First Folio Theatre artistic associate Lydia Berger Gray had never wanted to do a solo show until she read the script for Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project.”
“When I read this I thought, ‘I have to tell this story,’ Gray said. “Just reading it as a piece of literature it reads almost like a beautiful poem. The way it’s actually laid out on paper it looks like verse. She spaced it out so any person reading it would know the feeling she’s trying to convey. It doesn’t matter if you’re an actor or not — when you read it on the page, you know exactly how it’s going to sound.”
The play explores the aftermath of the 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting through the perspective of seven members of the Amish community where it took place including a 6-year-old girl, a local historian and the shooter himself.
“It’s almost like seven different people are being interviewed,” Gray said.
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Gray and fellow artistic associate Melanie Keller suggested that First Folio put on the play last year, but the season was already full. The company asked if the duo would like to stage it for two nights and they agreed. The show will run at Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook on April 11 and 12.
“It’s just a different kind of play than we’ve done,” Dickey said. “They’re giving my friend Melanie and I the chance to do something that’s important to us. Even though it’s not part of the regular season I’m really excited that the two of us get to work on an important project. It’s just for two days, but we’re doing it as though it’s running for six weeks. We’re giving it the full rehearsal time and we’ve got our best designers on it.”
Keller, who is directing “The Amish Project,” helped Gray develop different postures and voices to distinguish her characters. Keller did similar work directing “The Drowning Girls” for Signal Ensemble Theatre, which also had actresses playing several roles, including a murderer.
Gray said she remembers hearing about the Nickel Mines shooting when it happened.
“I remember thinking how unusual it was,” she said. “Ten years ago it was still pretty unheard of. In American society there’s so many mass shooting, school shootings. It’s almost ‘Oh yeah, there’s another shooting.’ We as a society are getting sadly used to it.”
Reading the play was a way for Gray to find perspective on tragic news.
“I wanted to read it because I don’t understand how this is happening,” she said. “I imagine other people are like me and they want to delve into it deeper. We’ll never understand why these people do these horrible things. We can only control how we feel about it and deal with it.”
The Amish community dealt with the tragedy through mercy, going over to the shooter’s home that day and donating some of the money that was raised for the victims to his family. That generosity reminded Gray of the reactions of the survivors of last year’s shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina.
“Those are the only instances I can remember of the families saying ‘We forgive the shooter,'” Gray said. “It’s inspiring in the wake of such tragedy.”
‘The Amish Project’
When: 8 p.m. April 11 and 12
Where: First Folio Theatre at Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st St., Oak Brook
Tickets: $25
Contact: 630-986-8067; www.firstfolio.org