A Resting Place Retrospective

© H. Scott Heist 12 / splintercottage.com

It’s hard to believe that is has been nearly two weeks since A Resting Place made its world premiere.  What a whirlwind weekend and what a great turn out. The week leading up to the event was spent checking the weather report every few hours to see if the possible rain showers were going to force us in doors.  Not only did it not rain, but the days got warmer and more beautiful as the weekend went along.  As nervous as some might have been that all the venues would make for a complicated weekend, great planning and helpful volunteers made everything possible in the end.

It was difficult for me to appreciate the grandeur of our show because I could only see it from the inside.  But I will say, once the wagon started rolling in for our first night, once I could see the large crowd spread through out the space and could hear the music swell into the sky, that was when I knew this thing that has been so important to me for nearly two years was now important to the whole community of Bethlehem.

We are thrilled to report that there was an estimated attendance of 1500 over the course of the weekend. Every day the cast was met with uproarious applause and appreciation.  Everyone I’ve talked to commented on what a huge success it was, everything from the beautiful wagon to the incredible elephant and the tremendous cast has been praised with delight.

It was an incredibly challenging weekend, and seemed to take on epic proportions.  I think for me it was right around the time I painted make up on about the 50th chorus member on the first night that it really hit me what a marathon I was participating in.  In the end it was all worth it, and it will be a story to share with everyone willing to listen for a lifetime to come.

For hundreds of photos from the weekend of production, please visit our facebook page.  Many thanks to H. Scott Heist for creating such artful documentation of a truly one of a kind event.  And thanks to everyone involved for making A Resting Place a huge success.

© H. Scott Heist 12 / splintercottage.com

To Do Or To Document

As I was on my ninth hour of a fourteen hour day yesterday, I couldn’t help but reflect on all the assignments I’ve been tasked with and how I could possibly give our readers a look into the life of an apprentice.

My day began yesterday at 6:15am.  It began with a phone call from LVPA asking if I could teach.  But I needed to be at one of my other three jobs (in this case McCarthy’s Tearoom) extra early for a special monthly meeting of the Rotary Club that begins at 7:30am.  Once my early guests were settled in, out came the laptop, and up went the internet, as I dug in to my current assignment for Touchstone.  I was to post nine podcasts to the blog ASAP.  I got it done, and by the time I did, my Rotarians have left and I set the Tearoom up for a day of serving solo.

As I continue on with my day I get phone calls about a big Titanic dinner at the Tearoom Saturday night.  I answer questions about the menu and the entertainment, when I find myself telling the inquirers about another exciting event happening in Bethlehem this weekend, this great play called A Resting Place.  I let them know how they could get a full day of Bethlehem in its glory by coming to see the show during the day and finish their night with an evening of Titanic celebrations.

In the final hour two students from LVPA come in for a pot of tea.  One is in A Resting Place with me; the other is another theater major.  After helping them pick out the perfect pot of tea to hit the spot, I can’t help my apprentice hat from coming out to ask the student not already involved in A Resting Place if she was interested in volunteering for front of house this weekend.  Lucky for me, she was excited by the idea and by result I’m that much closer to finding the thirty-six volunteers I need for this upcoming three day extravaganza.

When my day at the tearoom ends, I have two hours until rehearsal begins for the night.  Instead of resting, I head to the construction site where set and elephant are coming together and spend what little time I have left painting the stage floor yellow.  What’s nice is that even though I’m exhausted, I love what I’m doing.  The satisfaction that comes from seeing what a coat of paint can do to quickly transform a space gives me a quite joy I can’t help but appreciate.  That’s when I slip on my documenter’s hat and jump out of the wagon to grab my camera and start taking some shots of my work and all the work going on around me.

Final stretch of the night: rehearsal.  It was an evening to clean up certain moments and cover the logistics of our crazy weekend.  I begin to run the camera, and take footage until the battery finally dies.  I can’t help but think, “I hear you battery, I hear you.” So I put the camera down and use all my energy to stay present.  This is when it hits me, as important as documentation is, and as happy as I am to do it, it can be quite challenging to participate fully while trying to capture in words and visuals what unfolds before me.

I am one person, but my roles for this project include actor, assistant director, blogger, film documenter, volunteer coordinator, researcher, occasionally marketing and administrative assistant, and most recently added, set painter and make-up artist.  This is on top of my other roles as a server and a teacher outside of Touchstone.  Can I get overwhelmed by all these responsibilities? Absolutely.  Am I up for the challenge?  You can count on it.

