So it begins…

This Sunday kicked off the first rehearsal for A Resting Place.  With a cast of nearly 150 and six weeks to rehearse, this project guarantees no shortage of exciting moments.  The first meeting was held at the Arena Stage at Moravian College and was attended by the entire cast.  The first hour was devoted to trying to explain all the major moving part of the process and how everyone would be utilized.  After all the practical stuff was out of the way, we then read through the entire script while the cast was taken row by row to get measured for costumes.

In addition to the 30+ speaking roles in the play, there are over 100 chorus members.  The main function of the chorus is to perform large movement pieces that will illustrate the dialogue of the play.  These movement pieces will be created and choreographed by a team of assistant directors, including myself and the other apprentices here at Touchstone.  This will be my first adventure in creating movement work on such a large scale, and while it’s always scary to do something for the first time, I’m quite excited by the challenge and am looking forward to the process.

Last night we were lucky enough to have the playwright, Alison Carey, with us at Touchstone Theatre for a second reading of the script, followed by a discussion about what the cast thought of the play and the Civil War.  It’s so great to hear fresh voices and new insight into a project that has been close to me for the past year and a half.  The discussion reminded me of the value of the project, specifically how the topics surrounding the Civil War still hold relevance to the world we live in today.  The conversation circled around the debate of States Rights verses Slavery as the main source of conflict in the war, and how the battle between states rights verses national identity is at the center of many debates this election year. 

After this short but productive visit, Alison will be tweaking the script once more but sadly will not return to Bethlehem until it is time to see her baby being performed for the public.  That means it is now up to all of us to flesh out the production and create something for the whole community to be proud of.  I can’t wait.

Ms. Alison Carey: Playwright of A RESTING PLACE

Paths among the world’s small professional theater groups wind and intertwine with unpremeditated complicity. The reach is impressive. They watch each other when opportunities present through pilgrimage and conversation. Notes labeled: “later”  are jotted on small pieces of paper dropped in the desk drawer from which the hat tricks are pulled.

Bill George originally met Alison when her troop was performing in West Virginia. It was a journey, driving there with his son Sam simply to see the performance. Introductions, conversation and the general camaraderie of actors and carnies a long way from home built a beginning.

Perhaps the actors craft is a more precarious path than the road not taken.  As the road actually taken. John Wilkes Booth, P.T. Barnum, Josie Earp. Dan Rice. An adventure not for the timid.  But as I said: the demons and the angels fully noted, underlined, and folded. Carefully, labeled: “maybe some time” and everyone goes back to making what passes for a living in the world of brands, instant celebrities and “reality TV stars” exemplifying the old saw: “if you’re so dumb, why ain’t ya rich?”

Something happened years later. Pardon our French. Maestro Jacques Lecoq arrived – during the FESTIVAL OF CREATION, hosted by Touchstone and Lehigh University Theater– a massive celebration of his career and all the international movement theatre troops that it occasioned.

Lecoq regarded the detritus of the Bethlehem Steel works saying to Touchstone Ensemble members and former students at his Paris School, Mark McKenna & Jennie Gilrain (Mr. &Mrs.): “Something should be done there.”  Again noted to the Hat Trick drawer.

Bill remembered Alison and critical mass flirted from the ethers. Love bloomed into what would be Steelbound, the community based play about the end of the steel plant. Measuring community collaboration as success for community-based theater … Steelbound rang true.

So when the Civil War/Cemetery Project pecked its way out of its egg, old relationships beckoned. Old allegiances and alliances.

Its feet solidly beside the old, moving like dancers celebrating a solid performance by dancing at the cast party.

—-
H. Scott Heist
journalist in residence
Touchstone Theatre’s A RESTING PLACE

© h scott heist 12

Contributions are the work of H. Scott Heist, journalist in residence. Both photographs and copy are reserved. Use is by permission for the promotion and appreciation of the A RESTING PLACE project. All inquiries and comments are both invited and appreciated.

Cast Forward

A Taste of the Traffic

I wanted to take a moment and let you all know about the amazing turn out we had for our A Resting Place auditions.  I’m pleased to inform you all that we had over 100 people turn out over our two days of auditions.  It was great for all of us here at Touchstone to see such a large turn out. Touchstone has been dreaming of a cast of hundreds and now that vision is within our reach.  There will still be callback auditions for specialty acts and those who could not make it for the first round.  So it’s still not too late to join in on the fun!

What gets me charged is thinking about how many more people I will have connected to, played with, and created with during the course of the next several months.  I have been working on The Civil War/ Cemetery Project for over a year now, and up until now the majority of my work has been conducted alone in a room with lots of newspaper microfilm at my finger tips.  My favorite character from the research was a man named James Piefer.  He grew up on New Street and was one of the first men to sign up for the Civil War in Bethlehem, and on of the last to leave the war at its end.  There is an excellent collection of his letters and diary entries called Bethlehem Boy; it’s a must read for anyone looking for an insiders perspective of the Civil War.  He makes an appearance in A Resting Place, along with many more.  The time has come to share what I’ve learned so far and what I will learn as I get to know a hundred new people.    All this learning will be the basis for the blog posts yet to come.

As the cast begins to assemble, and the company moves into the big push, I can’t help thinking  about how exhilarating, educational and rewarding the upcoming months will be.  In addition to being a part of the cast, I will also be documenting our creative process from the inside.  This will be my first flirtation with film making, so I’m hoping to find others who have a love of documentary film to join my ranks.  The  forces are gathering and a great journey lies ahead.

If you would like to be a part of A Resting Place you should contact Emma Chong at emma@touchstone.org or 610-867-1689

From a Former Slave to a Former Master

A scan of the original letter, as posted in the New York Daily Tribune

It’s Black History Month and the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and what better way to embrace both than by taking a look at Mister Jourdan Anderson, a former slave from Tennessee, and his rich, bone-dry, deadpan letter to his former master, Colonel P.H. Anderson?

The letter was dictated and published in the 1865 New York Daily Tribune. In recent years, it has become a quiet, sparkling internet gem, as engaging a read now as it was a hundred and fifty years ago.

In it, Anderson cordially greets his former master:

I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. […] Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living.

He continues:

I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. […] Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

The letter is well worth reading in its entirety as a triumph of civility and wit.