SUMMER OF '42 Music and Lyrics by Hunter Foster and David Kirshenbaum. Based on the novel and screenplay by Herman Roucher. Variety Arts Theatre, Off-Broadway - Opened 18 December, 2001. Closed 27 January, 2002 (47 perfs) SYNOPSIS It's the summer of 1942...America is on the brink of full-scale war; men line up by the thousands to join the army; and on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, three fifteen-year-old boys begin a summer they will never forget. Hermie, Oscy and Benjie are used to coming up and spending the summer together, but somehow this year seems different. Girls have replaced baseball and comic books, and it is a beautiful young war bride who has won the heart of Hermie. Left alone by her husband as he goes off to fight in World War II, Hermie befriends Dorothy, and they form a bond that differs greatly from the one he shares with his two buddies. After meeting three young girls on the beach, Hermie and his friends finds themselves on a few adolescent misadventures, including a date to the movies (mistakenly grabbing a girl's elbow instead of her breast), a trip to the grocery store to buy condoms (where Hermie is tortured by the druggist after several painful attempts at trying to say the word "rubber") and a beach party (which begins with a jitterbug and ends with Hermie missing his date's lips and kissing her forehead). However, it is with Dorothy that Hermie feels most comfortable, and after she invites him over for a friendly night out at her house, Hermie discovers a devastating telegram. And in that one night, Hermie learns an important lesson about life, love and the scope of human compassion. STORY THE SUMMER YOU'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER by Gabriel Barre A woman stood on the porch of a beach house, looking out to sea. It was the summer of 1942. Six months earlier the Japanese attacked, and America was at war. For a young boy of 15 named Hermie, though, the summer started out as a carefree getaway on a small island off the coast of Maine where his family had gone to vacation. Who knew then that it would be the summer he would change from a boy to a man? These are the thoughts that, as Summer of '42 begins, race through the mind of Herman as he stands on a dune many years later, overlooking the same beaches he played on as that 15-year old. He is now an adult who has returned to reflect on the past that seems so distant yet in other ways feels like only yesterday. As Herman listens to the surf roll in, he recalls the laughter of three teenage girls, Aggie, Miriam and Gloria, as they run along the beach; the voice of Mr. Sanders, the local storekeeper; the soldier Pete; and above all, Dorothy, the lovely young woman who captured his heart that summer, changing him forever. He still feels the pang of excitement as he conjures up the start of a few weeks of fun with his best friends, Oscy and Benjie. Herman is transformed into Hermie and we find ourselves in that long-ago summer. Oscy, Benjie and Hermie are plotting their adventures when, from afar, they notice Dorothy on the porch of her house. Never have these young boys seen anyone so alluring. Benjie peers through his binoculars to get a better look and sees Dorothy's husband, Pete, a muscular "Army guy." Pete and Dorothy embrace and warmly kiss. As his friends leer and make crude jokes, Hermie watches and wonders, transported. Walter Winchell materialises at a microphone, reporting on the war to his radio audience, as Aggie, Miriam and Gloria, who function throughout the show as an Andrews Sisters-style Greek chorus, playfully remind soldier boys what they'll be leaving behind when they go off to fight. Dorothy and Pete arrive at the island's ferry landing. He's being shipped out, and as Hermie and his pals look on from a distance, a tearful Dorothy and her husband exchange loving good-byes. Pete leaves for the mainland and as Dorothy waves farewell, Oscy and Benjie dare Hermie, who can't stop staring at the older woman, to approach her. He boldly edges toward her, heart pounding, about to say something to her, when his friends mischievously call out to him.
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