Belfry Director Says Audience Will Love ‘Crimes of the Heart’

Noblesville’s Jen Otterman feels a great connection to the newest show she’s directing at The Belfry Theatre.

“I fell in love with the show from the moment I first read it,” said Otterman, who is currently directing The Belfry’s “Crimes of the Heart,” opening Saturday and continuing through May 7 at Arts for Lawrence’s Theater at the Fort. And she thinks the audiences will love the show as well.

This dramedy revolves around three Magrath sisters (Brooke Hackman as Lenny Magrath, Becca Barkley as Rebecca (Magrath) Botrelle and Sarah Eberhardt as Meg Magrath) in Hazelhurst, Miss. One is unmarried, another is a failed singer back from California, and the youngest is out on parole for shooting her husband.

“These types of shows reflect life as it truly is,” Otterman said, “with ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, characters who must grapple with life-changing situations, and do so with laughter and courage.”

In the early 1980s, Otterman portrayed the role of Meg Magrath, the middle Magrath sister who moved to Hollywood to become a singer, in “Crimes of the Heart” at Red Barn Summer Theatre in Frankfort. Then she directed the show at Hamilton Southeastern High School, where she was a theater teacher for more than 30 years.

“My deep familiarity with the show allows me to direct in a more adroit fashion,” Otterman said.

“Since I have been in the show before, I have a memory of its world,” she said. “This aided me in designing the set.”

Otterman, who designs most of her own sets, said, “I am able to easily visualize the world of my shows. This one came to me more like a memory than a design.”

She loves designing and decorating sets, especially ones that are time period.

This show is set in 1974, a time when Otterman grew up.

“It is both challenging and exhilarating to locate the right set decoration that is on target for creating the atmosphere of a show,” she said.

After many years of building sets with her husband, Chris, he no longer helps build, she said. Rather, she has the help of a dear friend who used to do theater with her at the Red Barn and who drives up from South Carolina to help her. “He prebuilds many pieces and drives them through the mountains stacked and strapped in the bed of his truck,” she said. And Robert Rave, who is a master carpenter, has been indispensable, she said. Mason and Andrea Odle of Noblesville (Andrea is also stage manager and co-assistant director), have also been a great help getting this show’s set up, she said. “I, too, enjoy building and will be found on site as often as I can when other directorial duties aren’t preoccupying me,” she said.

Otterman, who has the most extensive bio in the show’s playbill, became a Belfry director five years ago, in 2018, for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for which she earned Best Set Design of a Drama and Best Director of a Drama from the Encore Association, which plays host to an annual awards ceremony that recognizes excellent from the previous theatrical season in central Indiana.

While building sets is a task of its own, getting the sets to the stage hasn’t been the easiest the past couple of years for Belfry directors, who have had to load in their sets since The Belfry became a traveling theater after the Covid-19 originally closed the small church-turned-theater building.

While The Belfry Theatre, in its 58th season, staged the first two productions of the 2022-23 season at The Ivy Tech Auditorium in Noblesville, The Belfry was unable to secure dates for the next three spring productions this season, February through May, at Ivy Tech. So The Belfry went out of the county, into northeastern Marion County, to secure production space at Arts for Lawrence’s Theater at the Fort for three productions, including “Crimes of the Heart.” The Belfry is now always on the lookout for nearby rehearsal and audition space and performance space.

The cast of “Crimes of the Heart” initially rehearsed in a church, then moved to The Arts for Lawrence’s Theater at the Fort closer to the show opening for tech rehearsals.

“Loading into a rental theater makes all aspects of doing a show much more difficult,” Otterman said.

But Otterman is accustomed to loading in sets as director of Noblesville Cultural Arts Commission’s annual Noblesville Shakespeare in the Park, which takes place at Federal Hill Commons in downtown Noblesville. This year, she’s directing “As You Like It,” and the show goes up the last week in September rather than the usual last week in July, trying to move away from “unbearably hot “ weather for actors in their Shakespearen costumes.

“Loading into a rental theater, no matter where or how nice, is a huge challenge,” she said. There are rules that that theater must abide by in the rented theater. “It is like trying to live your own life under the roof of your strict parents.”

-Betsy Reason writes about people, places and things in Hamilton County. Contact The Times editor Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com.

MEET THE CAST

Lenora (Lenny) Magrath, Brooke Hackman; Chick Boyle, Ka’Lena Cuevas; Doc Porter, Tanner Brunson; Margaret (Meg) Magrath, Sarah Eberhardt; Rebecca (Babe) Botrelle, Becca Bartley; and Barnette Lloyd, Mickey Masterson.

MEET THE CREW

Producer, Ka’Lena Cuevas; director, Jen Otterman; assistant directors, Andrea Odle and Nicole Amsler; stage manager, Andrea Odle; lighting designer, Eric Matters; lighting operator, Aaron Ploof; sound designer, Eric Dixon and Sloan Haywood; sound operator, Sloan Haywood; set designer, Jen Otterman; set construction, Jen Otterman, Jay Mitchell, Robert Rave, Mason Odle, Andrea Odle; set decoration, Jen Otterman and Nicole Amsler; costumes, Linda Findley Grow; makeup and hair stylist, Monya Wolf; and properties, Nicole Amsler and Jen Otterman