The Tar River Players have just published a new blog/website.
http://tarriverplayers.blogspot.com/p/shows.html
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
250th Birthday Paean to a Town
COMMUNITY CHORUS CONCERT
TARBORO’S 250TH CELEBRATION
NARRATION
by Roberta Cashwell
©Roberta Cashwell 2010
(SONG: AN AMERICAN SONGBOOK)
I.
The River. A source of Life – and livelihood.
A source of strength – and redemption.
A source of growth – and destruction.
Our river – the source.
Our town was born of the
As well as for our State.
Tarborough on the Tar River in the
Whether for the naval stores that were the products of our eastern
we were baptized and christened for both the sap that ran through
How do you harness – how do you live with – a force that can trickle with three inches one week and surge to 30 feet the next?
Harness it? You don’t. You learn to respect it. To ride it.
Hope that it doesn’t harness you.
And be grateful for what it gives you.
(SONG: THE WATER IS WIDE)
II.
Rivers and railroads have threaded the seams of
Providing transport and commerce –
Linking towns to markets and people to each other.
The
The Atlantic Coastline Railroad
The Eastern Coast Line
The
Names that once meant empires.
Some lines still thunder through town in the hours just before dawn.
Others have gone the way of the ghost tracks on which they ran.
(SONG: I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD)
III.
Tarboro Telephone Company was started in Tarboro in 1895 by George Holderness and W. H. Powell.
The telephone was the phenomenon that created the links through the air that the rivers and railroads forged in the water and on the land.
And Tarboro Telephone, which became Carolina Telephone and Telegraph, provided jobs – and livelihoods – as men and women left the farm and moved to town.
SCENE: THE WOMEN ON A “PARTY LINE”
#1: Hello? This is Maisy.
#2: Maisy, did you hear what
#1: No. But nothing would surprise me.
#2: I heard. . . that she wore bloomers into town!
#1: Is that so? With or without her skirts?
#2: Sh-sh! Shame on you. . . With, of course. (uncertain pause) I think. . .
#1 Humph!
#2 And you know what else. . .?
(
#3 Excuse me ladies, if you don’t mind, I’ll give it to you from the horse’s mouth – herself.
(Mortified, all hang up at once.)
Imagine! You could hear someone’s voice miles away as if they were right there beside you.
A miracle!
(SONG: THE TELEPHONE SONG)
IV.
Land. Farms. Big and small.
Blounts. Norfleets.
The Blount Farm rolled down to the river. Its stately house sat
on the highest point for miles around.
It still does.
The grounds overlooked the work of hundreds.
Cotton and tobacco were king and queen.
At the bottom of the hill lay the river, ready to move the harvest to points North, South, East and West.
Shiloh Landing was a bustling dock.
(SONG: HEAR THAT FIDDLE PLAY)
In time, the farmland receded. The fields lay fallow.
Houses moved in.
The house on the hill now looked down on a town – downtown. City government. Commerce. Banking. Boarding and eating establishments.
Even an opera house.
V.
And it looked down to
To the Town Common.
A small piece of green Heaven on 15 acres.
Second in age only to
A place for all seasons.
In Autumn, a colorful setting made bright by deciduous trees in reds and golds – and even brighter as those trees grew over the years from seedlings to stately maturity.
Here in the South, we’re not known for our white winters.
But when the requisite meteorological events collide, we can have snow and ice – and even a white Christmas.
Then the Common is in its icy winter glory.
Life begins in Spring. Eggs hatch – unless, of course, they’re hunted on the Common at Easter.
Love blossoms. Each spring there’s a new crop of it.
And daffodils – God’s rainbow assurance among flowers – turn the Common yellow.
VI.
But. . . Summertime. Ah, summer.
The season of fullness, when the Town Common comes into its own.
(SONG: SUMMERTIME)
Tarboro’s Common has a rich history of Summertime living.
(SONG: IN THE GOOD OL’ SUMMERTIME)
Within the last half-century, we’ve seen:
The town’s 200th birthday.
Forty Happenings
Over 15
History Day Celebrations
Flag raisings – and retirings
And unofficially:
Weddings
Engagements
Birthdays
Christmas trees
Easter egg hunts
Ghosts and goblins
VII.
Tarboro is a sports town.
She loves her teams and their players.
What the sport is hardly matters,
but Baseball has long been close to her heart.
(SONG: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME)
A minor league team!
We could’a been a contender!
Games were played on the Common.
