‘Treasure Island,’ The ‘OG’ Pirate Story, Comes To CCTC/HJT

There’s nothing like going on an adventure when you’re young. You get the opportunity to set foot into a world that is vast and unknown and rife with opportunity. It's a story that’s been told time and time again in countless ways. It’s a story that can heighten with proper circumstance. It’s a story about to set sail at a local Cape Cod theater. 

Opening Aug. 12, Cape Cod Theater Company/Harwich Junior Theatre (CCTC/HJT) unveils its latest production, “Treasure Island.” The show is an adaptation of the Robert Lewis Stevenson novel that’s written and directed by Andy Arden-Reese, associate chair of drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, who is also in residence at CCTC. She said the adaptation balances the classic perception of the story while exploring a little bit more.

 “I wanted a show in the summer to be filled with life and pirates and fun and raucous and all the buccaneering,” said Arden-Reese. “I also wanted it to really thread the needle of a real coming-of-age story for Jim — to sort of be confronted with what it is to have to stand up against some really dark forces and find their own way inside of that.”

 “Treasure Island,” first published as a novel in 1883, tells the story of Jim Hawkins, the son of the local innkeeper who finds his world ripped asunder when his father and friend die and the inn is attacked by pirates, forcing him to flee along with his mother. When Jim finds a treasure map among the remains of Billie Bones’ chest, he arranges a crew to set off on his own journey, the result of which is a tale that has transcended for more than a century. Arden-Reese said the story is the “OG.”

“It's where all of our pirate iconography comes from,” she said. “Everything that we know about pirates really originates from this and how it's been put into the zeitgeist of imagination for us from the beginning.”

She also explained how the story still maintains relevance.

 “I wanted to move away from cliched versions of these pirates,” she said, and explore the choices they made.

Arden-Reese described the play as an ensemble-focused collection of 10 actors. For the most part they are all on stage throughout the production in various ways, either contributing to world-building or to character. The cast includes Elizabeth Dunton, Niamh Dunton, Em Entwisle, Celia Gaska, Maddie Karcmarek, Victoria Lebedyskyi, Evelyn McColgan, Julianne Murphy, Phoebe Schuessler and Sam Sewell.

In addition to the cast, the crew features notable visiting contributors. One is scenic and lighting designer Michael Reese, Arden-Reese’s husband. Reese works with First Agency (New York/London/Singapore) in a client and event support role but was a freelance designer prior to transitioning into the corporate world.

Additionally, Emily Diamond joins the production as costume designer. Diamond, a Harwich native, is a Harwich Junior Theatre alumnus who joined her first production when she was 10 years old. She credits her involvement in the theater as the foundation in her career as a fashion designer in New York, working for companies like Marc Jacobs and, currently, Coach, overseeing ready-to-wear design. 

Arden-Reese, whose “Treasure Island” will be her third consecutive summer directing a production with Cape Cod Theater Company, described as “blissful” the opportunity to work with loved ones like Reese and close friends like Diamond and CCTC Producing Artistic Director Jenn Pina.

 “I love to come back,” she said. “Jenn and I have been collaborators for years, and as one of my best friends when I was 11, we're partners. We're partners in a theater company. We're partners in this. And so that Jenn has invited me back is a place that I feel like I'm so lucky to come back to. We're all coming here and sort of bringing what we've got back to sort of give back to a place that has a lot of meaning.”