MoCoLMP talks with cast and audience at Olney Theatre's "Appropriate"

MoCoLMP was delighted to be part of the Olney Theatre’s community engagement efforts around the production of the play, Appropriate. The drama centers on family members who make a shocking discovery while packing away a deceased loved one’s personal items. 

The Olney Theatre asked for MoCoLMP’s partnership in three ways: meeting with the cast and producers as they were beginning rehearsals, co-facilitating audience discussions at four Saturday matinees, and sharing the work of MoCoLMP.

At the cast and crew gathering, MoCoLMP members Alexa Fraser and Chuck Copeland shared personal stories related to the history of racial violence. Alexa disclosed how she felt when she learned that her ancestors had enslaved people, and how that impacted her perspective on history and truth-telling. She said afterward that a play like Appropriate is “the type of growth in truth-telling that our organization was aiming for.” Chuck told the story of the lynching of Mr. George Peck in Poolesville and vividly recounted what that must have been like for his own ancestors living nearby in 1880. “The cast and crew really seemed to be moved,” said Chuck. “They wanted to know how they could help MoCoLMP.”

At one of the Olney cast and crew and post-show audience conversations,  MoCoLMP steering committee member Derrick Tabor and Jason Loewith, Olney Artistic Director, led a lively discussion including the theme of what “ghosts and spirits” may have been represented in the family home over the span of seven generations. Actor Cody Nickell observed the ever-present sound of cicadas. To Derrick, they represented ghosts and spirits within the house. “We never saw the cicadas, but we heard them throughout the play,” he said.

MoCoLMP is grateful to Olney Theatre for the chance to interact with both the audiences and the cast and crew. The play is enjoying an extended run through April 26 in its intimate Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. We hope many of our members have the chance to see Appropriate and to support MoCoLMP and the good work of Olney Theatre.

MoCoLMP’s photo exhibit, “It Happened Here,” is showing at the Olney library through April 16.

Tickets

Limited Availability for Performances Before April 1.