By Sarah Beling
This January, live theater comes to the Catskills as Aquila Theatre Company presents a fresh, comedic adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville. The classic Sherlock Holmes play arrives as part of the company’s national tour, blending suspense, humor, and inventive staging for regional theater audiences.
A Classic Sherlock Holmes Mystery Comes to the Catskills
Sherlock Holmes fans, grab your cape, pipe and magnifying glass, as the Aquila Theatre Company brings their brand-new theatrical adaptation of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles to the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville on January 17 and 18. The world-renowned company, known for producing fresh interpretations of classical works across the United States, is led by longtime artistic director Desiree Sanchez Meineck, who first became involved with Aquila during her career as a Metropolitan Opera dancer. “I found out about the company through a colleague of mine at the Metropolitan Opera, Mira Kingsley, who was an actress and choreographer in the company,” says Sanchez Meineck. “She knew that I really wanted to start transitioning into theatre from dance and suggested I come along to one of the shows.” Sanchez Meineck quickly went from audience member to company member — in 2004, she started working with Aquila as a movement specialist, eventually moving to assistant directing — a process that she says provided her with a rich tapestry of classical theatre training. “Some of the former members of the company were from the UK, and had really excellent classical theater training. So through them I learned quite a lot,” adds Sanchez Meineck. After stepping up to direct Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, a production that Sanchez Meineck was proud to see “really well received across the country” — she became the company’s artistic director in 2012 “and has directed every show since.”
Aquila Theatre Company’s Connection to the Catskills
Sanchez Meineck’s Metropolitan Opera career also sowed the seeds for the company’s Catskill Mountain Foundation debut. “[Orpheum Dance Program] director Victoria Rinaldi called me and asked me for help with their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is one of my favorite Shakespreare plays,” says Sanchez Meineck. “It turned out to be a really great collaboration, and she introduced me to the Catskill Mountain Foundation,” — which led to Aquila’s work both with CMF’s educational residency program as well as with with the Twelfth Night chamber orchestra ensemble on 2024’s production of scenes from Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. “I love the ethos behind the Catskill Mountain Foundation,” says Sanchez Meineck, “where they support arts and innovation.”
In helming Aquila’s season over the past decade-plus, Sanchez Meineck tries to “choose titles that are both recognizable and beloved by many groups of people and that resonate with us at any given time,” she says. While Aquila is a classical theater company, “we’re not trying to do restoration pieces,” says Sanchez Meineck — “we’re trying to make these pieces relevant to our world and to what’s going on with us, and put a light on to what it is that makes them classic. I’ve also tried to diversify classics — I want to make the work accessible and relatable to as many people as possible, and use these very familiar titles to bring people together in an embodied presence,” she adds. “So much of our world is experienced through screens. Live theater is becoming one of the rare opportunities for people in our country, in our world, to actually share the same space — this is really an important time for theater to remind people what it means to be human.”
Reimagining Sherlock Holmes on Stage
The team at Aquila is already well-versed in working with Doyle’s work, having produced an adaptation of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sanchez Meineck in 2015, an exercise which she says gave her a deeper appreciation for the genre. “In reading many of the short stories and also adapting my own version, I understood, perhaps for the first time, why [Doyle’s stories] are so exciting,” she says. “There’s something about the strangeness and the unpredictability of these stories that is fascinating for viewers of various adaptations, whether through film or radio or theater — these stories remind you that people are really interesting and strange,” she adds. In directing The Hound of the Baskervilles play, Sanchez Meineck says they plan to lean into the comedy of the piece. “Comedy is underestimated in terms of its cathartic ability, and it’s something that we have been known for,” says Sanchez Meineck. “While [The Hound of the Baskervilles] is known for being a mystery, we were inspired by the 1978 movie with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore — which is from a bygone era, but nonetheless, a pretty hilarious rendition.” Aquila’s adaptation is penned by longtime collaborator and Aquila fan favorite James Lavender, “ a fantastic actor and one of the most prolific readers and performers of classical texts I’ve ever met,” says Sanchez Meineck. “Comedy is his forte, so it was the perfect project for him.”
Comedy, Mystery, and a Touring Theatre Production
In producing the touring The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sanchez Meineck looks forward to sharing the company’s work with audiences across the region and the country. “We had a two year hiatus after touring annually for over 30 years — so this is an important year for us to get back out there and bring theatre to America,” says Sanchez Meineck. Performing in the Catskills “feels like it would be a great opportunity to merge nature with theater,” she adds, “and perhaps build a theatre community up there. I know that there are other theater organizations doing exactly the same thing, so I would love to contribute to that effort and see where that goes.” And for those attending The Hound of the Baskervilles this January, she hopes the mid-winter divertissement will be “a fun, funny and spooky great time at the theater.”
Performance Dates, Location, and Tickets
There will be two performances of The Hound of the Baskervilles on Saturday, January 17, 2026 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, January 18, 2026 at 4:00 pm. The Orpheum Performing Arts Center is located at 6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485. For tickets, please visit catskillmtn.org.
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