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Interview with Ed and Irene Scharf, community collaborators/participants
Interview with Ed Scharf, descendent of Texas Freethinkers and researcher for Dianne Monroe’s "Comfort," a play about the Freethinkers Ed Scharf: We were kind of instrumental in moving the stone into Comfort Park as a memorial to the Freethinkers. Keith Hennessy: This is probably the first play about the Freethinkers, at least the first one that I know about, written outside the community of descendents of the Freethinkers. From that point of view, what do you think about it? ES: I think they did a marvelous job of capturing the emotions that must have permeated through the community, you know, everyone being impacted. Actually, some of them probably have relatives on the Confederate side that might have been at the massacre site, as well. It really was a shattering experience for everyone. KH: What do you think about the timing of this play in relation to — you know, it is a play that takes place 140 years ago — what do you think about its happening now, in terms of the stone and everything? ES: I’m not sure how to respond to that. I think the timing is good. It hasn’t been very long since the stone was removed — the winter solstice of all things — I think timing is good.
Interview with Irene Scharf, wife of primary researcher for Dianne Monroe’s "Comfort"; participated in Critical Response sessions during the development of the play Irene Scharf: I am related to this fellow over here who did most of the research on the Freethinkers of the hill country. Dianne has been very kind to invite us to some of the readings. This was our first time at the full performance. We enjoyed it very much. Keith Hennessy: What is your experience of having this story come to life? IS: Well, I knew quite a bit about the Freethinker history through my husband’s research, but seeing the emotion, feeling the emotion and trying to recreate what it might have been like for people living at that time — there was quite a lot of persecution. It was ironic, because they came to Texas for freedom. They were fleeing the autocracy and the tyranny of the church and the state. They walked right into a slave state in the Civil War. It was not an easy time. Their dreams were sort of shattered in many ways. KH: Earlier we were talking about how art gets funded. There is a particular specialty that Jump-Start has, which is that they make original works of art that are related to the actual people that are around them. I don’t know if you want to say anything about that, or this theater and how they produce that. IS: Yeah. I think that is tremendous. I’ve been very sad about what the federal government is trying to do to end the NEA and defund a lot of the arts programs because artists are controversial. They are to say things maybe that other people don’t want to hear. Everybody has the freedom to not hear it, but certainly they should have the freedom to say it. I think the defunding has taken our country in the wrong direction. I think I said earlier that if we spent as much money on funding the arts as we did on sports, in my opinion, we would be a lot better off in this country. Art is freedom of expression. It is one method of expressing whatever we believe, and whatever we hold dear. After all that is the foundation of our American democracy. Keith Hennessy is a Canadian-born, interdisciplinary artist choreographer and community arts organizer living in community in San Francisco. Hennessy's solo work has been produced throughout the U.S., in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, including several gay and lesbian performance festivals. Since 1998, he has performed with Cahin-Caha, cirque bâtard, a French/American, mongrel circus based in France. Hennessy was a member of the performance collective Core and was a founding member and principle collaborator in Contraband, a San Francisco-based performance company. Hennessy co-directs 848 Community Space. He is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists, and serves radical cultural agendas as a consultant, director, teacher, curator and agitator. |
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