Letter from an Artist: The Wallpaper Project

The Wallpaper Project: December 2003 shows at Wapakoneta Middle School

I recently sent information to the Community Arts Network about The Wallpaper Project (the oral-history organization I coordinate) and “From Here,” the performance we created that toured all of Ohio all last year. Linda Burnham wrote back, asking if I would instead submit a story for CAN's "Letters from an Artist" format. Her response was more than kind, but I laughed a bit to myself about the word “artist.” I don’t know that I ever, ever thought of myself as an artist in 2003.

I was an accountant, keeping track of the pennies collected and spent on the project. I was a publicist. I was the in-a-pinch piano player. I was a reluctant diplomat. I was a shipping agent. I was an evangelist for a cause that was so dear to me. I was good cop and I was bad cop (on occasion, simultaneously). I’m not suggesting that I excelled at any of those occupations. But artist? Never.

To explain: Since 1997, The Wallpaper Project has been gathering oral histories from residents of Auglaize County, Ohio (population: 44,000), and using the collected information in public arts and humanities programming. From those 400 interviews, we’ve created exhibits and library programs and newspaper series and school residencies. But the biggest, most popular component of The Wallpaper Project has always been the annual oral-history play. For six consecutive years, a cast of 25-30 — most of them high-school students — has shared the stories of Auglaize County with the people of Auglaize County.

I’m sure that I don’t have to explain to most of you how powerful theater is when based upon the stories of the community. People hear familiar names and places and feel connected to the events on stage. They realize that history doesn’t happen somewhere else; it happens where we live, and we all have the power to effect change. Oral-history performance can address the most controversial subjects on the stage — domestic violence, homophobia, racism — and they’re not scary, not nearly as threatening. They’re still awful, of course, but we’re suddenly not so afraid to talk about them. We connect the past — good and bad — with the present — good and bad — and figure out how to work together for a better future.

Where We Got Our Name

One of the earlier interviews I conducted (1998) was with local auctioneer Eugene Myers and his wife, Audrey. Mr. Myers was a wonderful man and quite gregarious. On the tape, his wife gets in a “Hello, Rachel” and a “Goodbye, Rachel,” and that’s about it. He told many fascinating stories about his 60 years in the auctioneering business. And one of his best stories gave us our name, The Wallpaper Project.

Old people who went through the Depression became scared of banks. I can remember if you had a million dollars, you couldn’t buy a loaf of bread, because it was all froze, see… And they became scared of [the bank], see…

We had one auction east of Wapak on Middle Pike. Three sisters, who never married, all lived together in that house. Ed Stroh was president of the bank at that time, and he said, "Gene, there’s money in that house, and I can’t find it. Whatever you do when you get there — watch! There’s money in that house!"

So, we were getting the stuff out, and, in those days, the neighbors’d come in to help get stuff out. I got a yardstick and every time they got a picture off the wall, I started tapping. And I found a hollow. We got up there and there were five layers of paper. It had been papered over five times behind that picture. There was $17,000 in that hole, in that wall.

How many times have I called somebody who was recommended for an interview and the person would say, “Oh, I’d love to help you out, but you don’t want to talk to me. I don’t think I could help you. I’ve never done anything important.” We believe that people’s stories are truly the treasures of their lives, yet are so often hidden away. Our responsibility, then, is to rediscover this richness of experience before it’s lost forever. That’s the treasure we’re looking for, and so that’s why we call ourselves The Wallpaper Project.

Developing the Statewide Project

People in Auglaize County love The Wallpaper Project. Their response gave us the inspiration to believe that perhaps this effort could be replicated across Ohio, perhaps in conjunction with the state’s 200th birthday in 2003.

A state is an artificial creation, of course, and many were quick to point out the almost incomprehensible diversity in “the Ohio experience.” What do people in Cleveland (or Columbus or Toledo) have in common with people in Auglaize County (German-settled farmland) or the vast expanse of hilly mining and timber country in southeast Ohio (our state’s contribution to Appalachia)? Is a common understanding of Ohio even possible? We thought we’d find out.

