Local playwright Mark Stevick looks to our region’s storied past to write for today’s audiences.
in 1692, bridget bishop was accused of disturbing behavior by Salem’s Puritan residents. She might have been a witch. But did her odd mannerism prove she was guilty of witchcraft?
Captain Joseph White’s neighbors weren’t much better. Approximately 150 years after Bishop’s trial, White—an 82-year-old man with a grumpy temperament— had secured a fortune from shipping and slave trading. Very few people liked him. But was it reason to murder the old man in his mansion on Essex Street?
Salem’s historic witch trials and bloody murders have long inspired American fiction writers like Hawthorne and Poe. Today, Salem-based playwright and poet Mark Stevick sees them as fodder for great theatre.
For over two decades, Stevick, 49, has set these characters on stage in Salem’s Old Town Hall, in local restaurants like Rockafellas, and in theatres like The Griffin. Bishop’s story as told in Stevick’s Cry Innocent: The People vs. Bridget Bishop —the longest running play on the North Shore— invites contemporary audiences to be the jury to decide her fate. Likewise, audiences of Goodnight, Captain White must piece together clues, over champagne and macaroons, to solve the rollicking whodunit. “Plays about Salem, or any place, help us know what it is about,” says Stevick. Having grown up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Stevick saw old-fashioned Amish buggies ride by on a regular basis. As a result, an interest in the historical past was born.
When he came to New England to attend Gordon College, he found writing helped him process difficult emotions. In time, a friend invited him to audition for a play; the experience set in motion what was to become a lifelong passion. “One of the great things about doing theatre is you’re not responsible for speaking off the cuff,” says Stevick. “For me, it was a relief to be able to explore human dynamics in the midst of a theatrical crisis, to stay alive to the nuances, accidents, and truths of these characters.”
Acting became a refuge for young Stevick, but as he studied poetry and fiction, he also discovered how much he “loved sentences.” Norman Jones, a local theatre professor, asked him to research the story of Bridget Bishop. The result was Cry Innocent , now in its 24th year, and featured on NPR, the BBC, and the Discovery Channel.
Stevick went on to complete a master of fine arts program at Boston University. Today, he teaches creative writing at Gordon College, works as a voice-over actor in radio and film, and can be seen in TV commercials and movies. He’s written, directed, and acted in numerous shows put on in places like Pioneer Village and The House of the Seven Gables, as well as schools and churches throughout New England and Europe.
Last summer, he and his wife, Kristina, who runs Gordon College’s theatre company, History Alive!, produced a film version of Cry Innocent . Stevick hopes it will premiere at Cinema Salem, and that it will be made available to schools and history societies across the country.
“Stories, like artifacts I pick up on the shore, have history,” says Stevick. cryinnocentsalem.com