Just a few short months ago, we selected Emily McClain's My Brother's Secret Keeper and started the whirlwind process of planning and preparation. All of us involved in the production found ourselves immersed in and intrigued by what we lovingly dubbed #BoothFacts – real life details about Booth family.
The longer we spent in the world of the Booths, the more we discovered about them through the true act of "playing" together. We worked scenes until the movements were natural and comfortable. We tried different line deliveries until we hit the right notes of sibling love and rivalry. And the more we played, the more our actors began to uncover new connections between their characters and their places in history through the rich blueprint provided in Emily McClain's script.
As we settled into a comfortable rhythm, I noticed something else happening to our cast and crew: we started referencing these historical characters as fully-fledged people, discussing their thoughts and feelings, and processing their experiences through new lenses. Flat facts from our history books have become flesh-and-blood, complex, contradictory humans.
With that came a new understanding of the political turmoil that existed between these brothers and sister who desperately loved each other, and how their actions – and perhaps inaction, whether wrong or right – affected the course of American history.
Of course, history is a cycle.
And political disagreements (including those around States' Rights) are not only a historical issue. The turbulence surrounding US elections seems to be at an all-time high, and there is still no easy answer on how to handle or manage the resulting fractures.
There are so many of us who can connect with the struggle of reconciling or maintaining a relationship despite radically contradicting or even extreme political opinions. My Brother's Secret Keeper reminds us this is not new, but offers a chance to reflect and perhaps a new perspective.
I hope you will enjoy this peek behind the proverbial curtain into the lives of the "First Family of the American Stage" as we have these past weeks. Thank you for supporting this powerful new play, Georgia playwright Emily McClain, and Pumphouse Players.
Laurel Ann Lowe
Curtain Call
An excerpt from Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms (1985)
Now the sun's gone to hell and
The moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
