BRATTLEBORO-An unusual pairing is coming to the Latchis Theatre — and it’s all about The Trouble with Harry, Alfred Hitchcock’s quirky 1955 film centered and shot in northern Vermont.
The event is the brainchild of producer and creative consultant Alia Quart Khan of Randolph, who was drawn to the film and the story of its creation.
“That combination was irresistible to me: one of the world’s most famous filmmakers making one of his least typical films, in Vermont, about a community trying to figure out what to do with a body that suddenly appears in their midst,” she says.
“It’s absurd, but underneath that comedy there’s also something about community, belonging, relationships and how people negotiate the unexpected together,” Quart Khan adds.
The two-part event includes a live reading and a screening.
On Friday, Oct. 23, a one-night-only, largely-unrehearsed reading of John Michael Hayes’s screenplay will feature a host of locals and others with Vermont connections.
Then on Sunday, Nov. 8, a screening of the film at the Latchis will be followed by a community conversation moderated by Vermont filmmaker Bess O’Brien, with filmmaker/writer/actress Jeanine B. Frost and Steven DeRosa, author of Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes.
Quart Khan says the film “sits at this unusual intersection of film history, Vermont history, and something that still feels surprisingly alive — even though it’s about a dead body.”
Acknowledging its atypicality, she adds, “it’s Hitchcock, but not the Hitchcock most people think they know. It’s funny, macabre, romantic, and deeply strange.”
“I find it absolutely delightfully weird, with this very British strain of macabre humor inherited from and a dry, matter-of-fact attitude toward death and inconvenience,” she says.
Along with being taken by the “sharp” dialogue loaded with understatement and irony, Quart Khan was drawn to “this odd little film with such a specific Vermont history. Hitchcock came here to make it in 1954, using Vermont’s fall landscape almost as another character.”
The Trouble with Harry was shot in Stowe, Morrisville, and East Craftsbury, where Quart Khan visited this summer for a motor tour of the film’s locations. It had its world premiere in Barre the following year, in 1955, with proceeds benefiting those affected by that year’s catastrophic flooding in the Northeast.
And so, seven decades later, Quart Khan says, “It felt worth asking: ‘What happens if we bring this story back into a Vermont room and hear it through the voices of people who live and create here now?’”
Having moved to Vermont during the pandemic, Quart Khan finds the environment here gives her “permission to play and to not be perfect” and to “work with good people on good projects.”
While such readings of movie scripts are common in Los Angeles, Quart Khan explains, that practice is not so common around here. And she’s added the pairing with the screening.
“But I’m hardly reinventing a wheel,” she says. “I’m just going with a creative concept, making it my own, and bringing other people into the mix.”
An eclectic cast
The cast for the Latchis reading is a varied and unlikely assemblage, including Tom Bodett of Dummerston.
Bodett is known locally for his creation of HatchSpace, a woodworking school and community workshop in Brattleboro, and, more broadly, for his voiceover work in advertisements for Motel 6 and for his quick banter as a panelist on NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!
“He’ll read the action lines and scene descriptions, helping the audience follow the visual action that would ordinarily be happening on screen,” Quart Khan says.
Frost, of Marlboro, will read Mrs. Wiggs, originated by Mildred Dunnock. Myra Flynn will read Jennifer Rogers, the role originated on screen by Shirley MacLaine. A singer-songwriter and podcast host, Flynn splits her time between Vermont and Los Angeles.
Willy Appelman reads Sam Marlowe, originated by John Forsythe. An actor, comedian, and writer, Appelman’s many credits include NBC’s Bring the Funny and work onstage and off with Weston Playhouse.
Howard Weiss-Tisman, Vermont Public’s southern Vermont reporter, reads Dr. Greenbow; Candice Taylor-Diallo, multidisciplinary artist, physician, and founder of the Creative Chromatics art studio, reads the Millionaire; Chris Dorman, creator of Vermont Public’s Mister Chris and Friends, reads Arnie Rogers, originated by Jerry Mathers of Leave It to Beaver fame.
