Merely Players was a one-man stage show written and performed by Barry Morse. It examined the lives of a series of actors and others from Elizabethan times up to present day. The title is derived from lines by William Shakespeare in his play As You Like It:
All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts.
The two-act drama included several vignettes from the life and career of "mere player" Barry Morse, features over a dozen characters (three of them women), and two musical numbers. Looking for a stage piece that he could perform for benefits and fundraisers, in 1959 Morse debuted Merely Players on stage for the first time in Boston, Massachusetts. He later performed the show in New York City in 1965 (at the height of popularity of his television series The Fugitive) and in other cities for various causes and concerns, as well as for fundraising for local and repertory theater companies in the United States and Canada.
The most recent form of Merely Players coalesced in 1984 when Morse mounted a nationwide tour of Canada to raise both publicity and funds for the Performing Arts Lodges of Canada (PAL); retirement centers for performers (actors, singers, dancers, and others) who are connected to the performing arts. Following the tour, he continued to perform the show throughout North America for the next two decades, between television and film projects, including on a number of occasions to raise both funds and awareness for Parkinson's disease treatment and research. Morse died in February 2008.
The book, Merely Players - The Scripts, was published in 2003. The following year, in 2004, Morse debuted the show in London, England at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden as a benefit for The Royal Theatrical Fund. A new comprehensive omnibus volume Presenting Barry Morse & Merely Players, edited by Robert E. Wood and Anthony Wynn, is being readied for future publication, along with the release of the show on DVD.[needs update]
A theatre in the round, arena theatre or central staging is a space for theatre in which the audience surrounds the stage.
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Hayward Morse is a British stage and voice actor born in 1947. His career began on CBC television and with numerous stage performances in Canada and the United States. He made his USA television debut in 1959 with Ingrid Bergman in the film The Turn of the Screw. This was the first teleplay to be broadcast in color on the NBC network.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the performing arts, mirroring its impacts across all arts sectors. Due to physical distancing requirements and closure of the physical venues, curtailing not only public performances but also rehearsals, many performing arts institutions attempted to adapt by offering new digital services. In particular this resulted in the free online streaming of previously recorded performances of many companies – especially orchestral performances and plays – lists of which were collated by journalists as well as bespoke crowdsourcing projects.
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