It's amazing what shaking loose some blocks can do. Once I realized what was holding me back, it's like the dam opened, and the flow of stories started coming to me. Stories and voices, free and flowing. Not just for one play but for a couple of them that I'm working on right now. I opened up transcripts for all of them, and out they rolled, roaring in my ears, wave after wave of voices! I found out how to use one particular story I'd been thinking about. An older man, during the 50's or so, was a ditch digger and well digger. He was slim, so slim he'd shimmy down inside of wells to dig them or clear them of debris so they'd flow again. (Is he who I was looking for this month?!) Then he'd be hauled back up on the rope that held the bucket. he was often warned that the bucket was gonna crack him in the head and split his head open, and he said "No, I'd just dodge it, besides, nothing bad happens to me". His name was Sammy, and he took care of everybody's well in town. Everybody knew him, and he walked everywhere he went. When he was walking down the road one day , a young man he knew, who'd recently returned from military training, stopped and waved. Sammy, the ditch digger, waved to him, palm up, fingers to his forehead, a slick, English salute. The man was utterly surprised and asked what he was doing and Sammy says to the uniformed man, "I hear you been flying them planes. That is an awesome thing, sir." The uniformed man told Sammy to stand at ease and asked how he knew how to salute so sharply. "Were you in World War II Sammy?" "No, I been too old for that. I was in the Great War." This especially astonished the uniformed young man. (I forgot to mention that Sammy is an African American.) Sammy tells him he started off unloading ships. After a while, they said

"if any of you fellows ain’t scared of bombs, you can go up and work in the trenches and tote white boys in and food in and out and tote white boys out, the wounded and dead ones."

Sammy says, "I told them I was able and wasn’t scared and I’d go."

He had about two bushels of bread and ten gallons of soup on his back. Two bushels in the front and the kettle on the back.

"Them trenches were good and deep. You didn’t have to stoop over to keep from getting shot. I went on in there and the fellow said 'go on up to the end, there is a wounded man up there and you need to tote him on out.'

"I got my soup kettle off and got all the bread out and got to the fellow and a man said, 'ain’t no use to worry about him, he’s dead. Besides the German’s quit dropping them shells on us, the bombs quit going off. So you know what's coming?' And I tell him no sir.

He said do you know how to load a rifle?

Oh, yeah, I’m from South Carolina, I know how to load a rifle.

He said do you know how to shoot?

Oh, yeah, I’m from South Carolina.

He said, well if you know how to shoot, you get up here and shoot. You don’t mind doing it?

No I don’t mind doing it.

He said I’ll load them for you.

The uniformed man was hooked on every word. Sammy quit talking, and he asked him, Well, Sammy, what did you do?

Sammy looked far out, like he could see it all playing in the field in front of him. Standing there near the ditch in the road, the young man beside him could almost see it to as Sammy continued the story.

"I dug myself in. I got up there and he said when they start coming, I was to start shooting. "

"You started shooting with the rifle?"

Yes sir.

I said where’d you shoot?

I shot the belt buckle. I done like the man said, he said don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.

"Well what did they look like?"

"They was fine looking boys, they was blonde headed and blue eyed."

How’d you know they were blond headed?

"Well the helmet would fall off when they hit the ground."

"they were that close?"

"oh yeah."

"They weren’t shooting back?"

"No, they weren’t shooting back. They weren’t shooting at a black man, they ain’t never seen a black man before. They thought I was a dead white man. Don’t you know the white man turns black when he’s dead?"

"No I didn’t."

They both stood there for a moment, looking out on the field. Then the young man asks Sammy, "Sammy did you ever get any veterans bonus from World War I?"

"No, sir I never got a nickel from them."

"Sammy do you have the paper?"

"Yes, sir I got the paper, got my discharge."

"Well you get that and I’m gonna take it and see if you can at least get your veterans bonus."

Sammy got it to the young soldier that same weekend. The young soldier took it to the veterans officer, and three weeks later Sammy got a check from the United States government. It was almost one thousand dollars and it knocked Sammy off from digging and cleaning wells. His time in the trenches was finally over.

