chicago-based actor, who has impressed audiences and critics alike. Robinson, a tall, slim, black actor, has shown great intensity and stage presence in such plays as The King and I, Oliver, Peter Pan; My Fair Lady and Camelot.
I saw him in Camelot last summer and remember raving about him in a subsequent review of the play.
He is also experienced in many Shakespearean productions, having toured with New York's National Shakespeare Company. The Bard's work is what he will be doing this summer as a performing member of the Indianapolis Shakespeare Festival. The festival features outdoor productions in Garfield Park. Its season opens in July and will include The Merry Wives of Windsor and Hamlet. Robinson will also be featured as an actor / director / instructor at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, a post similar to one he held last year at Enchanted Hills. Keep an eye on Mr. Robinson; he may have a great career ahead. " -- Larry Shores, Our Neighborhood, The Star Press of Muncie, Indiana, June 21, 1985.
Exactly 42 summers ago, a rustic, intimate, charming and lovely 240-seat old summer stock barn theatre ( located near the shores of Lake Wawasee, and with a main entrance on of all named streets "Wizard Of Oz Way" ) in The Enchanted Hills of Northern Indiana just outside of the sleepy hamlet of Syracuse, might not be the place one would expect a rousing, critically-praised, award-winning revival of Lionel Bart's Tony and Oscar-winning British musical theatre masterpiece Oliver! to occur.
But between July 1st and 12th of 1981, under the skillful guidance of Producing Director Jill M. Stover and Artistic Director Dr. Jeffrey P. Koep, that is exactly what happened for two solid, sold-out weeks at THE ENCHANTED HILLS PLAYHOUSE, which was filled-to-capacity with enthusiastic, musical theatre classic lovin' Hoosiers, onstage, backstage and in the audience every night!
Deeply and truly committed to effectively conveying the musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' acclaimed 19th-century novel Oliver Twist, and greatly assisted by inventive young choreographer Leta Kritzman and skilled young musical director Douglas Baumgartner, Stover and Koep's cast was talent-packed, and many remain working and teaching professional stage and academic theatre artists to this day.
Now an experienced Chicago-based concert performer, recording artist and song-writer, Temple Schultz was an 11-year-old South Bend area resident ( with a big stage voice ) in 1981 when she played the title role of "the boy who asked for more."
Currently a highly-respected and esteemed west coast play director and drama coach, Myrona Delaney ( known in 1981 as Valpo University Vocal Performance Major Myrona Lou Laws ) impressed audiences with both her acting and singing as the doomed Nancy.
Skilled actor-singer-dancer Donald Lee Hahn of Peru, Indiana was a solid Bill Sykes. And Tom McSweeney delighted as The Artful Dodger. Talented young actor, Culver Military Academy theatre student and future New York stage and television actor T. Gregg McClain appeared as young pickpocket Charlie Bates.
Talented young actor-singer ( excellent tenor ) and future New Orleans radio personality Opera Joe McKesson impressed as Oliver's benefactor Mr. Brownlow.
Arriving from his hometown of Chicago to make his northern Indiana professional stage debut in his first full season of summer stock, 20-year-old, future Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago Founder and Joseph Jefferson Citation Award Winner Darryl Maximilian Robinson ( who had appeared earlier in the year as the Russian ballet instructor Boris Kolenkhov in The Act IV Theatre of Forest Park, IL. revival of George S. Kaufman's and Moss Hart's You Can't Take It With You and the title role in The Puppet Place Theatre of Chicago revival of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado ) would win over Hoosier audiences and critics so much with his performance as the wily, lovable, king of pickpockets, Fagin in Oliver! ( his very best part in a gallery of six roles which also included Joe in Show Boat, the tap-dancing First Gangster in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, El Gallo in Tom Jones' And Harvey Schmidt's The Fantasticks, Persian peddler Ali Hakim in Rodgers' And Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and tale-spinning cowboy Kit Carson in William Saroyan's 1939 Pultizer Prize-winning comedy The Time Of Your Life ), that he would become the first theatre artist at EHP to receive an acting honor: The 1981 Fort Wayne News-Sentinel Reviewer's Recognition Award as Outstanding Thespian of the Season from veteran theatre critic Sharon Little.
For the summer of 1984, Producer Stover and Director Koep would rehire Mr. Robinson to not only perform another full season of roles ( which included Captain Hook in Peter Pan, Colonel Pickering in Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady, Mordred in Lerner and Lowe's Camelot, Nazi Ernest Ludwig in Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, Jewish refugee Dr. Jan Dussell in Frances Goodrich's and Albert Hackett's 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Diary Of Anne Frank and His Majesty, The King of Siam in Rodgers' and Hammerstein's The King and I which was not only his very best role during this encore season but a highlight of his musical theater performance career ) but also to serve as The Assistant Director of Children's Theatre and Director of Mainstage Promotion.
Without question, Darryl Maximilian Robinson was pleased and proud to perform some of his greatest stage roles as a young professional theatre artist in The Hoosier State.
Note: Darryl Maximilian Robinson ( The Founder of The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago and The Excaliber Shakespeare Company Los Angeles Archival Project ) was last seen by Windy City theatregoers in the marvelous dual roles of The Chairman Mr. William Cartwright and Mayor Thomas Sapsea in skilled Director / Musical Director Robert-Eric West's 2018 Saint Sebastian Players Chicago revival of Rupert Holmes' Tony Award-winning Best Musical Whodunit The Mystery of Edwin Drood for which Mr. Robinson earned critical praise and a 2019 BroadwayWorld Chicago Award nomination for Best Performer In A Musical or Revue ( Resident Non-Equity ). Darryl Maximilian Robinson has become noted as the very first black actor in American Theatre History to portray on stage a trio of classic dramatic roles including: Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons" ( in a 1984 revival presented by The University Players of The University of Missouri-St. Louis and directed by AEA Member John Grassilli at The Benton Hall Theater ); King Henry II in a 1992 multiracial cast revival of James Goldman's "The Lion In Winter ( directed by Mr. Robinson for his chamber theatre Excaliber Productions, Ltd in St. Louis and staged at The Wabash Triangle Cafe ); and Andrew Wyke ( opposite the talented actor Sean Nix as Milo Tindle ) in a 2000, 30th Anniversary, all-black cast revival of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth" presented under Mr. Robinson's direction by his chamber theatre The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago at The Harrison Street Galleries Studio Theatre of Oak Park, Illinois. Most recently, Darryl Maximilian Robinson was named a winner of a 2022 Making The World Happening Award for his numerous online theatre-related offerings at Allevents.in.
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