Blogging has been the most difficult role to fulfill by far, and I realize it comes down to the fact that I love to do; in whatever form it takes, action is my friend.  Blogging means that not only must I take action, but I must take time to reflect on the action taken.  This gets harder and harder the more tasks my brain has to wrestle with.  But I will say this; blogging is one of the most important roles I fill.  It is my chance to share this amazing project with the community at large and to save a piece of it for posterity.

If James Peifer can write letters home with bullets whizzing past his head using his knees for a desk, then I can take the time to capture some history while creating the future at the same time.  Tomorrow this marvelous new work will celebrate our community, our culture, and of course, the Civil War.  Two years in the making, and it still feels like it’s going by so fast.

Hearing History, part three – The Miller Brothers

Quentin, a soldier, describes being drafted with his brothers in A RESTING PLACE. Photography © H. Scott Heist 12

It was very common for brothers to sign up for the war together.  Many in the ranks were either related or at least friends and neighbors.  This does not always mean that brothers have the same experience in battle or share the same enthusiasm for the war.  Below are letters from two brothers who had very different experiences in battle.  Take a listen and see who you side with.

5/25/1882——Henry A. Miller, brother of Theodore Miller, was wounded at Gettysburg, July 2, and died in the 11th Corps Hospital on the 4th day. Above is a letter, which he wrote to his parents over a year before he died.

Listen Here

5/27/1863——-Brother of Henry Miller, Theodore recounts the Battle of Chancellorsville in a letter to his parents.  He defends his position and that of the 153rd regiment, they are labeled as cowards and Theodore explains why they are not.

Listen Here

7/1863——A letter from Comrade Rudolph Rossel who gives a more detailed account of Henry Miller and his death. It was written to Henry’s father.

Listen Here

Hearing History, part two – The Music

You can get a preview of the music in A Resting Place by checking out the podcasts in this post.

Dan Rice Theme Song – Listen here

Oh Freedom – Listen here

Rock Me to Sleep – Listen here

The band of A RESTING PLACE in dress rehearsal. Photography © H. Scott Heist 12

Stay tuned for the next installment of letters read aloud in the next post.

Hearing History, part one – Colonel Selfridge

The character of James Peifer quotes an impassioned speech by Selfridge, in dress rehearsals for A RESTING PLACE. Photography © H. Scott Heist 12

As we prepare to bring the Civil War to the stage in A Resting Place, opening this Friday, April 13, we turn back to the history that inspired us, and just as we have shared the descriptions and images of the process, we want to share the words and voices as well. Tune in over the next few days for letters read aloud and snippets recorded in rehearsal.

We start with recordings of letters from Col. Selfridge. For more on Selfridge, check out the earlier entries of transcripts from The Moravian, circa 1862 and 1863

1. From Selfridge to his Brother
Battle-field near Culpepper, Aug, 11, 1862.
Listen here.

2. A dedication and presentation of sword to Col. Selfridge from his soldiers
10/16/1882
Listen here.

3. Selfridge’s response to the dedication.
Listen here.

 

Costumes, Characters, and Time

DATELINE:
Bethlehem, PA 1864
Bethlehem, PA 2012 Moravian College, Arena Theatre Area

Magic occurs in theatre when the audience is convinced to shed its reality for the reality of the players. Creating a bond and a shared world.

A faux reality, sure, but not necessarily frivolous. Social reality occurs when the greasepaint comes off and the audience returns to merge the concentrated reality of a couple of hours to to the real time and space. Has anything changed. Was there a point? Dunno. Is a journalist in residence job in a theater to pop balloons or help to blow them up? Let’s try both.

Years back in Paris, a friend and I, in conversation with a member of Comedie Francais, listened to a long description of an entire afternoon spent at the theatre deciding the proper placement of a chair upon the stage. It was like a detailed hunting story. Much richer for the raconteur than the listener. But rich non the less. Perhaps for its apparent luxury.

As my friend and I walked down Rue du Four toward Rue St. Sulpice, he asked: “Can you imagine… an entire afternoon to consider the placement of a chair? Is it valid? Can it matter? Can you imagine?”

“Of course, I can.” I replied. I’m in France to gather a few images amounting to a few hundredth of a second and a few pieces of film. Less words than a power point that will be edited further. And a magazine sent me. Its not the total number of words a writer writes or and actor speaks. But the few visual sentences that last. Its the ones gotten right. That work. Transforming even a little.

