DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Folk art, folk theater calls for folk music. Our region is rich with traditional old-time and bluegrass musicians, but we are also blessed with the young ones who come along and breathe new life into our traditions. I am so thankful for the talents and generosity of Gailanne, Shona, and Julie, the fabulous musicians of The Buck Stops Here. I can’t imagine singing these songs with anyone else; it’s like having my own personal angel band. I am thrilled to introduce them to the Triad Stage family.
This play you’re seeing today is another step on our journey—it many ways a real departure from our previous work. It began with a journey I undertook soon after I was released from the hospital after a stroke gave me a wakeup call to alter my habits and my life. At the time, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to travel again. I was also afraid that I had lost my ease of language. I was determined to hit the road in search of inspiration. I do believe, as a character says in this play, that if we have eyes to see we will see wonders. I’ve always loved to travel and explore. And this short road trip gave me the inspiration for Mother Radiunce, Abundunt Valley and the story of this play. My first inspiration was a small abandoned wooden church in a field off a two lane highway north of Roanoke, Virginia. The church had been abandoned for some time and the doors and windows were barred from the outside. As if, I thought, to keep something inside.
Joseph Rodriguez/News & Record
The second inspiration came in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As I entered the Folk and Self-Taught Art Collection, my lifetime love of the visionary works of outsider artists collided with the idea of boarding something/someone up to keep something inside. Tassie Laidlaw spoke to me clearly in that gallery—“I told you, child. It ain’t no picture. It’s a prophecy.”
Shona Carr, Julie Chiles, Laurelyn Dossett, and Gailanne Amundsen rehearse the new original music for Radiunt Abundunt.
FEB. 21 MAR. 13
Since that moment in the gallery, I’ve taken quite a journey with these characters. From Finster’s Paradise Gardens and Warren’s Shangri-La to Paulsen’s Doll Village to museums in Kentucky, Milwaukee, South Carolina, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, London, Alabama, Baltimore, Mexico and the amazing collection at the Hickory Museum of Art, I’ve travelled to places I didn’t know existed to check out art environments of people whose urge to create was not book learned but woven deep in their DNA. And I suppose that this idea that creativity is not something we learn but something that exists in our blood and our souls is what drove me forward with this play. Like so many of these artists, I am driven to make art. But, unlike them, I fear I lack the ease, the authenticity and the courage to answer my call and share my visions. Why? Is it because I’m somewhat educated, trained and degreed? Is it theory and big words and union memberships? Perhaps it is fear of the critics, the finances, and the judgment of others. How can I as an artist find my way back to the purity of the vision and the call? I worry we are losing authenticity in a world where theater is a commodity shipped in with a New York presumption to the vast and varied cultural centers of this country. I worry that the idea theater can be live streamed instead of lived in front of our eyes threatens the very nature of the audience/artist relationship. I worry that the handmade quality of the arts will become a thing of the past. And so I wrote this play with my artistic partner. And so I made this production with my collaborative team. And so I share it with you—my chosen audience, in this—my artistic home. Welcome to the Valley.
original music by LAURELYN DOSSETT
And while Preston and I have been collaborating for a long time, Radiunt Abundunt feels different to me. There is so much visual storytelling in this play, with the paintings, the projections of images and light, the very set itself. So this time the music is more like a live soundtrack, less narrative and more spiritual subtext. In writing these songs I have had to go down some emotional rabbit holes, emerging safely but not unchanged. I am grateful to have such a partner on the journey.
Radiunt Abundunt is the sixth play that Laurelyn and I have written together and its production this year seems to be an appropriate way to celebrate our 10 years of working together. From our initial meeting when I asked her to explore an Appalachian re-telling of Beowulf we’ve consistently sought to push boundaries, re-define forms and explore the stories of our region in an effort to create handmade work for the audience we love and the artistic home we treasure.
by PRESTON LANE
Preston Lane and I have been in cahoots for nigh onto ten years now, and what a trip it has been. We are both inclined to take the back roads. We are likely to visit a small town just because we like the name of its river. I am particularly bad about seeing something out of the corner of my eye – an abandoned house, a sculpture made from farm machinery, or a particularly stately sycamore tree – and I have to throw on the brakes, pull off the road, and make a U-turn to get a closer look. I feel like we got to do that with Radiunt Abundunt — we got to circle back and look closely at what it means to be ourselves, to make art. We have explored the unpaved paths to see what calls us and at what cost.
GREENSBORO
COMPOSER’S NOTE