SCENE: Home plate. Batter, Catcher, Umpire.
(Imaginary ball whizzes by into catcher’s mitt.)
Ump: Strike one!
(Catcher grins and gives a high sign to the “pitcher,” whom we, of course, can’t see.)
Batter: (chewing an imaginary wad of something, stoically silent, grips the bat hard, and steps firmly back in place)
(Ball approaches again. This time the batter swings hard – and misses. The CHORUS, as the home crowd in the stands, groans in unison.)
Ump: Strike Two!
(Catcher can hardly contain himself with glee. Practically dances on his haunches, catcher’s mask on his face, mitt held in front. Another “signal” to the pitcher.)
Batter: (unfazed, he chews harder, tightens his grip around the bat, paws the dirt around the plate, steps into place once more, looks down into the catcher’s mask and sees a challenge, a dare there, just what he needs . . .)
(Once more, the “ball” is pitched, and in a second we hear the crack of wood against ball. The crowd goes wild. Everyone watches it soar, soar out of the park.)
Ump: Home run!!!
(The Catcher stands and disgustedly throws down his mitt – or mask – as the Batter drops the bat, slightly incredulously, and prepares to trot at a not quite leisurely pace, around the bases, towards home.)
(SONG: YOU RAISE ME UP)
VIII.
Walk around the Common
And you will find memories . . .
And memorials.
To those who have gone before us.
In battles, in War.
Those who fought for beliefs, for honor, for freedom.
So that we might live free
And walk where we choose.
May we never take that freedom for granted.
(SONG: FROM ITALIAN OPERA)
IX
If you stand on the banks of the river at sunrise,
You can hear it.
Sounding again and again. Echoes of itself -- a canon
Reminding us that there will be fire next time.
(SONG: TENTING TONIGHT)
Born in Colonial
Tarboro has known war –
close to home
And from a distance.
But no matter the distance,
If your own native sons or daughters are fighting,
It’s always close to home.
On our own soil,
We’ve been occupied, raided, robbed and violated
By hostile troops.
We’ve been called up, drafted, commission and imprisoned --
And sent around the world
to defend the honor of our Country
and to preserve Democracy wherever we find it.
We’ve considered it our right and privilege –
Not merely an obligation –
To go wherever we’re called.
Not only because we are Americans
And proud of it –
But because we are, first of all, human,
And when humanity hurts and bleeds,
So do we.
It would always be safer, more comfortable,
To stay home
On our farms,
Beside our river,
In our homes.
But when we are called, we go.
When we are chosen, we serve.
When we are hit, we fall.
X
And when we come home –
However we come home –
We are honored.
Because we have served.
(SONG: TRIBUTE TO THE ARMED FORCES)
ACT II
(SONG: DOWN TO THE RIVER TO PRAY)
XI
The river carries us,
Looping through the fields and woods.
It wraps itself around our town
And rocks us. . . gently,
For a hundred years.
A hundred years of peace. . .
Like a river.
And then there’s peace no more.
The river betrays itself.
And us.
Nature takes her own.
And when it passes,
We are safe -- and marked –
For another hundred years.
(SONG:
(SONG: OLD AMERICAN SONG)
XII
Home.
Our home within a home.
Tarborough
on the
in the
Tarboro is my home.
(SONG:
XIII
The ultimate act
Of optimism and faith
Is to send children forward
Into a future we have planned for
And over which
We have no control.
We birth them,
We rear them –
To the best of our abilities.
We let them go.
And we hope.
We hope that, somehow,
Their lives will be better –
Always better.
This is the American Dream.
(POEM: “TOWN SONG”)
(SONG: I BOUGHT ME A CAT)
XIV
We are a town of churches.
Houses of faith.
Sunday mornings are quiet
But for bells tolling,
Eleven o’clock chimes,
Organ music,
And choirs of angels.
(SONG: OLD TIME RELIGION MEDLEY)
We don’t dictate
Our faith or denominations
We don’t need to.
We know that prayer is private.
Worship is public
And all are welcome.
Our home, wherever we find it,
Is God’s Home.
And God does not differentiate
Color, class, nationality or sex –
Or religion.
(SONG: SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD)
XV
We are a town by a river.
Like God’s love,
It flows through us –
And around us.
It takes us back
And it carries us forward.
It is life –
And death.
It carries us forward.
It is our source.
(SONG: GOOD NEWS, CHARIOT’S COMING!)
Friday, July 23, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
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