Creating a new play is a lengthy and often arduous process. Work on Pierce to the Soul began in 2004, when playwright Chiquita Mullins Lee began her research. There’s never been a full biography of the famous local wood carver and a lot of the articles that were written about him are not readily available. Chiquita did find a few interviews and better yet, she found a number of people who remembered Pierce (who died in 1984) and who shared their stories with her.
After Chiquita had written an initial “treatment” (a scenario), we had many discussions about how to structure a bio-play. Chiquita wrote several early drafts and at the same time continued her research. One of our major goals has been to create an accurate portrayal of Pierce. This has sometimes been a challenge because of sources who contradict each other (even Pierce sometimes contradicts himself in interviews) and because of gaps in the record.
There was one aspect of Pierce’s character that surprised us (given how stern he looks in most of his photos), described by Columbus Citizen-Journal columnist Larrilyn Edwards in 1984:
“Although he was in his 90’s, the man always had a twinkle in his eye and great recall. His sense of humor was ever present, but you had to listen carefully because his witty comments were often delivered with a straight face and in a soft voice.”
Many of those Chiquita interviewed who had encountered Pierce expressed the same sentiment — and his sense of humor is continually evident in Pierce to the Soul.
Actor Alan Bomar Jones with an 8th grade Monroe Traditional Middle School art student at the Pierce to the Soul Workshop held at the King Arts Complex
In 2006, we began the process of holding public play development workshops (described in another blog ). With the addition of Bill Childs as dramaturge and (in 2008) Alan Bomar Jones as actor, the core team who would work on the script was complete.
This past year, thanks to grants from the Ohio Humanities Council and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, we’ve been able to spend three additional weeks outside of rehearsals on script development. Playwright, director, dramaturge and actor have spent hours sitting around a table, reading the script and picking it apart. Sometimes the discussions are about major themes or scenes, sometimes we argue about a single word or two (“laugh” vs “chuckle” vs “snicker”). Speeches and even entire sections of the script have migrated from one place to another. And, of course, there have been major cuts: following the run-through for designers, the play went from 62 to 50 pages.
Re-writes and re-thinking have continued throughout the five-week rehearsal period – in fact, re-writes have dominated the rehearsals. Chiquita has provided us with a new version of the play every few days (we’re now on #21 – and that is just since rehearsals began) . After one of our rewrite sessions, a page of the script will look like this:
A page from the working script showing markups from the day's rehearsals
But all the planning, all the testing and editing and rewriting is all speculative until we actually perform the entire play for an audience. Opening night is Friday, April 9th!
–Click here for more information on Elijah Pierce and Pierce to the Soul!
–Geoffrey Nelson, Artistic Director
