Recently, I had the opportunity to be not only part of a jury for the first time, but to also be the client of a law firm. On the evening of Saturday, March 21, I was able to sit in Judge Judy Koch’s court room at Haag’s Hotel in Shartlesville and watch Melissa Cheatham of The Law Firm of Dewy, Cheatham, & Howe go head to head with Sydney Schyster of Spring, Schyster, &Shark Legal Counseling.
Now of course, this was not a real court room. I took the opportunity to be part of one of the events happening in area as an attendee more so than as a reporter.
Presented by The Actors Guild of Schuylkill County in conjunction with Our Town Foundation, “Contempt of Court” was a dinner theater program that involved plenty of audience participation. This was the third type of this kind of production that I have attended with the first being during a high school band trip to Florida and the second being during Family Weekend while I was in college. What is so fun about going to these is the unpredictability. While the main parts may be scripted, you never know what the person pulled into the play will do. There were plenty of laughs that night.
Following a hot buffet, the nightly proceedings of the People’s Night Court began. Judge Judy explained that a new way of pulling people for jury duty was to disguise it as a dinner and show to get more people involved with jury duty. That night there were three cases that the jury was asked to decide on with each lawyer hoping that they would eventually come out on top.
A court stenographer was quickly picked from the audience before each case as well as a court artist. My close friend who is on her way to becoming a lawyer had the pleasure of being the court artist for the first case which also happened to have me as one of the clients. When it came time for Mr. Carol Fandangelman to take the stand against Dr. Guffman, it was soon discovered that I would be playing a bigger part than just a jury member as I was pulled up into the court room. Though I did not end up winning my case, I will just have to settle with the rights to the movie about my life that led me to the court room.
Following each case, the jury would select who they believed should win and the slips of paper were collected and later revealed.
The second case of the evening was between a talent agency, once again audience members, and one of their clients, another audience member. This time, the client took the stand and had to respond to the lawyer’s questions. She also had to show off her hidden talent which in this case happened to be performing the Macarena to “I’m a Little Tea Pot.” Her group made sure to catch it all on camera phone.
For the last case, the children of F.W. Rockworth made their presence known in the court room with their woeful sobbing every time their late father’s name was mentioned. The audience members were so good that they had just about everyone laughing to the point of tears throughout.
Unfortunately, for me at least, Cheatham won all of her cases.
It is not very often that I am able to attend events like these without focusing on the paper side. It was a great night, not only due to the great food and good company, but also a great show full of laughs and the kind of comedy that I tend to enjoy.
The actors, Kevin Killian, Craig Umberger, Jessica Miller, Chelsea Gonsalves and Jim Blackwell did an excellent job of getting the audience to participate and keeping the laughs going from start to finish.
Hopefully everyone else had just as good of a time, or better. To all those that decided in favor of me for my case, thank you.
Shea Singley is the editor of The Hamburg Area Item. She can be reached at ssingley@berksmontnews.com.