Frost, who serves with Quart Khan in the Vermont Production Collective, an organization that supports filmmakers in the state, recalls that Quart Khan asked for help “connect[ing] with some folks in Brattleboro because she enjoyed the look of the Latchis. And so I connected her [and they] got along swimmingly.”
Quart Khan praises Jon Potter, executive director of LatchisArts, as “an amazing partner.”
“The project kind of built from there,” says Frost. “It’s intriguing to me to do the script live and then also to show the film, because they’re such different media, and acting live is so different from acting on film.” She adds, though, that “the story itself feels very much like a stage play.”
Taylor-Diallo, new to the stage, recalls that the “opportunity came out of the blue. Alia reached out to the River Gallery School because I’m on the board there as well as at Groundworks Collaborative. I guess she thought my information was enough to substantiate me taking up this particular role.”
“Even though I’ve never particularly done this before, it’s something that I would always open myself to,” says Taylor-Diallo, who hails from Trinidad and Tobago. “I love old movies, so I found [The Trouble with Harry] quite entertaining. And it wasn’t something that was too unfamiliar despite different cultural differences.”
In preparation, Taylor-Diallo is “reading the script and just thinking of who the character is supposed to be, and if there is any overlap in my personality to bring into this particular character,” she says.
“I think that there’s an opportunity for some level of improvisation,” she adds, “because it’s going to be the first time we’re all doing it together in front of a live audience, and that level of uncertainty I think could be quite entertaining.”
Bodett adds that he’s had “virtually nothing” in the way of acting experience.
“When directors try to coax me into a reading that is not just me doing me, they soon grow despondent and give up. No one asks for Tom Bodett unless they want me,” he says.
“I admire good acting very much. I have no idea how you do that,” Bodett says. “I make nice furniture, though.”
Saying why he took the gig, aside from the fact that he was free that night, Bodett says, the “Latchis Theatre is an awesome venue. I’ve always enjoyed working on those boards. Script readings are a cool thing people do in L.A. and New York, and since Brattleboro is easily as cool as them, we should definitely be doing it too.”
Getting the period look
Behind the scenes is Jenn Karpin, whose vintage clothing store, Morning Glorious Vintage on Elliott Street, has provided period dress for the productions of Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven, as well as for television series like Mad Men (AMC) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime).
“Alia approached me about being the style partner for the script reading,” Karpin recalls, “We just did a really fun session with [Frost] during Gallery Walk, helping her get her outfit with a ’50s look.”
Of the timeliness of this project, Karpin adds, “I think it’s important that we create that space for joy and community and having fun and celebrating the arts, right? I think this is just a really unique one that Alia has created in our community.”
Frost adds, “I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s a lot of intent to create experiences that continue to give us levity. And because to be able to involve ourselves in politics at this point requires so much of us — that is where arts and culture and community come into play.”
Taylor-Diallo, who works part-time as a residential specialist serving adults with disabilities, adds that the arts often tend to offer stress relief and “give people an opportunity to come together and just be together enjoying shared space and whatever is being presented to them and just forgetting” what might be troubling.
Quart Khan notes that the “fun of the largely unrehearsed format is that it’s genuinely happening in the room.”
“The actors are trying on the screenwriter’s words — finding the rhythms, jokes, and relationships in real time, and it isn’t an experience most people get to witness. There’s room for unexpected choices, happy accidents, and play.”
Bodett adds, “it’s a bunch of ordinary people using their best intentions to make a complete hash of things. Essentially, the story of all of our lives.”
The live script reading of The Trouble with Harry, a project of Alia Quart Khan’s production entity On Goldfish Pond Creative, takes place at the Latchis Theatre, 50 Main St., Brattleboro, on Friday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m. The classic Alfred Hitchcock 1955 film will be screened at the theater on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m., followed by a community conversation. For tickets and more information, visit latchis.com.
This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.