The Clan of the MacQuillins
Columbia County Players Present a Staged Reading with Music:
The Clan of the MacQuillins by Local Playwright John Paul Porter at the Churchtown Dairy Round Barn on September 21 & 22, 3pm
The Columbia County Players Theatre (CCP) presents a staged reading of local playwright John Paul Porter’s historical family drama The Clan of the MacQuillins, on Saturday, September 21 and Sunday, September 22 at 3 pm, in the Round Barn at Churchtown Dairy, located at 357 County Road 12, Hudson, NY 12534. The event is free and open to the public. No reservations needed.
With this free premiere of John Paul Porter’s The Clan of the MacQuillins, the most recent in Porter’s series The MacQuillin Plays, CCP offers one more captivating performance to the community in the Round Barn at Churchtown Dairy just before the cows come home. The Clan of the MacQuillins is an epic tale in twelve scenes set in Scotland, Ireland, and the New World of the 17th century. Based on a legend in the author’s family, the story unfolds around a broken romance, a blood feud, and fate, which always makes certain each of us will have to shoulder one unique burden in life, the one most uniquely difficult for each of us to bear.
CCP artistic director Carol Rusoff was struck by the play when she first read it. “This seemingly simple story about families and relationships and the land becomes a play of epic historical proportion, all while the characters remain people we fully understand,” said Rusoff. The playwright John Paul Porter so enjoyed newcomers to the stage Ashley Hill and Tristan Geary, who played Viola and Sebastian, in this summer’s CCP production of Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, that he cast them in this reading. Wood Mike Bruno, who starred as Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2023 and served as assistant stage manager for Twelfth Night, will be stage manager for this reading.
In cofounding with Zach Gibson and Frank Segro the nonprofit Columbia County Players, Rusoff hopes to engage a broad and inclusive audience, which reaches beyond usual theatregoers, and is also committed to casting from the Hudson Valley region and cultivating local talent. “As a long-time Columbia County resident, I worry about Hudson and all of Columbia County being a divided region—socially, economically and culturally—with few bridges to span the divides. The collaborative nature of theatre, among cast, crew and audience, is indeed a bridge, a social tool for togetherness and change. Believing in grass roots action and results, we are creating another production in which the glorious round barn will gracefully morph into a free community theatre venue for all—The Churchtown Dairy Globe! Let’s build a new local audience, together!”
The Columbia County Players mission reads: “By offering new opportunities for those living and working in the Hudson Valley we create integrated theatre audiences as well as diverse casts and crews, all sharing the communal experience of theatre from both sides of the curtain. Our open audition processes and hiring practices rethink traditional theatre norms by considering individuals’ potential as important as their apparent ability. We believe this ever-evolving process invites egalitarian mutuality and encourages individual expression and discovery of ourselves in a pluralistic world.”
For more information and general inquiries, contact: info@columbiacountyplayers.com.
CAPTION INFO: Round Barn at Churchtown Dairy. Photo courtesy of Churchtown Dairy.
