High Tor Park is the Star in Special Show put on by Conservation Group

Three armed men who robbed the Nanuet bank high-tailed it up to High Tor State Park in New City, where they were captured along with a crooked judge and real estate broker after spending a night dealing with the spirits of a few Dutch sailors.

Or maybe more appropriately, High Tor State Park in New City was home to a reading on Saturday of Maxwell Anderson's 1936 play "High Tor" in which those events take place while the owner of the land overlooking the Hudson River must decide whether or not to sell it.

Anderson wrote the play based on actual events with the land, back when miners were looking to quarry it. Appropriately, the show was presented by the West Branch Conservation Association, a New City organization formed in 1940 that looks to preserve and protect land, watersheds, historic places and the culture of the area. The group has preserved more than 1,000 acres of land.

"This is a play that began on this block," said Martus Granirer, the association's executive director. "To have it performed on the mountain, I just like that. It's nice to be able to put the pieces together like that."

The play started a little after 3 p.m., and roughly 140 people were there to watch it, said Terri Thal, the association's treasurer.

"We had no idea how many people would show up," she said. "We think between 140 and 150 people came, and that's excellent."

Thal is producing the play along with Granirer using a state grant obtained by Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski, D-New City, who was in attendance, and the late state Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City, who died July 12. Another free showing of the play was set for today at 3 p.m., however, organizers say the event has been cancelled because of weather conditions and there is no rain date.

Anderson was awarded the New York Drama Critic Circle Award for best play of the 1936-1937 season, just a year after Anderson's "Winterset" was given the same award. "High Tor" originally stared Burgess Meredith, an actor who at the time lived in Rockland near Anderson and would later go on to play The Penguin in the "Batman" TV series and Rocky's trainer Mickey in the first three "Rocky" movies.

The play, directed by Emily King, combined the 1936 version with the 1955 musical version recorded and aired later on TV with Bing Crosby and Julie Andrews.

"High Tor" is set entirely on top of High Tor, making the location of the reading not only appropriate in name, but also in setting. Throughout the entire play, which ended a bit after 6 p.m. and included a 20-minute intermission, High Tor State Park acted as a character of its own.

The play chronicles one night played out on the mountain, and while the sun was out throughout the entire reading, its heat waned as it was eventually tucked behind a thin, but long layer of clouds. So not only was it getting progressively cooler while the play was delving deeper into the night, but it allowed for a constant breeze causing the surrounding greenery to dance back and forth. Early in the show, birds chirped and cawed, and as the day went on, crickets took over the natural background sounds.

Of course, those weren't the only sounds that come with doing a play outside in 2010. There was also the occasional plane flying high above, loud car driving by and cell phone going off, whether a standard ringtone of a phone ringing or one of Drake's song "Miss Me."

Exposing people to local art is something the West Branch Conservation Association is looking to do more of.

"Art making in this area is a historic event," Granirer said. "Some people think there is no more art around here. It's not true. There are easily 30 practicing artists living along [South Mountain Road]."

Thal backed up those claims in a speech to the audience before "High Tor" on Saturday.

"In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, there was a scene in this area with a lot of art," she said. "There are still plenty of working artists right here."

Just a few weeks ago, the group helped fund a performance of Anton Chekhov's "Ivanov" at Lake Lucille in New City by a group that has been performing Chekhov plays at that location since 2003.

"It was a group of people putting on a performance and a party with a packed tent – just 60 people doing everything," Granirer said. "It was thrilling."

Granirer also said West Branch is trying to set up a program to display the works of local artists, although it's not finalized yet. He said ideally the program will introduce people to emerging artists and established artists, or as he called them, "new artists and the geezers."

What he envisions for the program is displaying the work in a historic house where that same art form was once done. He said he would like to show "painters in a painter's house, sculptors in a sculptor's house, or musicians and novelists with the same set up." He thinks that's a better use of the historic houses than just setting up a museum.

"I don't think house museums on their own are that great of a proposition, as beautiful as they are," he said. "They might be interesting a nice to look at once, but they're not a place you really want to keep returning to."

Still, Granirer said nothing officially is set up in terms of an art program, and the group's main goal is to continue to preserve and protect land.

He first joined the group about 40 years ago, he said, after he found out that the county wanted to put a sewer in a stream he liked to walk along.

"It made me want to puke," he said.

He wanted to preserve the beauty of the land he like to walk on, and fought against it, noting that there is still not a sewer there.  And while he claims that joining the group about 40 years ago makes him "the new boy," there are still new members joining. One is Steven Marsh, who said he officially began working with the group about six months ago after living on South Mountain for the past 15 years.

He said he was working with them "peripherally" before then, and used to work in Manhattan, which took up a good deal of his time, but he's wanted to help the county for awhile.

"What the West Branch Conservation Association does that I really like is let people know about these issues going on," he said. "They have a very specific point of view about these issues, but they try to help everybody in Rockland County understand these issues."

He also acknowledged that these issues of preserving land or building it up aren't clear cut.

"The issues might not have right or wrong answer," he said. "There is still development going on. The future of Rockland County is at stake."

"High Tor" crew:

Adapted and directed by Emily King

Musical direction by Gary Solomon

Produced by Terri Thal and Martus Granirer

Cast:

Indian: Robert Fellows

Van Van Dorn: Nolan Muna

Judith: Michele Danna

Biggs: Eric Fisler

Skimmerhorn: C. Richard Clark

Lise: Cristina Farruggia

Captain Asher: Peter Fruchtman

Dewitt: John Patrick Schutz

Pieter/Skimmerhorn, Sr.: Robert Drake

Sailor 1/Trooper Patsy: Andrew Shepard

Sailor 2/ Trooper Budge: Mitchell Schneider

Dope: Robert Farruggia

Buddy: Dan Barrios

The High Tor Mountain Men:

Gary Solomon played bass and accordion

Steven "Muddy" Roues played bass and harmonica

Billy Roues played guitar and mandolin