Dan Maurer, the director of Kelsey Theater’s upcoming production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize winning play based in Atlanta, Georgia, is bringing his family history to the set of the show. Maurer, a former West Windsor resident, is a graduate of East Carolina University in North Carolina. He met his wife, Lori, during college, and they still have family there. “We plan to decorate Daisy’s on set living room with some old black-and-white pictures from my mother-in-law’s childhood,” he says.
The show, about a relationship between an aging Southern lady and her driver, has performances at Kelsey Theater on weekends from Friday to Sunday, February 1 to 10. An opening night reception to meet the cast and crew follows the performance on Friday, February 1, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12.
Maurer was born in Teaneck, and lived with his parents and four brothers in Palisades Park, until the family moved to Lancashire Drive in West Windsor in 1977. He was a student at St. Paul’s School and Notre Dame High School. “My brothers and I had many friends who went to West Windsor-Plainsboro High School,” he says. “In fact, in our high school years, I and my brother Paul played in a rock band called Lay-Z-Haze with several students from WW-P.”
“My first involvement with theater was at Notre Dame watching my brothers John and Paul perform in shows,” Maurer says. “I got into the act by playing drums in the orchestra.”
During his high school years he developed a love of story telling through novels and film and began to study literature and various storytelling techniques. “I devoured issues of Writer’s Digest, and pored over books about how to write, develop characters, and structure stories,” he says.
During college, he majored in English with a concentration in writing. A film and theater critic for the student newspaper, he moved up to be its editor and general manager.
After graduation and a return to West Windsor he worked at Doubleday Books as an editorial assistant and Houghton Mifflin Company as an associate to the editor-in-chief. “I was fortunate enough to work with many talented writers and editors including Al Gore (Earth in the Balance), Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Atkinson (Crusade), screenwriter Richard Price (Clockers, The Color of Money), and the late sport journalist Dick Schapp (Bo Knows Bo),” he says.
“At the time, I thought I wanted to be a writer and an editor, but what I later discovered was that I was really doing all along was learning how to be a storyteller, a skill that would translate very well to the stage and eventually bring me back to the theater,” says Maurer.
In 2004, when his brother and sister-in-law, John and Diana, founded Maurer Productions OnStage, Dan, who had left book publishing, had a career in Internet marketing. “I had been looking for a way to get back into a creative environment, one where I could use my storytelling skills again, so I joined Maurer Productions OnStage,” he says. He has worked as the marketing director, producer, and stage manager for Kelsey shows, “The Foreigner,” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “Lucky Stiff,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Maurer, a Robbinsville resident, is also a member of the Kelsey Theater advisor committee and a reviewer for NJACT (New Jersey Association of Community Theater). Still writing, his original short play, “The Road Not Taken,” was produced at the Arts University’s Short Play Festival last summer.
His parents, Margaret and James Maurer, left West Windsor for an active senior community in Lakewood, when his father retired. He has since died and his mother, who lives with his brother John in Ewing, now works part-time in the box office at Kelsey Theater.
Maurer’s daughter, Caroline, 9, was bitten by the theater bug three years ago while hanging around watching set building for “The Foreigner.” “A young woman in the cast invited my daughter to read lines with her,” says Maurer. “The actress then took her for a walk around the set to show her what it was like.”
Caroline has just completed her sixth show (five at Kelsey and one at the Washington Crossing Park’s Open Air Theater). She recently shared the lead role of Charity Moore in Kelsey’s “`Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
“Theater and the theater community at the Kelsey has really done a lot to help Caroline grow, mature and learn valuable lessons about responsibility, commitment, goal-setting, and teamwork,” says Maurer.
In January, 2007, Maurer pitched the idea of doing “Driving Miss Daisy.” “The company loved the idea of doing Daisy and saw it as a chance to get back our roots,” he says. The company, founded to do mostly plays, drifted into musicals. “It was also an opportunity to try our hand at light drama. As much as the script makes you laugh, it also warms your heart and gets you thinking.”
“I felt I was ready to take the director’s chair and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ seemed like the perfect vehicle, says Maurer. “My background in storytelling, producing, and stage managing has served me well in the director’s chair.”
Driving Miss Daisy, Kelsey Theater, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road, 609-570-3333. www.kelseytheatre.net. $12. Friday to Sunday, February 1 to 10.
