Norwoodians bringing drama to Dedham

The Dragonfly Theater Group will be putting on a production of Lady Windermere’s Fan, by Oscar Wilde, on the weekends of Aug. 8-9 and Aug. 15-16 in Paul Park off of Cedar Street in Dedham (11 Tower St.).

The group has been around for more than a decade now, but this is Norwood resident Olin Meyers’ directorial debut, and he said he’s excited to show what he’s got. He said Dragonfly Board member and former Norwood resident Joe Rich “basically put me up to it.”

“I had shown no inclinations or designs to direct anything,” he said with a laugh and a look at Rich. “He said he thought I should direct it. But I wanted to play this one part too, but then I thought, ‘If I’m the director, I can cast myself in that part!’ But then looking at the character and the character’s lines and realizing he had over 100, I realized I bit off a lot here.”

Meyers said he’s having fun with the production.

“The characters are coming to life, and I think these are all talented actors bringing the characters to life,” Meyers said. “I am excited, I mean it’s my directorial debut. I’m excited, but I’m also a little nervous. I’m worried that it won’t be any good or I’ll do everything wrong, because I’ve never directed live theater before.”

“I think you’re doing a great job!” Rich chimed in.

Rich said they have done several productions at the Motherbrook Arts and Community Center in Dedham, as well as a church in Quincy. The difficult thing with Paul Park, and many outdoor theater productions, is that there is nothing to bounce your voice off of – no walls or amphitheaters to turn up your own natural volume – and so projection has been the word of the day for them. Actor Bob Maibor said he’s been helping the newer cast with this.

“The newbie would stand over there, and I’d stand over here,” he said, indicated about 150 feet. “YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON, OTHERWISE PEOPLE CAN’T HEAR YOU! We’ve tried to get people who haven’t performed as much used to projecting.”

Meyers has some background in acting and performance.

“I do my own little Saturday Night Live sketch comedy stuff that I put on YouTube, and Joe had been in several of my sketches, and in 2024, he was putting together a production of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, and Joe suggested me,” he said. “No one had really asked me to do a play like that before and I wasn’t doing much at the time, so I figured why not?”

Meyers said he played the Slender character, which he referred to as “an airhead.”

The play of Lady Windermere’s Fan is one of Wilde’s four comedies and takes place during the Victorian period. It centers on its titular character, who must unravel a plot that eventually tells the tale of her whole life, how she got to where she is and the vital importance of the decisions she is about to make.

The sense of fatalism and destiny of the plot – a lot like many of the Greek tragedies that so fascinated writers of the Victorian period – is one of the things that drew Lady Windermere actor Karen Hunt to the part. She said she and her fiancee, who ended up playing Lord Darlington, both have backgrounds in music, theater and musical theater (not all the same thing), and he signed on after he was so helpful in practicing her lines with him. She said she pivoted careers and relatively recently passed the bar exam to begin her career as a lawyer. She said her first trial is coming up the day after one of the productions.

“It’s been fun getting back into having a creative outlet after recovering from the horrors of law school,” she said. “And I’ve met a lot of wonderful people in the community. It’s just nice to get out and have a new challenge. And this character, certainly this character has been a fun challenge for me. She is, like most fresh 21-year-olds, someone who thinks she knows everything.”

Rich said the group does summer Shakespeare and other Wilde plays. He said the founder of Dragonfly makes the costumes. He said they like to do lesser-known plays, and said this play is not one of Wilde’s most famous plays.

“I thought that would make it really unique. I thought that would attract some unique talent who would want to take that on, and it worked,” he said. “We’ve got some really great talent.”

Actor Lorna Nogueira is playing Lady Windermere’s mother Mrs. Erlynne, and said she’s gotten some unique direction on her character.

“Olin says she’s Darth Vader and a shark, all-in-one,” she said with a laugh.

“Shark Vader?” Meyers butted in.

“She’s kind of a question mark when she comes in, she’s a mystery woman,” she said, adding that she feels that Wilde uses her character as an homage to Greek tragedies and the inexorability of fate.

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“But Wilde really balances the comedy and the tragedy so well, it just kind of blends together,” she said.

Maibor said this is his 63rd production, and first met Rich at Motherbrook in 2014.

“My character is Lord Augustus, and he’s been married two or three times, divorced two or three times, and he gets totally smitten by the titular character,” he said. “And he’s overwhelmed and not used to not understanding people.”

Alex Carey, who said he has a bachelors and masters degree in musical theater, said he’s playing Lord Darlington. He said he’s having a lot of fun with the character.

“What’s really interesting about this play, at least, of Oscar Wilde is that you can kind of see a bit of him in the writing,” he said. “It’s been fun to see the different spots where he’s trying to be a little bit cheeky. This character is a lot of fun… He thinking that his lady is somehow being wronged and he has to ride in on his proverbial horse to save her. I feel like that’s what Darlington does.”

Dan O’Neil said this is his third time performing with Rich, and started with the Merry Wives of Windsor. He said in this play, he is playing a younger man seeking a position in government.

“I’m playing like a youthful politician who likes to get people’s goat,” he said. “A lot of wise-ass comments and things like that.”

The production will start on Aug. 8 and Aug. 9 at Paul Park and then Aug. 15 and Aug. 16. All performances are scheduled to start at 4 p.m.

For more information, go to https://gvimes.link/drgnflythtr