In 2000, The Wallpaper Project successfully applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to determine the feasibility of the project and figure out the logistics (costs, schedule, host responsibilities vs. Wallpaper responsibilities, etc.). We did mass mailings, made a ton of phone calls, created a recruitment video explaining oral-history performance. The concept seemed to be falling together.

Communities — represented by historical societies, arts councils, chambers of commerce, schools, etc. — were making the commitment to be part of the tour. (Small towns/counties joined much more quickly than Ohio’s big cities, where we actually had to recruit project partners.) Eventually, tour stops were scheduled for almost every weekend in 2003 between March and mid-December, except holidays.

I should say that The Wallpaper Project had originated in collaboration with Great Lakes Theater Festival, Cleveland’s classic theater company (then known for its community outreach). During the NEH consultation grant, the tour emerged as an effort that would be professionally driven. That is, a company of theater professionals would travel the state with an oral-history-based play, involving local people as extras, production, crew, publicity coordinators, etc. This design was, in fact, contrary to what we had enjoyed in Auglaize County, but then seemed like the only way to ensure artistic consistency from location to location.

We went back to the NEH in the spring of 2002 for “implementation money” — lots of it. Backing the project were the Ohio Arts Council, Ohio Humanities Council, Ohio Historical Society, the state’s best-known oral-history scholars and a diverse collection of communities. With the professional company and a 45-week schedule, we were going to need lots of money, something between $750,000 and $1 million. We started with the NEH, looking for about a third of the project costs.

Learning that Setback Doesn’t Equal Defeat

We didn't get the money. From our reading of the review panel's comments, we weren't "academic" enough.  We weren't going to take a c.1920 story about belling and talk about the "centuries-old French custom known as charivari" (an actual comment from a grant reviewer). True. Ours was a 20th-century American-history effort. And it was not a university-based initiative, but truly of the people (with plenty of scholar participation, I should emphasize). We couldn’t be what we weren’t.

Let me skip most of the rest of 2002. Our timing for any other fundraising was terrible as well, arriving as we did in the midst of the stock-market decline. For several months we tried and tried to find money — in the tens and hundreds of thousands range — but it wasn’t there for us.

What was the alternative? Canceling was a very real possibility, but unthinkable for me. Someone suggested waiting a year, taking more time to try to find funding. I was exhausted, as was everyone else who had tried to raise money. And I didn’t feel that the communities we had gathered, the connection we had made, would survive a year’s delay, a delay that really didn’t hold assurances of any more success.

So we regrouped. And this is what happened.

At a December 2002 meeting of all hosts, we asked each community to find $1,000. We figured out that we could put together a project for $1,000 a stop. It wouldn’t be the project we all had envisioned for more than a year, but we could make something worthwhile of all the work that had been accomplished so far. The hosts — the most wonderful people in the world — said yes. Hurdle #1 was cleared. At the same time, at the same meeting, the executive director of the Ohio Humanities Council pledged $25,000 to support the tour. What a wonderful surprise. Ultimately, the Ohio Arts Council supported the project as well (its grants committee met three months later), and we went forward.

How the Tour Worked

Each community had contributed a minimum of 20 transcribed oral histories, according to the thematic guidelines we had developed. The play was to be based upon broad themes of 20th-century history:

• The Rituals of Work, Leisure and Worship in the Family and Community
• National/World Events on a Local Level (from the influenza pandemic of 1918 to the Great Depression to America’s 20th-century wars)
• Changing Technology, and
• Intolerance and Civil Rights.

Our utterly amazing playwright Eric Coble created a template to the play, stories that appeared in every performance location. Then he created almost 40 personalized versions, with extra local stories for each location. The two-act, 100-minute "From Here: A Century of Voices from Ohio" was born.

