Bonnie Grice, Founder and Artistic Director of “Boots on the Ground Theater,” is excited about 2025. In an all-encompassing interview, she expressed her excitement. She said, “For our new season, we’ve introduced what we call Gen C. You know, we’d see Gen X and Gen Y and Jen Alpha and all that. So now we have Gen C, which stands for creative. We’re introducing a youth on stage initiative (Gen C), and it’s going to be every March.” Then, for Valentine’s Day, “boots on the Ground Theater,’ will produce “Love Letters,” a play by A.R. Gurney scheduled for Feb. 14th-15th-16th at the SCC.
Grice wanted to talk about what “boots on the ground theater” plans on producing in March. It will be “The Railway Children,” by E. Nesbit, adapted by Mike Kenny. She said, “It is a much, much loved kids’ book from England, published around the turn of last century by E. Nesbit, and it’s been made into movies and a series by the BBC. Last night, one of the women who auditioned for us said that she actually saw a video clip of the theater production in London years back, and she said it was absolutely beautiful. Of course, It was set in a train station, and they had a real train. We’re not going to have that. But we’re really excited to bring it to life.” Ms. Grice believes it may be the NY Premier, maybe even the U.S. Premier. She added, “They were going to bring it to Broadway years ago, but it never ended up happening, so we’re real excited.”
Ms. Grice, via “boots on the ground theater,” started doing the main stage at the Southampton Cultural Center in 2018. Their first show was The Miracle Worker. Grice said, “Since then, I always wanted to keep my hand in doing history theater. The Railway Children is another example of that. It is sort of semi-based on a story of kids and their family being relocated because their dad is doing some mysterious kind of job. They (the kids) don’t know why he disappears.”
For 2025, Grice has also planned some “classic theater.” She said, “We want to do a whole mix and expand the season next year because we’re going to do a Victor Slezak masterclass for us in April and May for adult theater students.” And then we’re going to do Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Spike.“ Ms. Grice announced Bob Kaplan “is back to direct that. He did ‘It’s Only A Play (last year), so we’re really excited about it.”
Planning toward the end of 2025 she will produce a “World War II radio Christmas” in December. Grice said, “This year is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. So, we want to honor that and we’ll welcome veterans. We might tie into some veteran’s stories. So, we’re really excited about that for December.”
Bonnie Grice is a well-known East End radio personality. She has a weekly show on WLNG Radio in Sag Harbor, but when asked how she got started with theater, she said, “I was in first grade, and my parents took me to audition for South Pacific, and I was one of the two little kids who sang ‘Dites-Moi.‘ So, I was in the South Pacific when I was in first grade, and I fell in love with it. I’m not much of a singer, but I do sing some.“
Eventually, Grice wanted to do both theater and history and combine them. Therefore, her first experience with “boots on the ground” was doing reenactments of Victorian funerals for the Southampton History Museum. She recalls, “I collected costumes for years and costumed it. We did the whole production carrying a casket down Main Street in Southampton. It was based on the true stories of the people who lived and died back then. It was a Victorian funeral reenactment. I did two of those. Then I reached out to Kirsten Lonnie (Executive Director at SCC), and I said I really would love to do the “Miracle Worker.” We brought schools in, and we had three performances during the week, and we were filled to capacity with students. We now hope to be able to bring that back again and have it free for students. So, we’ll see what happens.
About “Love Letters,“ a play by A.R. Gurney scheduled for Feb. 14th-16th at the SCC, Grice said, “Oh, it’s just that this year it’ll be a repeat of myself and Matthew O’Connor. We’ll be doing it that weekend, just the three shows. We’ll try to bring it back every year for V Day.“ She suggested that someday, she might get some kind of celebrity or well-known couple to do it with her. About Matthew O’Connor, Grice said that she has done six shows with him, “… and he is phenomenal.“
For more info, visit: https://bootsonthegroundtheater.com
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