Mrs. Martin Treat

A native Californian, Martin Treat was born and raised within view of Mount Shasta.He has been a member of Actors Equity for 30 years, playing in New York with the Classic Stage Company, the WPA, and La Mama.
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Martin has taught acting/movement/theater at his alma mater, the University of Oregon; at Grand Valley State (Michigan); and at Wright State University (Ohio).He has also taught 15 years of public high school in New York.

A Vietnam vet, Martin participates every year in the Veterans Day Parade, marching with Veterans for Peace.Researching the life of the beloved Ernie Pyle was both a labor of love and an exploration for Martin: "I was searching for answers to that vicious question of why my father's generation came home heroes and my generation was vilified.
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Martin and his wife, Kathleen, are the producers of "Ernie Pyle's War."
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Mr. and Mrs. Treat dedicate their efforts to this link between Americans.
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Martin Treat

At the word "father," actor Martin Treat stood, his feet trembling a little."Yes, Mother?"

Thus began a reading of "A Dream's Deferment" by Alan Stolzer, a one-act play directed by Martin Treat, actor and co-founder of the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS).
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A Vietnam veteran and former high school English teacher, Treat has redoubled his activism since he retired last year, both with Veterans for Peace and as a key member of Community Board 4's Transportation Committee.And often, now, he can join with fellow residents of Manhattan Plaza to make a difference the best way they know how: with the theater.

At Manhattan Plaza, an affordable-housing complex for performing artists (applicants must have earned 51 percent of their income in the business for the preceding three years), it's not hard to find veterans-from World War II to Vietnam-and actors of a certain age.

"Look at this play," said Treat.
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Treat was referring to David Cargill, who Friday night read the role of the Sergeant Major in "A Dream's Deferment."
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Panicked about how to turn Gilbert into a "real man," they turn to Cargill's character, who personally enlists Gilbert in the military with tactics that combine Orwell, "American Idol" and "The Music Man." In 2003, Treat took a sabbatical from teaching to write and perform his own one-man show: the story of the famed war journalist Ernie Pyle.
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By then, Treat had been a member for years of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and embraced its motto: "Honor the warrior, not the war."He had first been taught that principle, he says now, by the story of Pyle, who traveled with enlisted soldiers and died in 1944 before WWII ended.

Treat wrote "Ernie Pyle's War," drawn from Pyle's dispatches for Scripps Howard News Services and two biographies on the journalist.
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Some of the plays were as short as seven minutes; the readers included Treat, Stolzer and two members of Military Families Speak Out, Davidson and Ellen Whitt, whose brother is still in Iraq.
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To Treat and Stolzer, Manhattan Plaza is a base from which their work can grow.
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"In the old days, you could rent a theater for nothing," said Treat."Now, you need hundreds of thousands of dollars.So, we'll do it here!Maybe eventually we'll have a theater here, too."

But Treat has higher ambitions for "A Dream's Deferment," including numerous production ideas he would like to integrate: "This is a yellow-ribbon household - you know the kind I mean," he told the audience last Friday.

New York actor Martin Treat will take the stage here next week armed with just a few props and special effects to bring to life the struggles of soldiers during World War II.

His one-person show is called "Ernie Pyle's War," and it is based on the writings of the famous World War II correspondent.

Treat's performances here coincide with the observance of Veterans Day on Nov. 11.He will perform his show at 8 p.m. Monday and 2 and 8 p.m. Tuesday for the public at the Box Factory for the Arts, 1101 Broad St., St. Joseph.
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Treat, 55, also will perform his show for students at Lakeshore High School, Stevensville, at 9 and 10 a.m. Wednesday.
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Now 30 years later, Treat has written his show and performed it in New York, once in conjunction with the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and once in conjunction with Memorial Day.
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Before coming here, Treat will visit Pyle's birthplace in Dana, Ind., where he will give two performances.

Treat's performances of "Ernie Pyle's War" in the Indianapolis area and the Twin Cities area will be his first outside of New York City.

His visit to the Twin Cities is the result of Murphy's effort to bring him here.

She first learned of his show by reading an article about him in The Herald-Palladium last spring.