Lee Street theatre and The Covenant Community Connection are proud to present the one-act play, What Do They Need?: Monologues by Principals, Teachers, and Students from Rowan-Salisbury Schools, as part of the Voices from the Margin series.
Voices from the Margin was created to offer audiences a chance to hear the stories of those that many of us see and think about but don't always take the time to listen to and learn from. Last year's theme was homelessness. The theme this year is the Salisbury-Rowan School System.
Catawba alumnus Justin Dionne '07, Managing Artistic Director for Lee Street theatre, is producing the show. The playwright is Catawba's Writer-in-Residence, Dr. Janice Fuller.
Fuller
Dionne
Dionne and Fuller interviewed 14 local students, teachers, and principals to gain the source material for the script, which will be brought to life by director Robin Tynes. Tynes, a 2012 Catawba alumna who now works for Children's Theatre of Charlotte as its Education Systems Coordinator and is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Three Bone Theatre in Charlotte.
Fuller described her role with the project: "As a playwright, I found this documentary work (compressing over 300 pages of interviews into a 15-page script) challenging, but also immensely rewarding. Since my daughters and I are products of the Rowan-Salisbury Schools, this project has been very close to my heart."
The cast for What Do They Need? includes Isabella Almazan, Pete Barr (husband of Catawba's Cindy Barr), Frances Bendert, Quson Brown, Justin Davis, Ellentinya Dodd, Anna Kate Hall (a Catawba Theatre Arts major), Ava Holtzman (daughter of Catawba faculty member, Dr. Seth Holtzman and wife Lisa Boguslaw), and Mara Rosenberg.
The 10 hours of taped interviews with Rowan-Salisbury principals, teachers, and students were transcribed by four Catawba Literature and Writing majors: Anna Beth Carter, Daniel Mowery, Sara Sellers (a West Scholar), and Sydney Smith (a West Scholar alumna and a new teacher at Davie County High School).
This three-night engagement will serve as a fundraiser for the Rowan-Salisbury School System. Lee Street theatre is suggesting a $15 donation at the door and will donate ALL proceeds to the school system.
This project receives support from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support from the Rowan Arts Council and the City of Salisbury.
What Do They Need? plays November 19-21 at 7:30 each evening. All performances are at the Lee Street theatre and Performing Arts Center at the Tom and Martha Smith Event Center, 329 N Lee Street, Salisbury, NC 28144. For more information, visit www.leestreet.org or call (704) 310-5507.
