Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Local director goes to NYC

By Sarah Poulton

A play, written and directed by Valley residents, is making it to the big stage.

Brandon Martin, senior theater major at Youngstown State University, directed a staged reading of “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising” on April 11 for his senior project.

Martin’s faculty adviser for the project, Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer, submitted it to the New York City International Fringe Festival, and it was accepted.

According to a press release from the ACLU of Ohio, the festival is scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 8 at various Broadway and off-Broadway theaters. “Lucasville” will be performed five times at the Barrow Street Theatre in the Big Apple’s West Village.

Martin participated in the first-ever production of the play in 2007, in which the staged reading traveled to seven Ohio cities. He said a staged reading is similar to a play, except the actors read from the scripts instead of memorizing lines.

“They wanted to do it at YSU and I needed a senior project, so it worked out,” Martin said. “[This time,] I used a different script and am doing it as an actual play instead of a staged reading.”

“Lucasville” is based on the book written by Staughton Lynd of Niles, a nationally known civil rights attorney and activist. The book details the 1993 riots at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville which left nine inmates and one officer dead. Martin said it started as a dispute between administrators and prisoners. Eventually, a peaceful demonstration turned into a riot that lasted days.

During court proceedings, a story was orchestrated to close the case, considering a corrections officer was one of the men who died, Martin said.

Martin said most of the play employs “actual words people have said, letters and court testimony.”

“It’s controversial because it makes people think about something they would never think of,” Martin said. “We like to think all convictions and sentences are justly given. Like I said, there are documents and written statements by people saying they lied on the stand.”

Beiersdorfer, better known as “Dr. Ray,” said he started off as one of the original organizers two years ago in the original touring company, made up of a loose-knit group of activists, members from the First Unitarian Universalist Church and the ACLU of Ohio.

He said one of the goals for the 15th anniversary of the riots was to try to get the play on as many college campuses as possible. So, when he wound up being Martin’s faculty adviser, putting it in the Fringe Fest was a no-brainer, he said..

“It’s highly competitive,” Dr. Ray said. “It’s an international competition. They reject more than 75 percent of the applicants.”

As the play’s authorized company representative (producer), Dr. Ray says he hopes this will get the word out to the rest of the world the injustice that was done to the Lucasville 5.

“I’m hoping to cross over from the entertainment page to the news page,” Dr. Ray said. “I want to get this over and get this injustice that happened in Ohio out into the world. “

He also hopes bringing “Lucasville” to New York City will be an avenue for success for the local actors. And he’s passionate about what this story can do for those involved — directly and indirectly.

“There are these men in our backyard who are on death row and they shouldn’t be there,” he said.

Lessley Harmon of Youngstown is a little closer to the play than your average citizen. This is his third time in the production, playing the role of death row inmate and acquaintance, Namir Abdul Mateen, also known as James Were.

“I was locked up at Mansfield when the riots happened,” Harmon said. “The guy that I play, I know him and several other characters.”

Harmon said he thinks the play progresses each time it’s performed because the actors intensify their emotions with each curtain call. For him, the experience has been phenomenal and the cast really puts their hearts in it, triggering the emotions of audience members, he said.

“In Cleveland, a guy came up to me and said he’d always been a proponent for the death penalty,” Harmon said. “The play didn’t make him change his mind, but it made him think.”

Harmon said it’s not uncommon for the cast to be showered after a show with tears and thank-yous from viewers. The way the script is written tends to change people’s perspectives on the death penalty, the justice system and life in general, he said.

“There has not been any negative reactions that I’ve experienced, not one,” Harmon said.

Friday, the play will be performed in Lecture Hall A at Kent State University Trumbull Campus. It starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.