Giving Second Samuel a First-Class Rating

By Mike Logothetis
Theater reviewer Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.

In the late 1940s, the sleepy hamlet of Second Samuel, Georgia is surprisingly rocked by the passing of their beloved music teacher, Miss Gertrude. The death of one sweet, old lady turns the whole town upside down and citizens begin to wonder if normalcy will ever return.

Second Samuel is a town full of good, hardworking folks that are presented with a situation no one could have ever imagined. Bernard Flat (Jeff Gudzune), an autistic young man affectionately nicknamed B Flat by his friends, introduces us to the townspeople as they move through the chores and activities of their days. B Flat acts as a narrator of sorts and moral heartbeat of the town.

At the local tavern and bait store, bartender Frisky Madison (Sam Dressler) keeps his opinionated patrons in check. Oft-drunk Manuel Dean (Fran Lazartic) and curmudgeon Mr. Mozel (Dave Hastings) cast judgements as easily as casting a line into a fishing hole. Barback US (Sedric Wills) is a black man who has to tip-toe between voicing his convictions and knowing his unfortunate station in post-war Southern life.

Set Designer David Sokolowski has split the stage in two. On the other side of the bar is a beauty salon where Omaha Madison (Lisa Osicky) and Ruby (Danielle Nelms) host gab sessions while cutting hair. Local gossip Jimmy Deeanne (Corinth Ford) spars with pragmatist and prankster Marcela Dean (Bethany Miller) over almost everything.

Everyone in both locations is mourning the loss of Miss Gertrude by telling stories of her upstanding character and generosity. That posthumous goodwill only lasts until mortuary director June Cline (Alan Albert) drops a truth bomb to end the first act.

What could Cline have said? What secrets did Miss Gertrude hold? Is her memory forever tarnished?

“She’s still Miss Gertrude,” asserts B Flat as arguments erupt around him at the bar and hair salon.

Unfortunately, B Flat is regularly dismissed as he is considered “simple.” But Second Samuel is all about simple folk wrestling with complex issues concerning the nature of a person. Doc (Dan Tucker) seems to be the first learned man to accept who Miss Gertrude was. His reasoned position adds credence to recognizing someone’s true/good character over all else.

“Just love one another,” US says in a heartful talk with B Flat. Truer words have not been spoken.

Playwright Pamela Parker once said “Second Samuel is about redemption.”

“It is about the good in people overcoming the bad; it’s about doing the right thing [even when they don’t understand],” she said.

Director Ruth K. Brown deftly conducts action between bar and salon and emotions between outrage and forgiveness. The pacing is tight and the cast chemistry is strong.

“I hope walking out the door [the audience is] thinking, ‘Those people are just like me…and I’d do the right thing too,” Parker said. “I hope so anyway. Maybe they won’t, but I hope they will.”

“I want to believe there is goodness in all of us. For me, Second Samuel keeps that hope alive.”

The two-act show runs 1 hour and 40 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.

The short run of Second Samuel is: October 23-26 inside the Delaware City Community Center located at 250 Fifth Street in Delaware City. All performances are at 8 o’clock save for the Sunday matinee at 2 pm. Tickets start at $16 with discounts for seniors, military, fire, police, and EMS affiliations. Ticket sales and information can be found at reedypoint.org and reedypoint@gmail.com. The Reedy Point Players, LTD are a non-profit 501(c)(3) certified community theatre group located in Delaware City, Delaware.

“How come some kinds of different are OK?” – B Flat

In the Game with The Girls of Summer

By Mike Logothetis
Theater reviewer Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.

Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) continues its 'sports' theme with its second show of the season: Layon Gray’s The Girls of Summer. The play shines a light on the Red Diamonds, an all-Black female baseball team in 1946 gearing up for a game against an all-White team. While this is a work of fiction, Gray has rooted facets of his show in history. Winner of the prestigious NAACP Award for Best Play, this period drama will keep you wondering about what was, is, and could be.

