The summer theater season is nigh, and there’ve been changes whilst we’ve been hibernating. The company which has performed at The Gary-The Olivia Theater in Bethlehem, Connecticut is establishing itself under a new name, Clay & Wattles Theater Company. The name change, according to co-founder and artistic director Sally Camm, is being done so that the company can ultimately become its own non-profit entity, separate from the theater which it performs in. This will allow it to do different sorts of fundraising, create new educational outreach programs and otherwise grow as an organization.

 

This is all being done with the blessing of The Gary-The Olivia, which will retain its own name. “Blessing” is the right term, since the venue is overseen by the Abbey of Regina Laudis. It was built in the early ‘80s, when one of it main patrons was the film actress Patricia Neal. One of the arts-friendly nuns who resides at the abbey is Rev. Mother Dolores Hart, the former Hollywood film star who appeared opposite Elvis Presley in Loving You and led the pack of coy bikini-clad youth in Where the Boys Are.

 

Camm says Rev. Mother Dolores Hart has been been known to attend rehearsals at The Gary-The Olivia, and many of the nuns can be found at the performances. Other audience members, Camm says, come from as far afield as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina… “It’s lovely here in the evenings,” she says. “It’s a great day trip.”

 

The company now known as Clay & Wattles has been doing shows at The Gary-The Olivia for seven years. A typical season involves a play, a musical, and a big fundraising event. For 2014, there’ll be an evening of Horton Foote one-acts (“Blind Date” and “The Actor”) June 13-22, Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun August 1-17 and a concert fundraiser on September 13.

 

“We’re always looking for plays and musicals that have a strong point of view,” says Camm, who directs the shows. “We want to present shows that have meaning.” Beyond that, “our focus for the last number of years has been the quality of our performances. We’ve been getting a reputation for that.” The company lures actors from around the state (including New Haven); interesting programming choices from recent seasons include George S. Kaufman and Howard Teichmann’s capitalism comedy The Solid Gold Cadillac, the New York mayoral musical Fiorello!, the up-the-union show The Pajama Game and Lee Hall’s visual arts community piece The Pitmen Painters.

 

The company’s name comes from the William Butler Yeats poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree:

 

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

 

“Nature infuses everything we do,” says Sally Camm.