Meet the Cast: Part 2

We want to continue to introduce various members of the cast of the Sugar Creek Players' production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Yesterday, we spent a little time introducing the Finch family — and sidekick Dill. Today, we're pleased to introduce some of the "movers and shakers" of Maycomb, Alabama, circa 1935.

Mr. Gilmer: Our Maycomb prosecuting attorney is Art Lang, who brings a wealth of experience to the stage. Over the last decade, he's been an actor, director, and stage manager for the Sugar Creek Players, Lafayette Civic Theater, and the Purdue Experimental Theater. He's the only member of our cast who has appeared in an earlier production of To Kill a Mockingbird. He played Walter Cunningham and Judge Taylor in the Lafayette Civic Theater production in the mid-1990s. During Monday's read-through, he gave the director chills when he cross examined Tom Robinson.

Heck Tate: If you've never seen the movie or can block it out of your mind, when you read the script for To Kill a Mockingbird, you begin to imagine the perfect Maycomb sheriff. Maybe he's a strong, rugged southerner, or maybe he's a slightly built guy who leads with his badge and gun. But we knew we had the perfect Heck Tate moments after Matt Mayberry read for the part. We read him for a number of roles after that, but we kept coming back to his take on Heck Tate. Matt has no Vanity Theater credits on his resume, other than shuttling his children to and and from the theater. All of us behind the scenes had hoped we would discover some new talent when we staged Mockingbird, and Matt is a picture-perfect example.

Judge Taylor: Crawfordsville natives who have been around the Sugar Creek Players for a few decades will be pleased to know that Stu Weliever has come out of retirement and will return to the Vanity Theater stage as Judge Taylor. Stu is one of the few members of our cast and crew who can recall when the Sugar Creek Players staged productions at Wabash College — back before the historic building at 122 South Washington Street was gifted to the theater company. Stu knows that he was type cast — but not from his previous roles. We type cast him because by day he is a practicing attorney in Crawfordsville and serves on a number of volunteer boards in town. After Stu read for the first time, our Scout Finch piped up and said, "He sounds like a lawyer." Well, that's because he is a lawyer, and he's also going to be a very fine Judge Taylor come April 15.

Miss Maudie Atkinson: This was another role for which we had three or four actresses step up with excellent auditions. We tried several combinations of women in the various roles, and we believe we got every role just right. Heather Jo Olin will appear in her third (straight) Vanity Theater production as the Finch's closest neighbor, Miss Maudie. Heather played (at least) three roles in December's A Christmas Carol, then donned plenty of green as an Ozian in the wildly successful production of The Wizard of Oz. Heather has obviously been bitten by the acting bug, and we're excited to have her in our cast. While there are so many amazing roles in this play, we think Miss Maudie has some of the most important and enduring lines.

Mrs. Dubose: Atticus Finch teaches his son, Jem, a number of important lessons when he "punishes" Jem by making him read to old Mrs. Dubose. Harper Lee and Christopher Sergel imagine an old, cranky lady for us. But we chose a delightful, funny, lively, and humane woman to play the part — Susan "Sue" Rubner. Sue and her husband are not from this area, but have been hard-working, participatory human rights activists in all the cities in which they have lived. Sue has done commercial work in the past, but we're most excited to have her insight when discussing the racial themes so dominant in our script. Sue and her husband have volunteered to help us in our educational outreach efforts, too, so we look forward to that. Sue will get really tired of us saying, "Crankier, Sue. Crankier!

Stephanie Crawford: We had cast 13-year-old veteran Trey Rogers as Dill for our production back in late January or early February. While his mom was shuttling him to and from early pre-rehearsals, she must have gotten excited about the play. Jill Rogers surprised us when she said she planned to audition, but was not at all surprising once she took the stage. She said she'd take any part, but we kept seeing her as Stephanie Crawford, the Maycomb County gossip who knows everything about everyone in town. Jill and Dan's children, Trey and Lanie, have appeared in many local theatrical productions, so Jill is no stranger to the Vanity Theater. She did lots of work in high school, took a break, then returned to the stage one year ago in Beth Swift's amazing production of The Women.