That’s the way the magic occurs. In bumps and grinds. For A RESTING PLACE we’ve watched the project conceptualized, the script written and critiqued, the concepts and direction added. At a certain point, the actors mostly know their lines, and it’s time to costume. Usually as the costumes go on and refine, the actors seem to find their vocal and physical voice. Where the chair get fixed in a place no one will trip over it. In a show like A RESTING PLACE, this is when the time machine takes over.

As our watches no longer work, how will we measure time? How does the dateline of a journal work? A RESTING PLACE concerns the American Civil War. During a blood bath of 600,000 casualties in an embryonic country of only four generations battled to independence within familial memory by a total force of perhaps 30,000. The size of tragedy shares proportion with inverse squares.

The Nine-Foot African Elephant

Early on: “I want to see the cast in character come across a bridge or down a street behind the elephant,” mused Doug Roysdon of Mock Turtle Marionettes as he sketched the frame work. “Then they become puppeteers.”

This says a lot about the dynamics of good puppetteering. The cast in character without the puppet would be grotesques and the puppet itself a peculiar nine foot thing that doesn’t move.

Like all good art, it first bounces off the retina, then it bounces off the brain and then the heart. And its ready to sing.

But first one has to build it.

The elephant has become a lynch pin. As Jp Jordan mentioned in the discussion of the formation of the script, the Pageant Wagon provided an aspect of spectacle. Originally the thought was to pull the wagon with horses. As Director Christopher Shorr and Artistic Director Jp Jordan walked Lehigh University locations, I mentioned that in my years of location work horses are a real mess in public space. Both physically and economically.

Since Dan Rice was famous for his elephant and the first to teach an elephant to walk a tight rope, was there any possibility of the elephant? JP immediately thought of Doug. “Doug can build anything.” He had done the large puppet work on Quixote.

Crunch Time

It’s getting to be about that time.  It’s the time when all the moving parts are coming together, when costumes, set, sound, and purpose unite and we finally get to see what it is we’re making here.  This past Saturday was a big day for A Resting Place.  It was the first (and only) time the cast worked with all the production elements at once.  Yes, it was very (very) windy, yes, it was very sunny, yes, we spent six hours outdoors running through the show adjusting to all these production elements in tandem with all the environmental ones.  And yes, it was great fun and brought us that much closer to opening night.

© H. Scott Heist 12 / splintercottage.com

It’s funny to think that the rehearsal process began just six short weeks ago.  When we started this project, and knew how large it was going to be and how frequently the venues changed from performance to performance, it was difficult to imagine how it would all come together.  We started by rehearsing small pieces in one hour rehearsal blocks.  It was like creating patches that would eventually come together into a quilt.  Little by little, we’d add a prop here, a costume piece there, connect a few scenes, and throw in some music.  Every step of the way made me go, “okay, I see what we’re getting at.”

Well, now I can safely say, “okay, I see what we have.”  I’ve always been mystified by the power of the theatre.  Every time you start a new project, the goals feel unreachable for the first stretch, begin to seem possible by the middle, and then one day, as if by magic, it all just comes together.  It was this trust in theatre itself that helped me to power through these last few weeks, and I have never respected the magic of the theatre as much as I do right now.

One of the crazy things I always consider when I’m thinking about the Civil War Era is that it was a mere four years long.  In four years our country completely transformed itself.  We lost and won so much during that time.  In six weeks we have also transformed ourselves, and won far more than we lost.  Knowing this, it gives me new appreciation for what is possible in a short amount of time.  It is my wish to share this appreciation with others, and remind us all there is always time to build something together.

Reflection on the Research

I’d like to take a minute to reflect personally on the mountain of research I have compiled and posted over the last few weeks.  Before beginning work on this project I never imagined I’d ever take an interest in the particulars of the Civil War.  While I’ve always liked history, I have never enjoyed focusing on the battles fought and blood spilled.  But as I uncovered information layer by layer, person by person, something happened to me, and now, as we begin to tie it all together, I find myself thirsty for new information about a subject that has become near and dear to my heart.

The first spark of love for this subject began by reading Bethlehem Boy.  It was an opportunity to follow one man’s journey.  James Peifer grew up mere blocks away from the house I currently live in, and not only did he write letters with an almost religious fervor, he wrote them with love, hope and intellect.  Each one paints a picture; not only is it a firsthand account of battle, but it is also an artful look at the words that kept their author alive.

