The Prison Performing Arts Alumni Theatre Company recently presented two one-act plays written by members of the company. Unfortunately, they ran for only one weekend. They were very well done, both in writing and in performance, and I”m sorry you can no longer see them. They truly were “performing art.” They were not so much about a dramatic plot as they were about the personal reflections on their lives by the two main characters.

In “Go Before I Go,” by Hazel McIntire, we first see a daughter and her father having a drink in a bar. After a long and loving marriage, the father is now alone. The daughter is visiting the father in the town where she grew up and where he still lives. He wishes she would move back to the town, move in with him in their large old house. No, that she doesn’t want to do. When we next see her, she is back at the same bar, back in her old home town. Her father has died. She is taking care of business. And she has a drink in his honor, remembering his joke about Busch Beer. And remembering other things too. Playwright McIntire has written this as realistic conversation, but at times, infused with the memories and their emotions, the writing seemed to me to be verging on poetry.

The woman who is tending bar, also from this small town, shares in the fine dialogue, especially when the daughter returns after her father’s death. When the daughter leaves the bar to go home, the bartender has thoughts of her own, well phrased also, about the life and death she has observed. 

Jocelyn Padilla played the daughter, David Nonemaker played the father, Katie Leemon played the bartender. They all used the language admirably. Eric Satterfield directed. 

Katie Leemon wrote the second play, “Don’t Be a Hero, Thank You.” Write what you know, young writers are told, so Leemon has written about a woman who has recently been released after more than a decade in prison. The world has changed. She has changed. Her friends have changed. Some of her best friends are still in prison. Some are out. She speaks with them by phone, sharing the difficulties of adjustment with those who are out, trying to stay close friends with those who are still in. It was fascinating to see her skill in trying to do all of this, her pain when she felt she had failed her friends, her need for them to remain close. The play’s title is her little joke. It was what she wrote on the note to the teller at the bank she robbed. “Please don’t be a hero. Thank you.” In LaWanda Jackson’s many layered playing of her, Jackson made sure we saw that the wit is still there in the character, as well as the many pains of many kinds. The other women, those on the other end of the phone calls, were all played by Kristen Strom. Strom had a great time giving distinctive life to each of them. Rachel Tibbetts, PPA’s Artistic Director, directed the one-act.

Jim Bernatowicz was the Stage Manager, Tyler White and Janice Moore designed the costumes, Bess Moynihan designed the set and lights, Brian Dooley designed sound, Eric Satterfield designed the projections that enriched several of the scenes, Joshua Mayfield assisted the Stage Manager, and Courtney Bailey was the Script Consultant. 

As Told by Us was a lovely evenings of performing arts.

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by RayBay Creates
From the left, Kristen Strom and LaWanda Jackson in Don’t Be a Hero, Thank You