Nobody ever got another well cleaned out. But the timing was good, because tenant houses were getting running water by this time. I don’t know how old he was when he died but he’s buried across from the Webb Wildlife Center. He’s got his company number and engineering company on his tombstone.

I started working with this story and realized where I want to take it. A story about taking care of your brother, and recognizing a brother, beyond color, beyond class, beyond generations. It's not even so much a war story. It wasn't about the glory of killing Germans or anything like that. (Good heavens, I have a German sister in law and my brother lives there.) Its more than all of those things. It's a recognition of the self in another person- in another generation, in another color, in another class. A recognition that I and you are not so far apart on any of these scales.

There's a lot more, as you well know. But wow, this is a voice I was looking for. This is the story I got when I gave myself permission to just open up and listen. Sammy, who unblocked people's wells for years and years, came in and unblocked mine, too, decades after he stopped walking this earth. Why do I say that? He still walks this earth-- through story. And in telling his story, we don't just keep him alive, he keeps me alive, too. Thanks, Sammy, you came just in time.

Jules Corriere - General Commentary

I'm sitting with transcripts right now, working on my newest play. I've been doing a lot of thinking. Some of it has been thinking about the fact that I've lost count now of the number of plays I've written. More than thirty, now. A decade ago when I was writing my first plays, I was so eager, so quick to jump on a story, and perhaps, more brave than I find myself now.

I'm sitting here trying to find an honest voice to speak this next play. I don't know if it's wisdom or fear that holds the question I'm struggling with-- or which question to answer. I used to ask myself "What do I write about". But lately, I find myself asking the question "What can I write about".

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November 10, 2008

Game Days
Jules Corriere - Franklin County, Georgia

Note to self: When doing a project in such close proximity to the University, do NOT schedule a performance during the GA-FLA game weekend. YIKES. The cast and audience both dwindle. But now that the game is behind us in Franklin County, the ticket sales have sky-rocketed. We sold out Saturday performances, and came close to sold out on Friday. Phew. And there is luckily one more weekend for this season's run of "The Last Hard Times".

We've experienced the football phenomenon for years. Cast members who are cheerleaders or football players or play in the band, as well as parents who work the concession stand or direct traffic. These are usually Friday night high school football games. Our cast size goes down on those nights during the fall. We also expect smaller local audiences on those nights. One time, we opened a show in Winona, Mississippi, a day late. Our original opening night had to be moved, because it was also the Homecoming Game for the town's High School, and they take their football and homecoming very seriously. We looked at cast conflicts, as well as ticket sales, and realized we weren't going to have cast or audience! Not to mention-- it was a custom there to shoot off the old cannon every time a goal was scored. The football field was only about a quarter of a mile away from the open-air barn where we performed the show. Imagine canons going off every fifteen minutes or so. I say, no thanks to that-- we had enough of that when we worked in Rio-- when the canons were the real thing! then, in Colquitt, we have volunteer firemen in the cast who run traffic for the football games, so we lose a bunch of men on those nights.

But in Franklin County, we have discovered the fall season is very tough because we've got Friday night high school football games, as well as the Saturday College game days, and then Sunday is the pro-game days if the Atlanta Falcons are playing a home game. Zowie.

The ticket sales increased exponentially this week, after the Ga/Fla game. (We won't talk about who won.) It's certainly making us think about scheduling for the remount. You just can't fight football, can you? Aside from that, the remount of the production has been a great experience. I saw some amazing transformations since last year. One of our teen girls, Mariyln, who we could have produced a CD that just said "Louder, Marilyn, louder" during last year's production was clear, loud and completely in control this year. I watched as Leola, who didn't have a line in last year's production take on a pretty good size role this year, and she performed powerfully, and has one of those voices that lets the audience know, "Sit back, listen up, I got this." I've also had a lot of fun watching John, who has probably one of the most dignified roles in the play- that of General Phillips-- turn around and just be incredibly hilarious in the moonshine song in the next act. And what a dancer he is, too. And I've seen connections made through the process that introduced people who otherwise may never have been introduced, and where there was once nothing, there is now relationship. So that when audiences come, they witness not only the play unfolding, and stories of their own lives and towns unfolding, but relationships as well, as the cast works to hold each other up-- offering lines when they are forgotten, offering support to change sets for each other, offering up what's needed when someone needs them. They witness all of these things. Except, of course, on game day, when they're watching the football game. Which is another kind of performance. But with a football game, somebody's got to lose before it's over.

