Four plays at varied stages of development elicited reactions from audience and presenters of Alabama Shakespeare Festival's 2010 Southern Writers' Project, May 14--16. Three of the works explored Black-White race relations.
Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder's The Flagmaker of Market Street -- her third play commissioned by ASF -- is now ready for listing on next season's bill. Like her best known Gee's Bend, her play about the "Confederacy's seamstress" was polished after two years of SWP staged readings.
Wilder's play aims to help commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial. At its center are Mae, a slave, and her new owner George Cole, who runs a Market Street, Montgomery, general store. He hopes to get rich from investing in 200 up-to-date sewing machines that will mark a "new era for women." With Mae as a top seamstress, able to give lessons, he's racking up sales. As George is pressured to produce the first Confederate flag, Mae's background is revealed. An uppity customer busybody could mean danger to both, bringing the slavery issue home to George. The day of the flag raising is crucial to his and Mae's fate.
Hana Sharif directed Wilder's play. John Seibert and Erika LaVonn as George and Mae were supported by Matt D'Amico and Kelley Curran. A Civil War Tour in downtown Montgomery, May 17, took the SWP audience and performers to featured sites. Led by historian Bob Bradley, visits were made to the First White House of the Confederacy as well as the Alabama Archives, where flags and other pertinent exhibit items were explained by the archivist who researched the historical background of Wilder's play.
Based on a true incident of a manhunt for Black men accused of raping White women, Robert Ford's Look Away featured Bryan Terrell Clark and Alan Tyson as the hunted. Seeking help in the home of local big-wig Roy (Rodney Clark), they encounter his sexy, much-married daughter Marie (Shelly Gaza) and confused young son Bobby (Jordan Coughtry). Walter Dallas directed.
Jeffry L. Chastang's Blood Divided, directed by SWP head Nancy Rominger, pits the anti-slavery humanist Dr. William Baldwin (read by Nathan M. Hasner) against White supremicist Yancey (Paul Hopper). They vie for allegiance of the doctor's son Willie (Matt Bretschneider). Esau Pritchett (James Hale) is the freed Black man who so irks Yancey.
Of considerable length, despite being at the least developmental stage and without an end in sight, In the Book of... deals with immigration mainly but includes racial issues. John Walch's work, based on the Biblical Book of Ruth, centers on Anisah (Sarah Corey), smuggled into the U. S. by the Black former lieutenant Naomi (Casandra Freeman) for whom the Middle Easterner translated In the midst of political turmoil over immigration, stirred up by Gail (Sandy York), Bo (Michael Pesoli), son of Jewish Bo Sr. (John M. Manfredi), falls in love with Anisah. Greta Lambert directed the unfinished script.
Project play Readers were Melanie Wilson, Ricardo Vazquez, Matthew Baldiga, and Lauren Sowa. Dramaturgs Georgette Norman, Tom Rodman, Marlon M. Bailey, and Bruce Mann led discussions after performances. A special panel on Immigration followed the last reading held in the Octagon Theater.
ASF's Young Southern Writers' Project on May 15 in Rehearsal Hall A featured plays by Alabama secondary school students. Hannah Saxon of Florence wrote Attempted Epic; Mary Locker of Florence, The Transcendental, Amy Hester of Hoover, Number Nine Elnore Street. Actors from the regular SWP gave the readings.
Geoffrey Sherman, Producting Artistic Director of Alabama Shakespeare Festival, gave the introduction to its Southern Writers' Project and also introduced each play presented.
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