The Playworks Group

12/02/2024

It's a wrap on Acting Our Age: Voices of the Harbors. Thanks to the nine group members, everyone on the Holley Hall staff, and especially Plymouth Harbor for their support in performance last week - and the work leading up to it that began in January. One audience member called it "a seamless weaving together of such beautiful, amazing, heartwarming stories" that shows us all how we got to be who we are. Those stories became the script for the live event, and the latest edition (and first in Florida) in this seven year series. Thanks to everyone involved. (AOA-PWG©2024)

11/12/2024

The film Call Me By My Name was part of the Independent Picture House's Community Impact Series on 11/9, with the short film Rooted for the Future. The event focusing on homelessness included a passionate audience discussion with Trish Hobson (The Relatives), Karen Pelletier (Community Support Services), Steve Umberger (The Works Director) and many resource professionals, coordinated by Rodney Stringfellow (IPH Board member). It reminded us all of the work that's been done - and remains - for everyone's basic human right to housing. More: http://www.playworksonline.org/p/streetsmarts.html

10/27/2022

Thanks to Southpark Magazine and Page Leggett for the great advance on Acting Our Age: Using Our Voices. At the Booth Playhouse, Blumenthal Performing Arts, November 2 & 3. Here's more about the event: https://bit.ly/3qdbKSk
https://southparkmagazine.com/the-silent-generation-speaks/

Seven seniors — residents of Aldersgate Life Plan Commmunity — turn their life stories into a theatrical work of art.

06/21/2020

There's a new cast of Acting Our Age in a new project, just in time for this weekend's one year anniversary of full houses at the original production. Even though the houses aren't full now, that hasn't stopped the storytelling. In February, Lyndall Hare and Steve Umberger began work with a new cast,. After meeting for a month, COVID-19 upended the world, but everyone agreed to continue working online and became a "quarantine family." The script traces how life and lockdown developed over 12 weeks. Here are a few excerpts from cast members Steve Baldon, Cheri Furr, George Groninger, Dick Metzler, and Tom Scott:

"How does one put into words the emotions going through one’s head when, say, a huge meteor is headed towards earth and no one knows whether it’ll miss us or knock our little planet into infinity?"

"More than ever I am reminded that life can change in the blink of an eye. We are only guaranteed today, maybe even just this moment."

"Most of us grew up living in a house with some of us being expected to go to college. But people who lived through the Great Depression and the stock market crash and World War ll were used to being deprived and had food rationings. So that was part of their lives. But it's never been part of our lives."

"I would be lying if I didn’t admit to at least a tinge of apprehension about my portfolio. After all, losing 25% of the money I didn’t have five years ago and had never lifted a finger to earn, can be disappointing. A new perspective has come into focus which points out to me that hoarding money is just as futile as hoarding toilet paper. Maybe even worse. At least toilet paper has defined targeted use, whereas money can be freely distributed to help others less fortunate."

For various reasons three cast members were unable to join online but continued to be part of the project, so here's a shout out to Esther Groninger, Beverly Brown and Dave Wright, resident comic, who, sadly, passed away two days after turning 91 just as this phase was finishing. He gets the last word, from shortly before he left us:

"It gives me time to think about big issues. Like 91 is old. I’m not going to live forever. When you are young you act like you may live forever. I have new aches and pains almost every day. They reinforce what I just said—that I won’t live forever. That's ok. I had a good life."

Thanks to everyone who is part of this work.

02/06/2020

All the development screenings of "Call Me By My Name" so far this year, including last weekend at ImaginOn, have sparked audience TalkBacks with the cast at which someone always says "How do I help?" The answers are seldom what people expect. The cast took this long journey to create CMBMN for just that reason - to help people see what life on the street really is, and to show that as one audience member said, our stories and our suffering are far more similar than different, despite appearances. And as one cast member says, "People think we want a hand out. Wrong. We want a hand up." Thanks to everyone who's joined us.

01/30/2020

"ACTING OUR AGE" ON THE ROAD
Thanks to OLLI at Duke University and The Forest at Duke for the great screenings of the film "Acting Our Age" at Carolinas Cinemas, Durham and Chelsea Theatre, Chapel Hill. Co-creators Lyndall Hare and Steve Umberger led discussions after screenings. It's a film of the live 2019 event, and many commented that the movie made them feel they were "actually in the audience at the theatre." Thanks to Jay Thomas for the editing, and special thanks to Chris McLeod at OLLI/Duke and Sandy Mouras at The Forest for making it all possible, and to Aldersgate and Jeff Weatherhead for the start.

01/20/2020

"CALL ME BY MY NAME" IN PROGRESS
We're excited about the next steps for "Call Me By My Name," a look at how six members of the homeless community came together over 18 months to create a play from their life stories. Last fall, the live event drew full houses. The documentary-in-progress will have 2020 screenings in January and February as part of the ongoing process of completing the project. (Details: http://www.playworksonline.org/p/blog-page_63.html.)

09/27/2019

Thanks to everyone for the full houses and great conversation this week at "Call Me By My Name." For all who've inquired, we'll keep you posted about the film in progress. Thanks to all who worked on CMBMN so far over 18 months including Mark Sutton, Jinny Mitchell, Ann Huskey, Rebecca Koon, Lyndall Hare, Val Rosenquist, Steve Umberger, Cindy Cook Ballaro, Eric Winkenwerder, Lexi Miller, Katherine Goforth, Barbara Berry; on the film: Jay Thomas and Fred Story, and of course the cast, past and present: Mary, Paul, Belinda, C.C., and Hilda. Photos: William Guerrant (http://www.playworksonline.org/p/streetsmarts.html)

09/27/2019

Thanks to FUMC for all the support on "Call Me By My Name" on its 18 month journey. We had a great time in the theatre this week with all of you.

09/21/2019

From the documentary-in-progress "Call Me By My Name," Director Steve Umberger talks about the beginnings:

"I was interested in real stories, and I was interested in exploring life on the street, because I didn't know what it was. And I don't think a lot of people know what it is. At the beginning of the 18 months, we had a couple of people at the table, because there's no precedent for this kind of thing. And very gradually it became a safe zone. One of them described it as 'better than therapy.'"