Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania • 12

Entertainment Wednesday, May 14, 2003 Page 13 Stories mesh in bicentennial play Indiana By MARY ANN SLATER Gazette Staff Writer SHELOCTA Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dickens' journey on the Saltsburg Canal. Two young children righting hunger and despair to escape their slave master. An anxious mother's pleas to her son to go to school instead of the perilous underground of a coal mine.

These stories, part of the fabric of Indiana County history, are woven together with other tales into the play, "A 200-Year Legacy of Indiana Count i an Proud People, Strong Families." Written by former drama readier Rheta Bricillo of Sheloc-ta, the play traces the county's history from the pioneer days of Fergus Moorhead, through the growth of the salt industry in Saltsburg, attempts to help slaves fleeing from the South, the boom period of King Coal and the rise of Indiana University of Pennsylvania as the county's major employer. The play will be performed by the Saltsburg Drama Club three times: Saturday, at 7:30 p.m., at the Penns Manor High School auditorium; June 13, at 7:30 p.m., at the Saltsburg High School auditorium, and July 12, at 2 p.m., at the Indiana Theater. Bricillo began work on the play's series of vignettes last fall. She used the multi-volume set by county historian Clarence Stephenson as her bible. "I would be buried in those volumes from 5 a.m.

until 2 a.m. the the props we have we use throughout the whole tiling The actors and actresses carry many of their props in large old-fashioned baskets. Other items, like benches and a table, are lightweight and can be moved easily in and out of the vignettes. Set designer Kerri Miller has created a scenic nature backdrop, made of a series of sue panels that are each 6 feet wide and 10 feet high, that will be easy to break down as drama club members move from venue to venue. "A 200-Year Legacy of Indiana Countians" has been different for the group, Pizer said, because it had never performed a play by a local writer and it had to be changed from time to time while in rehearsal Still the experience has been enjoyable, Pizer said.

"We always have fun. We've been working together, most of us, for over 20 years. We really work together well, we've been together so long." Although the Saltsburg club performs most of the play, two other groups also helped out with the vignettes. Youth from the Chevy Chase Community Center's after-school program will perform in a vignette about the underground, railroad. And members of Girl Scout Troop 800, from Penns Manor High, researched and wrote a segment about the founding of that school in 1962.

The four Scouts also perform in the segment. Performers from the Saltsburg Drama Club fell the story of how Indiana County residents came together in the late 1700s to form their own churches and schools. (Gazette photo by Jim Wakefield) agreed that his belly is beyond belts; he has to have suspenders." Bricillo then passed the play along to the Saltsbmg Drama Club, an amateur theatrical group formed 70 years ago. Since February, the group has been rehearsing on the large stage in the old Saltsburg nigh schooL Because none of the performances will be in that building, the club has designed a very portable production. "This is the first time weVe ever done anything like this, take the show on the road," club member Carol Pizer said.

"We have very few props, and cover the history of the county, so she wrote about the churches that were begun in the late 1700s around Armagh; an early town meeting in Armstrong Tbwnship; the salt industry around Saltsburg and coal mining in Glen Campbell. As she wrote, she tried to intersperse the facts with humor. In her vignette on early downtown Indiana businesses, a group of wives gabbed about the shopping they need to do. "I told Jim that he needed size 38 pants," one of the wives said. "We tramped from Montgomery Wards clean down to Waxler's, across to Brady's, back down to Troutman's and finally he next day," she said.

Bricillo was asked to write a play about Indiana County by Pat Leach, who is heading up the family life portion of the county bicentennial committee. Leach had known that Bricillo had once taught drama in Duquesne's pubbc schools, once even re-writing "Arsenic and Old Lace" for a performance by junior high students. Bricillo wrote the bicentennial play as a series of 13 vignettes that tell highlights of the county history. A narrator introduces each vignette, giving the needed historical background information. She wanted the vignettes to quilt part quilting since age 8, became interested in the symbolic quilts after reading the book "Hidden in Plain View," by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard.

The book discusses how slaves in the Carolinas would hang quilts with codes that guided fellow slaves along ine underground railroad. The intricate codes involved colors, patterns and even knots in the stitching, Becker-George said. Her quilt shop is also located where Dr. Robert Mitchell, a leader of the anti-slavery movement, once lived in the 1800s, she said. To aid the students, Becker-George is sewing together the cloth squares they decorated with symbols of freedom, along with squares she created with codes similar to those the slaves made.

rural America Into a Beverly Hills mansion so the nation could watch as they adjust to a posh new life. The proposal has prompted a national protest from grass-roots organizations, state governments, members of Congress and national labor unions. Also opposed to the show are the United Mine Workers of America, the United Steel-workers of America and the Association of Flight Attendants. Special A quilt that will appear in an upcoming play celebrating Indiana County's bicentennial contains more than meets the eye. Since March, students in the Chevy Chase Community Center's after-school program have been using their creativity and knowledge of the underground railroad to create a quilt for the play, "A 200-Ycar Legacy of Indiana Countians Proud People, Strong Families." The quilt will be used in one of the play's vigneues, focusing on the underground railroad.

The first performance will he Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Penns Manor High School. Lillian Clemens, executive director of the Chevy Chase center, invited Cheryl Becker-George, owner of Daffodil Cottage Quilt Shop, to talk to her students in March about the role of quilts in the underground railroad a network of homes of sympathetic families that housed runaway slaves and helped them escape to freedom in the north. Becker-George, who has been Cheryl Becker-George of Daffodil Cottage Quilt Shop showed Angel Long, 9, left, and Brittany Woody, 1 1, different quilt patterns. Angel is the daughter of Rachel Mimis and Shewn Long, and Brittany is the daughter of Venus Woody and Eugene Harris.

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