By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
Salisbury’s newest acting company, Lee Street Theatre, is providing a venue for new plays to be produced ó like this weekend’s “Freedom Park.”
Jennifer Hubbard wrote the comedy, which will open tonight at 7:30 p.m. Additional performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Admission is $10, $8 for senior citizens and students with ID. Hubbard says the idea for this play came this past November, when she began to notice that “people seemed nicer to one another.” She was feeling a greater sense of community and a new sense of hope.
She began to wonder what was causing these good feelings ó which, she says, she has also experienced while strolling through parks on sunny days.
Hubbard’s play is, in fact, set in a real park ó Freedom Park in Charlotte, where Hubbard lives.
The action takes place on the day after the presidential election and interweaves monologues and dialogues of a cross section of nine different Americans, young and old, black and white.
South Rowan student Adam Corriher is in the cast, and also provides guitar music, which helps “thread the piece together,” Hubbard says.
Corriher’s character ó the observer and poet ó needed to be young, an embodiment of the country’s future, Hubbard says.
Hubbard says that she’s particularly happy that Dr. Bethany Sinnot ó who was the chair of the Catawba College English Department when Hubbard taught there some years ago ó agreed to be in the play.
Also featured in “Freedom Park” are Amber Adams, Robert Jones, Carrie Poole, Jonathan Taylor, Tajuan Kyles, Justin Dionne, and Elise Duquette.
“All of these actors took a huge leap of faith in signing on to the project because none of them had read the script, which was still in process,” she says. “I give them a lot of credit for that.”
Claudia Galup directs.
“I think it’s such an interesting format,” Galup says.
A veteran director with the St. Thomas Players, Galup is used to directing full-length plays. “Freedom Park” is a shorter piece ó an hour or less.”I really have enjoyed working with the short play concept,” she says.
Hubbard ó who is now a full-time writer living in Charlotte with husband Steve Cobb ó has written other plays, including some pieces performed at Theatre Charlotte. One of her plays, “The Fairyland Chronicles,” will be performed there in June.
She’s also had plays performed in Ohio and South Carolina.
Her love of drama began with Piedmont Players Theatre when she was 13 years old. She credits her mother, Jayne Hubbard, who used to take her and her sister to see Piedmont Players musicals when they were little.
At 13, she auditioned for “The Sound of Music,” her first PPT show.
More recently, she’s been in “Enchanted April” and “Crimes of the Heart.” Last year, she was in Theatre Charlotte’s “Walking Across Egypt.” For questions or to join the Lee Street Theatre mailing list, send an e-mail to leestreettheatre@live.com.