Director following her own direction Theater veteran Ames directing in Belfast

When director Aynne Ames does theater, she doesn’t just break down the fourth wall. She breaks down every wall. Consider the productions she did for many years in Castine, where she was founder of the now defunct Cold Comfort Theater. There was “Camelot” staged outdoors at a fort with live horses, “Carousel” on the shoreline near the town dock, “Dames at Sea” and “South Pacific” on Maine Maritime Academy’s training ship, and “Amadeus” at the Episcopal church.

“Most of those shows I am happy about,” said Ames on July Fourth, while visiting her sister in Castine. “I wasn’t always the director, but I was always directing, producing, scheduling and herding.”

Ames was sitting in her convertible at Fort Madison. She had on a turquoise batik blouse and bright rose lipstick. In the back seat, there was a thesaurus and files for a production of “Morning’s at Seven,” which she has directed and opened July 24 for the Belfast Maskers. On the hill beyond Ames, a wedding rehearsal was taking place and she glanced over at it from time to time, as if she couldn’t completely stay detached from a performance.

Ames and her family moved to Castine in the late 1960s because of her then-husband’s work. She raised the kids – a son and a daughter who are both grown now – and for 20 years did theater, which had been a part of her upbringing in Falmouth. Eventually, the theater turned into a camp for kids and summer stock for serious actors.

Then, after 27 years of marriage, Ames found herself divorced and responsible for supporting herself. How could she put her skills as a wife and mother to work to make a living? It’s not like Ames to be defeated by that question. She applied to the University of Maine and took a live-in position as a sorority mother. She also taught at George Stevens Academy, Maine Maritime Academy and at the local elementary school in Castine.

“The medium was always theater,” said Ames. “But the message was young people. I’ll work with any age, but I love teenagers.”

When Ames finished her theater degree in three years – “I felt like Clint Eastwood getting up and getting all the awards,” she said with a blustery laugh – she decided to get a master’s, but wanted to branch out from Maine. Did Ames go to New York? No way. She went to the seat of Western theater: Greece. At the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, she was the oldest student with the least number of degrees. “But they took me because I was odd and I was theater,” said Ames.

The only problem was that when the program ended, Ames wanted to stay in Greece. One Friday she saw an advertisement for a job teaching theater for an international high school and by the next Tuesday, she was employed there. Five years later in the late 1990s and newly married to an Egyptian teacher of Arabic, she returned to America to be closer to her children who were starting families. She took a teaching position in the theater department at The Storm King School, a high school in Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, N.Y.

Last year, Ames directed “And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little” for the Belfast Maskers, and the success of the show cemented a new relationship.

“We like to bring in as many guest directors as we can get and the show was a great suc-

cess, so we looked forward to bringing her back this year,” said Tobin Malone, Maskers artistic director. “I worked for her as an actor last year so I got a personal viewpoint. The show was a great success and, actually, it took us by surprise.

“I thought the play was not exactly what you do in the summer. It’s kind of a heavy drama. But I thought let’s go for it. And it really struck a nerve. People came from miles around to see it,” Malone said.

“Morning’s at Seven,” a comedy about four sisters in a mid-western town in 1939, is lighter fare, said Malone. The show opens in a preview July 24 and runs through Aug. 10.

In addition to directing the show, Ames has also conducted a theater day camp for children ages 7 to 14 in July and August. After that, she said, she may think about the next place to settle into a theater life for a while. Ames still owns a house in Castine, a town whose beauty she is quick to praise, but the remoteness of the area no longer appeals to her and she resigned this year from her teaching position in New York. Belfast, which has an active arts community, is a top contender for a new location largely because Ames sees the potential for theater there.

“I think the Belfast Maskers is at a crossroads,” she said. “They have to make up their mind if they want to be the voice of theater and the voice of the arts in town. The place is ripe for someone to come in and be something above and beyond community theater. They shouldn’t give up community theater. But it seems to me that some smart cookie should annex that summer program. If I had the energy, I’d do it. I’m very hopeful for them. I think they have the real possibility to do what they want to do.”

Ames’ next step may be politics, she said, working to improve conditions for older residents in Maine.

“That’s what I want to do with the rest of my life,” said Ames. “That and theater.”

It was time to go back to her sister’s for the holiday festivities. As she pulled away, she wished the wedding party well and then turned up the volume of an Aretha Franklin recording. “Freedom, freedom!” rang in the air.

The Belfast Maskers will present “Morning’s at Seven” 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 10 at 43 Front St. in Belfast. For tickets, call 338-9668.