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If you have enjoyed live theatre  at Church Hill Theatre, Garfield Center for the Arts, or Easton theatre venues for the last 30 years, chances are you have experienced playwright Earl Lewin finely crafted productions.

For four days in February (6th through the 9^th)  you will have the opportunity to see his newest production, A Brief History of Man at Church Hill Theatre, his tenth production for the popular venue.

CHT alone has premiered a new Earl Lewin play annually, including Miracle, Hitched, Orlando Rising, Saint Georges Blues, and Orlando Rising. Even during the pandemic shutdown, CHT hosted Judge Knott via Zoom. Learn more about his work at earllewinplaywright.com.

In addition to writing Earl has directed over thirty shows in his career; musicals including Tommy, Into the Woods, Annie and Oliver, and comedies and dramas by Oscar Wilde, Don Negro, Neil Simon, Ken Ludwig and others.

Lewin, a Chestertown resident, has a long history with Church Hill Theatre (CHT). In 1991, his late wife, Roberta, auditioned for Blithe Spirit and was cast as Madam Arcati. That involvement sparked Lewin’s interest in becoming more involved.He served on CHT’s Board of Directors until 2009, twice as chairman, while Roberta became Executive Producing Director in 1992. During her five-year tenure, she founded the Green Room Gang youth drama camp and arranged for CHT to rent space in Church Hill’s town hall for just a dollar a month.

Lewin is a Temple University graduate with a BA in theater and an MS in radio, television, and film, including a career running GE’s film department and later his own film/video business until retiring in 2001. He then returned to playwriting, producing musical murder mystery dinner theater at Great Oak Resort and other venues for over a decade. The rest is a continuing history of his fine work.

The playwright has since written and staged multiple musicals, including The Christmas Pocket, She Stoops to Conquer (musical adaptation), Celluloid, and The Burgundy Wine Mob—the latter two also produced Off-Off Broadway. In 2013, he set a goal to write one new script annually; His shorter works have appeared in the Garfield Center’s Short Attention Span Theatre and NYC’s Midtown International Play Festival.

The Spy caught up with Earl Lewin this week to talk about A Brief History of Man and the his love for live theatre.

A Brief History of Man will run from February 6-9, with performances at 7:30 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2 pm on Sunday. Tickets are available online at churchhilltheatre.org or by calling the box office at (410) 556-6003

This video is approximately five minutes in length.

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Anyone arriving on the Eastern Shore for the first time senses its idiosyncratic nature: its vast network of rivers, tributaries, and towns linked to the immense waterscape of the Chesapeake Bay, all drenched in American colonial history. For some, it will be a curious excursion. For others, it will become home.

Countless books have been written about the lure of Eastern Shore, including James Michener’s Chesapeake and John Barth’s Sot-Weed Factor and The Floating Opera. Both authors masterfully employed Eastern Shore history as a fundamental backdrop for their storytelling.

One book stands out for its reflective narrative on the history of the “Shore”—Hulbert Footner’s Rivers of the Eastern Shore and in mid-September, two presentations sponsored by ShoreRivers and the Historical Society of Kent County will showcase the newly celebrated book (see schedule below) with an introduction by Karen Footner and reading by longtime Spy contributor and former Cape Gazette publisher Dennis Forney.

First published in 1944 with various reprints through 2011, Rivers of the Eastern Shore was Footner’s last work. In 2022, Karen Footner, Hulbert’s granddaughter, republished the book as a special second printing with a foreword by esteemed Bay region writer Tom Horton, along with her introduction. The book, printed from the original film print, is a pristine copy of the original.

Hulbert Footner was a prolific and respected writer known for adventure books in the Canadian Northwest and dozens of detective stories and novels. He even made a successful foray into Broadway with his play Shirley Kaye, which was eventually turned into a movie. He counted among his friends Aldous Huxley, Max Beerbohm, and Christopher Morley.

An avid adventurist, outdoorsman, and canoer, Footner paddled 3,000 miles alone throughout Canada and paid his expenses by writing about it. After discovering the Chesapeake Bay by canoeing from New York City he made his home in Lusby, Maryland.

His enthusiasm for watersheds and his love for history inspired Rivers of the Eastern Shore, a compendium of descriptive historical insights and anecdotes about each river on the Eastern Shore, from the Pocomoke to the Sassafras and Bohemia.

Rivers is a highly satisfying book. Footner removes himself from the narrative to set a gentle, warmhearted tone to a voice that tells how the intricate web of rivers shaped the lives and history of the Eastern Shore.

About Chestertown, Footner writes:

“For about ten miles above Chestertown the broad Chester follows a placid course between low banks, with moderately high ground behind, and an occasional little hill. It is a pastoral scene of rich bottom lands, patches of intensely green woods, an occasional old house on a point of vantage. At the end one comes to the first village, Crumpton, a very small village. Here the steamboats turned around and went back. Years before there were any steamboats, this is where the gay young Henry Callister settled down to die after age and bankruptcy had soured him. In those days there was no bridge, and Crumpton was known as Callister’s Ferry. Comegys’ Farm, which looks down on the present bridge, is the quaintest of all the old houses hereabouts. The actual head of Chester is at Millington, five miles farther upstream. Here the river splits into several little branches, which have their sources in the swamps of Kent County to the south or across the state line in Delaware.”

For a list of Footner’s book, go here.

For more about.ShoreRivers, go here.

On Tuesday, September 17, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, all are invited to Emmanuel Episcopal Church101 North Cross Street to learn about the Chester and Sassafras sections of the book. Guest speakers from ShoreRivers wil add historical perspective. Books will be available for sale by the Bookplate bookstore .

Event Registration Page: https://www.shorerivers.org/event/riversbooktalkchestertown

A  second second event is scheduled for 2–4pm on Thursday, October 17, and will be held at the Eastern Shore Conservation Center in Easton. The discussion for this session will focus on the Choptank, Miles, and Wye river chapters and feature Choptank Riverkeeper Matt Pluta and Miles-Wye Riverkeeper Ben Ford.

Copies of Rivers of the Eastern Shore, which were generously donated to the organization by Bill Birkhead, are available for purchase at ShoreRivers’ Easton office (114 S. Washington Street, Suite 301). The Bookplate in Chestertown (112 S. Cross Street, Suite D) also has copies available for purchase.

The Spy recently spoke with Dennis Forney and Karen Footner (off camera) about Rivers of the Eastern Shore.

This video is approximately five minutes in length.