The WHWC Thespians delighted members with readings and recitations in a program titled Deep Seas: Poetry, Tales and Songs of Sea and Shore. Despite the chilly temperatures and icy conditions, the Parish Center was filled with members looking forward to a beloved annual event.

The tone for the performance was set with a choral reading by Mary Swope and Carol Casey of John Masefield’s “Sea Fever.” Ellie Armstrong followed with a reading of an episode from her own collection of memoirs, “Sailing in a Pea-soup Fog,” remembering a teenage adventure sailing in becalmed Vineyard Sound.  The audience listened with rapt attention as Gloria Borghese read “The Eye,” a poem she wrote in response to a work of art created by her grandson.

Next up was Rhona Carlton-Foss reading a childhood favorite, Lydia Huntley Sigourney’s 19th-century poem “Indian Names.” Lee Drescher read from the children’s book “The Good Giants and the Bad Pugwudgies,” which recounts a Wampanoag legend about the creation of Buzzards Bay, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands.  She followed this up by performing “Rolling Waves, ” a song she composed to the tune of “This Land is Your Land,” encouraging the audience to join in the refrain as Mary Swope accompanied her on guitar.

Nawrie Meigs-Brown delved into the waters of Stellwagen Bank with a reading of Mary Oliver’s “Humpbacks,” then led the audience in singing a traditional folk song “Eddystone Light,” popularized by Burl Ives in the 1950s with the lively refrain “Yo ho ho! The wind blows free; Oh for a life on the rolling sea.”

The program was closed by readings of two short poems by Irish poets.  Lalise Melillo read “Postscript” by Nobel Prize-winning Seamus Heaney. A consummate teacher, Lalise enlightened us on the uniqueness of the words Heaney used to capture a moment of heart-stopping beauty. Mary Swope then read William Butler Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” set in an idyllic place of natural beauty.

The program was dedicated to Thespians San Lyman and Jeannette Fullerton, who could not perform this year, and to the memory of Olivann Hobbie, who passed away in December.