 Lucid Stage is presenting an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, Tests of the Derbervilles, beginning on September 13th. Tom spoke with April Singling, artistic director of Dead Wessex Fair and new theater company in Portland about the upcoming production. April, thanks for joining us to talk about the test of... or, Derberville, right? Derbervilles. Derbervilles. Yes. It's been a long time since high school. But your playgroup that's doing this at Lucid Stage is called Dead Wessex Fair. Right. Where does that name come from? What is the theater group about? Well, Dead Wessex Fair, the name of Dead Wessex came from Thomas Hardy who wrote Tests of the Derbervilles. He had a dog named Wessex and Tests of the Derbervilles takes place. Now Dorset in England, but he calls it Wessex. When his dog died, he wrote a beautiful poem and kind of made some allusions to Tests inside the poem. And the poem is called Dead Wessex. So I didn't want to call it a theater because we don't have a theater space or more of an ensemble right now. But I was going through the script and found the word Fair. And so it just kind of came together. Dead Wessex Fair. So has Tests your premier show? Is there a building theater coming around that? It's our first full-length production. For the Port Fringe Festival, I wrote a play called Eno Bear. And that was our first production, which was more of a stage reading of the play that I wrote, which was awesome. But yes, this is our first costumes light, sound, full-length, real production. Great. It's really exciting. And the people are pretty much familiar with the book. But the play, the script itself, how it got to be a play. Can you describe that a little? Sounds kind of interesting. Yeah. A brilliant, brilliant actor from Portland Stage that I know, Mark Honen, did Tests of the Derber Bills in 1987 in Salisbury, England. The way that came up was that we were both talking about our favorite books. And Tests was my favorite book for, what, five years now. And he and I sat down over coffee originally and just kind of talked about how it was done and different ideas and the way you could structure and adapt the novel into the script. So that's kind of how that came about. And you just mentioned that it's one of your favorite books. Tests is sort of a sad story. What prompts you to be drawn to that? That's a great question. When I first read this book, I was actually traveling from Boston and I was spending a holiday in Sweden and it was kind of my airplane book. And I had no idea at the time reading this why I was particularly drawn to this. But I think that one of the great things about literature, and especially literature that speaks to the human condition, Tests really speaks to anybody and maybe it's a female thing, but anybody who's had their heart broken before, anyone who's been through lots of trials and felt society closing in on them, I think that those are very universal feelings that anyone can relate to and they're very applicable to today's audience. And have you tested this out with an audience or have you seen any other production of it done? I haven't seen any other productions of it. I did maybe about four years ago rent a BBC version of Tests of the Derbavills. But there's just something so magical about the story no matter what medium, whether it's in the novel, it's in a play, it's in a BBC adaptation, it's just very capturing. I mean, it's epic. It takes place in a lot of different places, a lot of different characters. How do you consolidate that into a sizable evening theater? Very talented cast, I'd have to say, and they're brilliant. And a lot of them are playing three or four roles and they completely change their physicality, and they're just so in the scene. And me, who's on stage completely, 100% of the time, I have to be able to rely on them to know where I'm going next because I don't have a break to go, I'm here, I've got to go jump over here. I have to be on, and they're just right there with me and they're just tremendous in the way that they were able to relay the scene and the story. And it's really great looking at the space, at the black box kind of theater at Lucid Stage to be able to stage all that and do all that. It sounds like it's going to be a wonderful production, it should be missed. Could you give us some information, if people want more information where it is, how they can get tickets, that sort of thing. Sure, there is a website, and it's just www.deadwesicsfair.webs.com and the number for Lucid Stage is there. Showtimes and tickets, information is there as well. Great, well thanks a lot for joining us. Thank you. It sounds like a very interesting production, I hope you have a lot of success with it. Thank you very much. Thank you.