Playwright Danielle Frimer is no stranger to the Stissing Center, where her play “Monarchs,” which features a night-time visit from Peter Pan, was previously read as part of the Local Produce series. On Sunday, June 1, at 3 p.m., her latest play, “P. Pan Et Al.,” which focuses on actor and inventor Maude Adams, will be the final presentation of Local Produce this season — coinciding with the start of Pride Month.
Frimer, who lives in New Paltz with her wife, realized while she was getting her M.F.A. in acting at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco that she was really more interested in pursuing writing. She admired playwrights Tennessee Williams and Tony Kushner, and was recently Tennessee Williams scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference at University of the South, in 2023.
“I’ve always had a fascination with Peter Pan,” Frimer said. “I played Peter Pan at age 11. I think the fascination is linked to gender and sexuality.” She points out that in the film version of Peter Pan with Mary Martin, there is “unrequited love between her and Wendy.” “Now there is representation of queer women, but growing up there was none. For me it was Peter Pan.”
Maude Adams was the first woman to play Peter Pan, debuting the role on Broadway in 1905. Seeing her onstage in another play gave J.M. Barrie the idea that the story could be adapted to the stage, and she was cast in the role and performed it over 1,500 times. Adams was very involved in adapting the story for the stage, although she is not credited for her contributions.
Frimer was cast as Maude Adams in a reading by Round the Bend Theatre director Sydney Grosberg-Ronga, who has directed several Local Produce readings. Doing further research on Adams, Frimer was intrigued by Adams’ successful “second act.” Onstage since childhood, Adams had to retire at age 38, like most actresses in the era. (She also contracted influenza in 1918, and had a long recovery.) But throughout her time onstage, Adams was fascinated with machines and technology, and had frequently worked on and designed theatre lighting for the shows she appeared in. “Technology was her second act,” Frimer said.
Adams led a lab at General Electric and invented a high-powered incandescent lightbulb that contributed to the development of color film at the Eastman Company. She is credited as co-inventor on four patents for incandescent lighting, with one listing her as primary inventor.
Biographers think that Adams was a lesbian, given the absence of male partners in her life and her committed relationship with two women until their deaths (she was with Louise Boynton from 1905 until 1951), and Frimer created a character in her play who seeks to prove this. Adams, who lived until her eighties, died in 1953 in the Hudson Valley, in Tannersville, where she and Boynton had settled.
Frimer says that Local Produce has been of tremendous benefit and value to her. Her play “Monarchs” being read there led to additional opportunities. And “Seeing other writers work locally has been so important,” she said. “It’s been wonderfully community building. What makes community strong during these tough times is discourse and exchange.”
For more tickets and information visit thestissingcenter.org