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October 16, 2008

Finding New Meaning
Jules Corriere - Franklin County, Georgia

Continuing to catch up from the computer meltdown…here’s a posting from last week.

We arrived in Franklin County, ready to rehearse the remount of “The Last Hard Times”. Ticket sales are brisk, even in the shaky economy. Our first scene, “Cardboard shoes and newspaper linens”, held with mary and And Robin, took on an entirely new meaning. We’re having some real dialogue about these scenes, vis-à-vis the current financial situation. This play was set during the last great depression, and this scene in particular tells of how some people in Carnesville turned every room in their house into a bedroom to take in boarders to make money. Including turning the kitchen into a bedroom. It was the only way to make some money and survive for these families. Another family in Carnesville saw that happening, and opened a sort of coffe-shop/diner. So kids would wake up in the morning, get dressed, and go across the square to get a small bite to eat at the café, which took not only pennies and nickels for the coffee and breads, but also used the barter system to keep running- eggs, chickens, ham, vegetables, milk, were traded for service.

We stopped the regular rehearsal of the scene to talk about the words of the scene, and the story, and how it has taken on new meaning since we originally did this show in June. The financial world has changed so much in those four months, it’s a different world people are living in now, and these stories have a new power to them. Mary Ann said she finds strength in performing, because it gives hope “They did it, they made it throiugh, we can too.” We talked about the idea of time-banking, something Richard and I are beginning to bring into the field of community performance, to animate avaiable resources in the cmomunity, and to get it working to proved goods and services, even in times where cash money is not available. So many of these stories, like Cardboard Shoes, ( in which cardboard was used to replace the sole of a shoe after it wore out) illustrate how people in their region, 70 years ago, made a life thruogh such a system- barter system, time banking, however you want to call it. After our discussion with the actors, the scene took on a meaning much deeper that it was originally performed. The actors are really feeling the words, that come from storeis expressed by people who lost everything in the big crash of ’29. Cast members, whose portfolio balances dropped by as much as 40% this week, are bringing a new experience to their roles, and the result is rich. And bittersweet.

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October 15, 2008

Ordinary Folks
Jules Corriere - Swamp Gravy

Complete computer meltdown has kept me from posting regular blogs. But I think I’ve got the problem cured. So, to catch up, I’ll post several that I was unable to post earlier.

