Artists Repertory Theatre is proud to work with dancer-writer Susan Banyas on her latest project, The Hillsboro Story.  The play was developed through rehearsals and creative collaboration at Artists Rep in July and August 2009, culminating in a public performance on August 9.  The piece was further developed throughout the fall and was Artists Rep's entry into the Fertile Ground Festival of New Works in January 2010.  A tour to schools and communities throughout Oregon and Ohio will be scheduled during the 2010/11 season.

The Origins of The Hillsboro Story by Susan Banyas

On July 5, 1954, Lincoln School, the “colored” elementary school near Smokey Row, in Hillsboro, Ohio went up in flames; and my sweet, segregated hometown was suddenly awake.  The county engineer, a white man, decided to force integration and struck the match on that hot summer night that sent him to the state penitentiary (and into the FBI files) and sparked five African American mothers to stage a two-year protest. 

The “school fight” caught the attention of Thurgood Marshall at NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) headquarters in New York City.  Marshall, who led the powerful team of attorneys to the Brown v. Board of Education victory (May 1954), sent one of his chief strategists, Constance Baker Motley, to Ohio to represent the Mothers in the first test case for the Brown decision in the North.  

I was in the third grade, absorbing the cultural commotion, quickly and quietly thrown into the dump heap of history and reduced to a one-liner.  “The Negro women were trouble-makers and the County Engineer was crazy.”  Fifty years after seeing the Marching Mothers outside of Mrs. Mallory’s classroom window, I went back to my hometown to find them and piece together a warm-hearted, hard-hitting cultural detective story.  The investigation is informed by historical research, photography, and extensive interviews with key players locally and nationally, whose voices form the heart of the story. 

The Hillsboro Story is a performance weaving spoken word, movement, monologues, and visual images, backed by an evocative original music score by jazz composer, David Ornette Cherry.  For more information about the show or its creator, visit http://www.susanbanyas.com/.

For press release, photographs and other press-related materials, visit: http://susanbanyas.com/PR/index.html

 
This project has been made possible with grants from:
Regional Arts and Culture Council http://www.racc.org/
The Puffin Foundation http://www.puffinfoundation.org/   
Saint Mary’s College of California Faculty Development http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/
The Kennedy Center http://www.kennedy-center/
Pacific Power Foundation http://www.pacificpower.net/about/itc/foundation.html 
Oregon Arts Commission http://www.oregonartscommission.org/main.php
 

WORKSHOP PRODUCTION DETAILS

Written & Directed by Susan Banyas
Choreography by Gregg Bielemeier
Original Score Composed by David Ornette Cherry

Workshop Cast
LaVerne Green
Paige Jones
Jennifer Lanier
with Susan Banyas

Photo:  Merle Hudson, Gertrude Clemons Hudson, Joyce Clemons Kittrel (right), Plaintiff in Clemons v. Board of Education of Hillsboro, Ohio, the first test case for the Brown v. Board of Education decision (May, 1954) in the North.