Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble to present ‘Annapurna’

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She’s been the Wicked Witch of the West in the “Wizard of Oz,” the Kid’s Mother in “Dragons Love Tacos,” Willy Loman’s wife, Linda, in “Death of a Salesman,” half of a pair of eccentric elderly sisters in the Southern Gothic “Skin and Bone,” and the austere steward Malvolio, victim of a crazy prank in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

Those are just a few of the many roles Elizabeth Dowd has performed in her 45 years with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, for which she’s also directed such shows as the zany “Sideways Stories from Wayside School,” the classic “A Christmas Carol,” the comic tragedy “An Empty Plate in the Café du Grande Boeuf” and many other productions.

“I’m not 100% sure (what I’ll do next),” said Dowd, for whom the Ensemble’s next mainstage production, “Annapurna,” set for May 23 through June 9, will mark her final performance as a full time member of the company. “I’d like to take a little bit of time to listen and figure out who I am when I’m ‘not BTE.’ “

“I’ve found the right time. I’m not regretting this decision, but I feel very emotional,” said Dowd, who came to Bloomsburg in the late 1970s with other recent graduates of Northwestern University to study with acting teacher Alvina Krause.

There were 16 founding members, her husband Rand Whipple said, remembering he was the one with some accounting experience. “Everyone paid $1, I recorded it in a spiral notebook and the ensemble was born.”

Dowd is the last of those 16 founders to retire from BTE, and it’s a bittersweet “closing of a chapter,” said Whipple, who will return to the BTE stage to star with Dowd in the two-person “Annapurna.”

Written by Sharr White, the play introduces audiences to Emma and Ulysses, a long-separated couple who encounter each other in a trailer in Colorado where Ulysses lives.

“There’s an unresolved question of 20 years standing,” Dowd said, explaining the reason for Emma’s visit. “They keep peeling back more and more layers” as audiences find out more about the conditions that drove Emma and Ulysses apart.

“Emma is fierce and unsentimental,” Dowd said. “She has had to learn to be very strong.”

“(Ulysses) is a cowboy poet, a bit of a ‘bad boy,’ haunted as a man,” Whipple said. “He has a rapier wit.”

Actually, both characters are experts at witty banter — which is something they have in common with the real-life spouses.

“Banter and wit have always been family trademarks,” Dowd said. “When I can make Rand laugh, there’s a kind of glow.”

“It all flows,” Whipple said, describing the onstage action and the script. “You can have fierce arguments and still be making sandwiches: ‘Here’s your food.’ “

“Rand and Elizabeth have senses of humor that make the story jump off the page,” director Aaron White said. “It’s a joyful thing to have their energy in the room. They have a great dynamic as a pair.”

As for “Annapurna,” White said, “It’s a very well-written play, and it’s been growing deeper and richer” over the past few weeks of rehearsal.

White began his association with BTE several years ago, at Dowd’s encouragement, after he taught Dowd and Whipple’s son in high school. He’ll miss having her as a full-time BTE member — “She’s just a delightful, joyful, spontaneous and ardent collaborator,” he said — but he looks forward to perhaps working with her as a guest artist.

For now, Dowd is concentrating on portraying Emma, without worrying about retiring.

“If I let in the emotions, it’s overwhelming,” she said. “I am just so grateful … so full of gratitude.”

“There are a lot of ghosts with us on the stage,” Whipple said.

In honor of those ghosts from the past, and in honor of the colleagues who carry BTE into the future, White suggested there is something people can do.

“You can get in the habit of coming to live theater in Bloomsburg,” he said, noting quite a few people got out of the habit during the Covid-19 pandemic and haven’t returned.

“Annapurna,” named for a mountain in the Himalayas which serves as a metaphor for Ulysses and Emma’s relationship, will run May 23 through June 9 at the Alvina Krause Theatre, 226 Center St., Bloomsburg. Tickets are available online at bte.org or by calling the box office at 570-784-8181.