As I’m getting ready to leave swamp gravy, several things strike me about this year’s production. First, is how timely it is. It’s set during the great depression. Not this one, but the last one. The show starts out with a man looking for work, talking about when the banks closed in Kessler. About people losing everythign they had. He’s confronted by a man who tells him he lost everything. The man says “So did I” How much did you lose, he asked. And the man says “I had three dollars and forty seven cents in that bank. The fella tells him “You ain’t lost nothin.” And the man says, “No, I lost everything I had.” And kept moving on. He goes on to speak about how the rich people got poorer, but they still aint poor like him, they still walk around like they have the pwer because they do, they still have the names everyone is afraid of. And that the real damage done to the regular folks of this countrywasn’t so much the loss of money, but the loss of hope. “I can do without money, did so most of my life, but how do I do without hope”. The show opened just a week after AIG failed, and 2 weeks after Lehman Brothers went under.
(Insert here- as I post this piece, written a couple of weeks ago, the stock market plunged almost a thousand points.)
The play start out without hope, so of course, the play is about hope.
The other thing that struck me about this play was a particular story. I really do love all of the stories in this play, and I had plenty of transcripts ot choose from for this play. But this one story in particular I’m thinking of wasn’t even in the first draft of the play. I wrote it after the first draft of the play had been read publicly. And though it wasn’t one of the original stories that moved me , it becamse one of the drarest to me in this play. In that small page and a half long scene sits the whole reason for doing this work. It’s a microcosm of community performance. The scene is called “Ordinary Folks”. In it, the character who is with the WPA’s Federal Writer’s Program has a list of people she’s supposed to interview for the WPA’s folk lore project. But when she arrives, with the guidance of an older resident, the WPA writer starts to go to some people other than those on her list of interview subjects. At the beginning of this scene, a woman exclaims to the WPA writer that she’s nothing special, just an ordinary person. She talks with the WPA person a while, holding her nephew’s hand. As she talks about how ordinary her life is, she remembers, that her great grandfather came to Colquitt on a covered wagon with everything he owned, and was there for the founding of the town. The nephew, who’s hand she is holding, would one day become Georgia’s Lt. Governor, Peter Zack Geer. I can’t tell you how many interivews I’ve had with people that start out the same way, not just in Colquitt, but around the country- around the world- it was the same in Rio, and London and Edinburgh. Almost all of them start out by saying “My family, oh, we’re just ordinary folks, there isn’t anything special about us.” And it’s that, exactly that, which makes this work so delicious- as they then go on to spill forth a story, profound and beautiful, full of wisdom and grace, about how to live in this world and how they made it this far. The extraordinary stories of ordinary people. I know that as I am called in to do other projects, this scene can be used to illustrate why it is we do this work--how it transforms a community or an individual- when it recognizes it is more than it believes it is. And perhaps this story is so dear to me because I come from Community Performance, and the same thing happened to me. An ordinary person who, in doing community performance, recognized there may be something more to me than I saw in myself.

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October 09, 2008

Walking
Jules Corriere - Swamp Gravy

aWalking

One last bit on Swamp Gravy—this has to do with a tie in, not only to hard times, high gas prices (or no gas), and also to healthy living. When I got to town a few weeks ago, there wasn’t any gas to be found in the town. But that was OK. I needed enough to get me back to the airport. We parked the car and walked to most everywhere we needed to go. We walked to the theater for work, we walked to the grocery store, to the drug store, to the coffee shop, to meetings. Usually, we’d fill the tank up 3 times while we’re there. This time, we used ¼ of a tank of gas in the whole 6 weeks of rehearsal. That gas was used for trips to the home depot in Bainbridge, to buy lumber and supplies we couldn’t get locally.

In one instance, we’d been on a walk. There were some broken tree branches after a big wind storm. The branches would be perfect for the bottle tree we needed in front of the spooky lady’s house on one of our stages. So Richard grabbed one enormous branch and I grabbed another and we started dragging them down the road. Usually, we’d have gotten someone with a truck to do this, but we thought, let’s just stick to the no-gas policy. We were trying to come up with stories, in case anyone stopped to ask us what we were doing as we walked down the road dragging giant tree limbs behind us. In the end, we figured the best story was the truth, and one that no one would doubt.

“Uh, we’re with Swamp Gravy…”

No other explanation necessary. We could hear the interior conversation in the townfolks’ minds: “Those Swamp Gravy people are always doing something strange. Bless their hearts.”

Others in the cast are walkers, too. The Stobers. Kristina. Some others. I’m hoping that by continuing our no-gas policy that others will, next season, begin to do the same- not just to fight the gas crunch, but to fight the wieght crunch. It’s all part of a healthy lifestyle- fewer emmissions, and a good workout. Not to mention the chance to slow down and take in all the pretty things along the way that you might miss when you’re driving. Could be something beautiful in nature. Or it could be a person with a terrific story that could be used in the next play, like Nancy, who I met walking the other day. She shared her story (and her shade umbrella) with me the other day as we came upon each other walking. She was holding her umbrella, shielding herself from the sun, and told me this was the custom in her country- to always carry an umbrella. Then, she told me of her life in the Phillipines, and then coming here to Colquitt. Terrific story. It gives me, personally, so many more opportunities to do the work I do, and at a deper level, by slowing down and being open to what is right around me.