June 2003 shows at Wauseon High School (northwest Ohio, rich farm country west of Toledo)

With the money in hand, we could hire two professional directors for the duration of the tour. These were people who understood the oral-history performance concept, people who had the ability (flexibility!) to work with local volunteers of wide-ranging skill levels to put this play on its feet. The directors would leapfrog across the schedule, each spending a little less than two weeks in each location.

The host communities then provided the rehearsal/performance space, housing for the director (and actor, if needed), and plenty of volunteers. We provided the script, the directors, the coordinator, lots of logistical information, curriculum supplements, 200 posters and publicity packets. We also facilitated support programming, including story circles and student workshops.

Locations for performances varied across the state, from the First Congregational Church of Columbus to the brand new Vinton County High School Auditeria (or was it Cafetorium?) to the formerly abandoned Beaver School Gym, a fledgling community center. Nine wood boxes were placed across the stage. Rather than employ costumes that evoked one character or period in time, each actor wore a combination of denim and white. In addition to the palm-sized binders for the script, the actors carried wood sticks, similar to shovel or broom handles. As one or more actors spoke, other cast members created stage pictures. The boxes became chairs, school desks, the roofs of houses, or even seats in a movie theater or on an amusement-park ride. The sticks became farm tools, guns, picket signs, flood waters and more.

In many sites, the cast had no previous theater experience. During the brief but intense rehearsal period, these volunteers were empowered to become the storytellers for their community. Over the course of the tour, almost 500 people participated as cast members.

My favorite part of the tour was watching the change that occurred between the first tentative reading and the weekend of the show. In eight or nine rehearsals, the cast consumed the material, truly made those stories their own. Their enthusiasm, energy and sincerity were far more valuable than any "acting" experience. They weren’t acting anyway. They became the people whose stories they told.

If you want a great cast member, find a bachelor hog farmer. In Fort Recovery (population: 1,300), our cast included teachers, a hospice nurse, the mayor and village administrator, and that hog farmer. He told his 32 nieces and nephews to see the show. He helped out at the Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast and invited everyone who came through the serving line. He taped up posters and passed out fliers and made our project his project. Thanks to him and rest of the equally great cast, guess how many students and adults in Fort Recovery came to the show? More than 1230, our best attendance all year.

I have lots of favorite memories, many involving meeting the original storytellers whose experiences appeared in the play. We ate a replica of Commodore Hazard Perry’s c.1805 wedding cake in a performing arts center not far from Lake Erie. We performed in front of a barn for many of the 3000 bicyclists attending the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. During intermission in Chesterhill (Appalachian Ohio) the audience walked outside as a group and watched a lunar eclipse. And then there was the time I chased a dog through the audience in that abandoned school gym — during the show, I mean. No, never mind, that wasn’t a favorite moment for me — just for everybody watching.

But my best memories lie with the friends we made, the connections we created across this indefinable state of ours. We touched the lives of some 25,000 people over the course of the tour, and they touched our lives as well. I was reminded again and again how many people are trying to do good things in the places they live, often with little or no help from their “leaders.” We have more in common than we ever imagined, whether we’re scattered across Ohio or across the globe.

Would I do it again? You bet. Just find me another state! I’m no actor, but I’m the person who’s always willing to chase the dog.

Peace. Thanks for all your good work.

Rachel Barber is the coordinator of The Wallpaper Project and produced the 2003 tour. She grew up in Wapakoneta, Ohio, where she still lives. She holds a degree in English from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, and attended the Graduate Seminar in Oral History at Columbia University.

Artists: Eric Coble served as playwright for "From Here: A Century of Voices from Ohio," for which he was also bestowed the title of co-producer. His current commissions include a work about voting rights (Eckard Theare Company, Florida) and a multi-site production about the Cuyahoga River (Cleveland Playhouse). He is the recipient of an NEA Theatre Residency Grant for 2003-2004. Maura Rogers directed throughout the tour, with Lyndsey Lantz, Chad Winters, Sarah Morton and Jay Smith also serving in this capacity.

Original CAN/API publication: April 2004