I went from reading Peifer’s letters to wading through the massive binder of research collected by my predecessor and friend, Mariel Iezonni.  While all the information helped fill out my understanding of the war, it was always the letters that captivated me most deeply.  And thus began a hunt for more letters.

Combing through the smallest print I’ve ever seen to find the hidden jewels that lay printed in the Moravian newspaper was painstaking and totally with it.  The biggest joy was linking the letters printed in the paper to the other events highlighted on the same day.  It was at this point that the city of Bethlehem itself became tangible and real.  From lists of what was sold at market to write ups on the musical entertainments of the day, I drew color from the black and white text.  One day I even found a short article about Rag Parties and how girls would get together to make rugs out of old rags, complete with prizes for the most impressive creations.  I have rugs in my home that were made during this time period by my great great grandmother, and that little article delighted me because of the direct connection to my personal history.

In the end though, all this research has lead me to more questions than answers.  Peifer’s writing always made me wonder, “If this is what he’s writing home about, what also happened that was too difficult to share with his sister?”  Peifer’s letters are so interesting, but they made me wish for the letters his sister wrote back in return.  What did she have to say?  Every time I finished another day’s worth of local news I was always left wondering what some of the more ambiguous texts were hinting at.  What was not fit to print? What was the whole story?

I may never know the whole story, I may always crave more information, but I am closer than I could have ever imagined to the history that lay quite literally under my feet.  Now, when I walk through Nisky Hill, not only can I appreciate the beauty of my surroundings, but I can walk past the great men who fought for our country and say, “I know you and I thank you.”

The Wolle / Butts Correspondence

Little by little I have been highlighting the research for A Resting Place, and today the spotlight is on the Wolle/Butts correspondence.

The whole letters are what is linked above, and quotes from the letters, as well as photos of the real documents follow below.  These letters were so important to our research because it gave us a human perspective from the confederate point of view.  The letters tell a tale of a father who wants the best for his daughter and his family above all else.  I hope our readers enjoy these letters as much as Touchstone has.

Chris Morris, teacher at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts, plays Butts in A RESTING PLACE. Photography © h scott heist 12

Reverend Wolle was the headmaster at the Moravian Seminary for Girls.  He corresponded with all the parents of his pupils and was very well respected for be a kind and reasonable man.  The following six letters were written to him by Jason Butts, a man from Georgia who sent his daughter Kittie to be educated at Moravian Seminary right before the war began.

In the last Butts letter he is a prisoner on board of the Fisher-King ship, which is a Northern battleship.  The final letter is from Edward Pierrepont.  He writes to Wolle saying that Butts will be released as soon as Butts declares allegiance to the North, which he does not.  We have no further documents to know what happened next.

12/21/1860 — This is the first letter in a string of 6, from Butts to Wolle.  Butts is from Georgia, and is writing to the headmaster of Moravian Seminary for girls, where his daughter Kitty Butts is attending school.  The bulk of this letter is simply a father arranging for her daughter to travel to New York City for a school trip and to see some family there. Butts only alludes to the war in his post script, where he writes that South Carolina has seceded from the Union.

“The wires have this evening conveyed the news here that South Carolina has seceded, and while I write the bells are

A look at a letter written to Rev. Wolle from Jason Butts over 150 years ago

ringing cannon firing and drums beating.  Considering the dire necessity for this course and this seems a mournful dirge to me than of rejoicing.  Other states will soon follow.”

12/31/1860 — In this letter, Butts reaffirms his faith in Wolle and the Seminary. He assures Wolle that he will continue to send his daughter there, despite Wolle’s seminary being a Northern institution. However, in the rest of the letter, Butts argues for the war from a Southern perspective.

“I regret extremely the determination of my friends to withdraw their children’s friends from school.  Mr. Hines and Mr. Strozier both applied to me to know what I was going to do about my Daughter and I told them that I had places my Daughter at school to be educated and not to learn politics, and urged them both to let the young ladies remain here, and I thought they were satisfied and I felt astonished when I saw that they had sent on for them.”

“Why right here in this interior town of ours, there have been not less than eighteen or twenty of our slaves enticed away.  All lost to the owners except two who after tasting the cup of freedom in the Northern States and in Canada have returned home to their owners of their own free will.”

“The northern mind has educated itself into the belief that slavery is wrong and consequently they hate the slaveholder – this has brought about a corresponding feeling of hatred, intensified, in the minds of the Southern people – Such being the case is it bit better for all parties that the Government should divvy and let each party pursue its own course unmolested by the other.”