We’re walking in Franklin County, now, too, where we can. We’re living in a beautiful house on the lake. It even has a hot tub and a private boat dock. (whee!) The house is a distance away from the theater. So, when we drive into town, we park the car and walk to where we need to go- to the theater, or to the Depot for meetings, or to the grocery store. Our cast members from Royston and Canon are car-pooling, and many of them are doing what we’re doing- walking to the Grocery store about ½ mile down the roadfrom the theater, instead of driving there. Carpooling is big in this cast. Their play is titled, appropriately enough, “The Last Hard Times” – Not to be confused with this hard times. So the things we heard about in the play, we’re doing now. Like walking. Like ride-sharing. And even though Richard and I have to use the car a little bit more here, we still try to get in those 10,000 steps a day. And some of our actors are getting inspired to do the same thing. And—Richard and I were inspired to start this after a friend of ours, Chris Wieland, who works with the international YMCA, was talking about their promotion of the 8,000 steps a day routine, when Chris was in Colquitt working on our upcoming Community Performance film, “The Garden of Gratitude”. What I find so wonderful in working with the community of citizens in the town and the community of artists from out of town, is the huge mixture of wisdom, that we can then bounce around and between us, find a good use and a way to implement it. All for now. Off to some meetings.

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October 03, 2008

Crashing Computers and Opening Night
Jules Corriere - Swamp Gravy

I've just had a cup of soothing Vista tea, in response to the major computer crash I experienced this week. Can you imagine, opening a show tonight, we're in final tech week, and I don't have the use of my most precious. Richard offered that I could use his computer, but I want MY computer, it's set up MY way and it has MY stuff. Or, at least it Did have my stuff. I'm glad I backed up all of my files before I left, because in the crash, it had to be totally restarted under original factory settings, so I now don't have any of my current research with me. Argggggh. I won't have it until after I get home, and I still have another show to go to Sunday in north GA. But, getting ahead of myself here. Arg. Other than that, I'm fine.

We've had some more community activity around the project. We walked out the door yesterday, and Dot Wainwright, the volunteer coordinator, had set up a wonderful display outside the door with a scarecrow, and used the pumpkins that were grown in the community garden that is next door to the theater now. The scarecrow had a sign that said Welcome to Swamp Gravy.

The small souvenir room that we used to use was vacated, and Louey (costume designer) and I turned it in to a kids room. We put carpet down, hung curtains, set up a dvd, put teh playpen in one corner, away from the noise, and lined the shelves with toys, coloring books, card games, puzzles, play doh. The kids loved it, but the parents especially loved it because it gives the kids a place to be, and be safe, and have fun, and be out of trouble, if it came looking for any of them. We've got lots of little kids in the cast this year, which is beautiful, its how they learn about and participate intheir heritage and culture. And...it's really hard to do day after day,rehearsal after rehearsal. Even adults have a hard time holding focus that long. So, the kids now have a place to "be".

We spent the morning and rest of the day doing last minute touches- from 10:00 am on--running through scenes with actors, setting new light cues, adding more to the set. Before we knew it, it was evening, and we had maybe 20 minutes to run home, shower and change. Then,The audience started coming in, and we were ready for lift off. And the cast really lifted this play. There was a huge buzz in the room at intermission, because so much of what is in the play is what is happening this week. Stock market crashes, bank closings, farm foreclosures. Stories about not being able to drive cars anymore because nobody had money for gas. The mystery of how story can tap into the here and now was striking. And all of the hard work done by the cast paid off with a standing O.

It is a strong show, and they've worked really hard, too. It's probably one of the strongest openings I've seen here in Colquitt. We had a really good preview Wed. night, and it was almost scary-good. We warned them about the trick of letting down your guard after a good final rehearsal. You know how over-confidence can fool a cast after a great final preview. But it didn't happen, they didn't let down. Sure, there was a missed line here or there, but they were such pros and handled it with such grace and the audience really loved them. They're strong, and ready to rocket forward.

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