Set in Alabama in 1964, the play opens on the playground where Mary Ellen Collins last saw her mother. At just nine years old, Mary Ellen had been taken away by her long-absent father after her mother was deemed unfit for marrying a black man. Now a young adult, Mary Ellen has finally read the letters her mother sent to her over the years since that separation. From those letters, she learns about half, mixed race brother, born after she was taken away, and reaches out to meet him for the first time. Once back at the playground she encounters her nine-year old self where she interrogates her painful past.
Cast & Crew
first presented at Park Square Theater in 2012
Written by Carlyle Brown
Directed by Marion McClinton
Cast
Tracey Maloney as Narrator
Megan Fischer as Mary Ellen Collins-Richardson
Noel Raymond as Laura Collins-Richardson
Gavin Lawrence as Jimmy Richardson
Carlyle Brown as Sonny Richardson
Greta Oglesby as Martha Richardson
John Middleton as Billy Collins
Tommy Richardson as Michael Terrell Brown
Designers
Scene design by Gabriel Backlund
Costume design by A. Emily Heaney
Lighting design by Michael P. Kittel
Sound design by C. Andrew Mayer
Prop design by Abbee Warmboe
Fight Choreography by Annie Enneking
Stage manager: Jessica Finney