“Higher Ground”
Tonight
Higher Ground. Over the past three years Southeast KY Community & Technical College’s (SKCTC) Appalachian Program has been working with the people of Harlan County on a Rockefeller PACT (Partners Affirming Community Transformation) Grant Project. The goal of this grant is to use the arts to address a critical community issue. The Harlan County Project chose to deal with the local problem of prescription drug abuse, specifically Oxycontin addiction. As a part of this project they conducted oral history interviews with approximately 200 people and gathered over 1500 pages of transcribed interviews. The local production team which consisted of; SKCTC Appalachian Program Director Robert Gipe, SKCTC Music Director Ann Schertz, Appalachian Program Facilitator Theresa Osborne, Community Liaison Constance Owens, and the play’s Director Jerry Stropnicky, worked with professional script writer Jo Carson, of Johnson City, TN to create a play that realistically reflected Harlan County, its people and some of its problems.
“Theatre arts have a way opening doors of communication within a community group, through the actual process of putting on a play,” said Osborne. “Acting gives you the opportunity to step outside your own skin, and away from your problems for a while and become another person or character. It frees you to express emotions that you might not feel comfortable doing in everyday life. Through community theatre projects like Higher Ground, where the script is based on oral history interviews from within the community, the people get to tell their own stories, and face their own problems within a positive, supportive and healing framework.”
The production team recruited a cast and crew of approximately 75 local actors and musicians. Cast members ranged in age from three to 78 years old, and were from varying ethnic, racial, economic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Some cast members were even working through their own issues of sobriety. But all were welcome and in the end everyone found a place of acceptance and community as cast and crew of Higher Ground.
Here are some links about the play:
http://kctcs.edu/newspublications/newsreleases.cfm?nr_id=460
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060917/SCENE05/609170328/1011/SCENE
I hope to have clips of the music or video soon.