The play centers around the mysterious disappearance of Red Diamonds manager Odessa Hicks (Kim Monroe), who vanishes just before an exhibition game that could have been a personal and professional triumph. Monroe’s portrayal of Coach Hicks is unflinching – she never seems to give an inch…until she does. She is sole caretaker for her cheerful but slow-witted daughter Lucy (Luisa Turner) and looms large over all who enter her orbit.

The cast of The Girls of Summer at DTC. Photo by Matt Urban.

The women who make up the team don’t take to their coach’s highly critical methods. Piper (Kenisha Pinckney) complains enough to earn the others a night session of running laps in the rain. Coby Rae (Maya Naasira Thompson) left a husband and child behind to pursue her baseball dream, but is a clubhouse peacemaker. New Nork native Mattie (Liana April) has men on her mind as much as baseball. Jonetta (Shaakirah Nazim-Harris) is a late addition to the squad and isn’t keen on making new friends. The story does seem to lean on some familiar tropes often found in tales of this kind.

The sparkplugs were Martha Faye (Alex Bates) and Eddie (pronounced Edie and played by Shanna Lee Hill). They have funny, and larger-than-life personalities that radiated positivity to both stage and audience. “Twin sisters” Betty (ShaTerrica Hyder) and Billie (Kira Janine Bennett) are as different as can be and appear to be shadows of one another. But appearances aren’t everything.

The story unfolds through flashbacks, peeling back layers as it moves along. Gray – also the director – hops back and forth in time, utilizing the character of local reporter Peter James (Thaddeus Daniels) as a narrator to supply just enough information at any given time without ruining the mystery. Through interviews with players, James slowly uncovers truths from inside and outside the locker room. Sometimes, those truths come at a pace that slows the momentum of the show.

Sal Rendino rounds out the cast as Mr. West, a curmudgeonly baseball executive putting on the exhibition. He always seemed to be yelling, which over time felt more distracting from the scenes.

The true highlights of the show can be found in the clubhouse with the teammates dancing and telling tales without coaches or outsiders getting in the way. They bicker and chide and support and comfort. They also recognize that their big chance is here and they must stick together to succeed on the field and, perhaps, beyond.

“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do” – Coach Odessa Hicks

The performance schedule of The Girls of Summer is: Wednesdays (2:00pm), Thursdays and Fridays (7:00pm), Saturdays (2:00 & 7:30pm except October 25 (Opening Night curtain is only at 7:30pm), and Sundays (2:00pm) through November 9. Tickets start at $47 and discounts are available. 

The show is roughly 2 hours and 20 minutes long, including one 15-minute intermission. Join DTC for Viewpoints every Wednesday in the Lobby Gallery starting 45 minutes before the start of the show. A Talkback is scheduled in the theater immediately after Thursday performances. 

Call (302)594-1100 or visit www.delawaretheatre.org to purchase tickets or for performance information. Delaware Theatre Company is located at 200 Water Street in Wilmington.

NOTE: DTC recommends this show for audience members aged 14 and up due to its racial context and mature themes.

Take a Spin with Ray Didinger's World Premiere at DTC

By Mike Logothetis
Theater reviewer Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.

Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) opens its 2025-2026 season with the World Premiere of Spinner by Ray Didinger – the local Hall of Fame sportswriter and radio legend. The play shares the true story of former NHL player Brian “Spinner” Spencer and the trauma that engulfed him after his NHL debut for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Spinner by Ray Didinger, premiering at Delaware Theatre Company.
Photo by Matt Urban, NuPOINT Marketing

“It sounds like a fairly ordinary sports story, but that night – December 12, 1970 – was anything but ordinary,” Didinger recounts. “A hockey game resulted in a family tragedy that
made headlines across North America. I was assigned to follow up on the story, and that’s how I met Brian Spencer.”

Brian and his twin brother Byron Spencer (Sean Lally) are being
raised hockey players in tiny Fort Saint James, British Columbia. Their father Roy (Scott Greer) is adamant that at last one of his sons is going to play his way out of town and into the NHL. His practical wife Irene (Karen Peakes) disagrees, reminding Roy that he moved them there to start a family and build a better life.

While Byron drops hockey and focuses on his future, “Rink Rat” Brian loves every minute of being on the ice. Roy is driven by his dream and is confident Brian is NHL material. He works multiple jobs to provide his hockey prodigy with everything he could need…to play hockey, not progress with real life. Brian’s schoolwork suffers, breaking his former schoolteacher mother’s heart. But scouts take notice and Brian feels he’s on the true path to success.

All of this – and the fateful night – are depicted in a non-linear timeline. The audience can sense the stresses of singularly striving towards a goal plus growing familial fractures caused by the desire. While choppy at times, the cuts back and forth in time help develop both the characters and the plot.

When new father Byron confronts his father and asserts, “It’s a goddamn game,” Roy doesn’t see it that way. Roy is quick to anger and his presence is foreboding. He’s not malicious, but he funnels so much of his energy into getting Brian to the ranks of professional hockey that he loses sight of what may be most important in his life. Greer does an exceptional job getting the audience to root for his vision while simultaneously realizing his methods are smothering. He’s close to the edge and it’s anyone’s guess to what might set him off.

It turns out, 1970s Canadian broadcasting rights are the trigger and Roy heads to local CBC affiliate CKPG to fix what he feels is a personal slight – TV won’t be airing Brian’s NHL debut in his hometown. Receptionist Carol (Genevieve Perrier) and engineer Stu (Dave Johnson) try to placate Roy with the (true) explanation that the broadcast feed is out of their control. They are powerless to help him. He is powerless to help himself. It descends further into tragedy from there.

All of this happens on a cool outdoorsy set by Scenic Designer Parris Bradley. Bradley has split logs and tree stumps dominating the stage along with CRT TV screens. Lighting Designer Shannon Zura and Projection Designer Colin J. Sass amplify this (and more) with excellent effects which provide accompaniment to the story. Director Matt Silva keeps the pacing fairly tight, adding to the tension. The cast is rounded out by Charlie DelMarcelle, who plays Roy’s levelheaded friend Harry.

“Since its first reading last September, it has been a joy to watch Spinner take shape,” remarks Artistic Director Mimi Warnick. “Ray has carried this story close to his heart throughout his remarkable career, and it is an honor to see it premiere on the DTC stage and kick off our 46th season.”

Spinner reflects on the risks, rewards, and regrets we all face when chasing something bigger than ourselves. It’s a powerful tale of sacrifice, family, and the lengths we’ll go to make our dreams a reality…even when the cost is too high. At the Talkback I attended, playwright Didinger explained that the story is about “the price to pay to fulfill [your] dreams.” The Spencer family certainly – and heartbreakingly – did that.

Didinger was the first print journalist inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. As a columnist for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Philadelphia Daily News, he was named Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year five times. In 1995, he won the Bill Nunn Award for long and distinguished reporting on pro football and his name was added to the writers’ honor roll at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Didinger also won six Emmy Awards for his work as a writer and producer for NFL Films. He has authored or co-authored a dozen books on professional football. His play, Tommy and Me, about his friendship with Eagles Hall of Famer Tommy McDonald, has been performed in area theaters since 2016. (DTC featured the show in 2021.) He can be heard talking football on 94WIP Sports Radio and NBC Sports Philadelphia.

The performance schedule of Spinner is: Wednesdays (2:00pm), Thursdays and Fridays (7:00pm), Saturdays (2:00 & 7:30pm except September 20 (Opening Night curtain is only at 7:30pm), and Sundays (2:00pm) through October 5.

Tickets start at $34 and discounts are available. The one-act show is roughly 75 minutes long. Join DTC for Viewpoints every Wednesday starting 45 minutes before the start of the show. There will be Talkbacks after several performances with Didinger and featuring writers, radio personalities, former athletes, and more. Visit www.delawaretheatre.org/spinner for the schedule of Talkback participants. Call 302.594.1100 or visit www.delawaretheatre.org to purchase tickets or for performance information. Delaware Theatre Company is located at 200 Water Street in Wilmington.

Reveiwer aside: I was lucky enough to have Hockey Hall of Fame goalkeeper Bernie Parent sit behind me at the performance. He was welcoming and gregarious. He also flashed me his two Stanley Cup rings while sporting a massive grin. On stage for Talkback, he was honest and funny.