Where I'm From
2015 · Lincoln Land Community College
This original spring revue grew out of Ken Bradbury's Lincoln Land Community College theatre class — the every-other-day, dual-credit course he taught at the Arenzville Methodist Church for high school and college students. Rather than mounting an existing script, Ken built the show from his students' own lives. Across the semester they wrote "Where I'm From" pieces and answered weekly blog prompts on subjects like dating, great advice from their parents, redoing their childhoods, the first time they thought they were in love, the worst memories of junior high, a first prom, and their most embarrassing moments. Ken stitched these confessions and stories into a script, reminding the cast that "Tragedy + Time = Humor" — even moments that were painful when they happened could play for laughs in front of a May audience. Elisabeth Werries contributed songs, including a piece written for each act and the finale.
Within the class the production was nicknamed the "Bus / Hearse" show — it turns up in a class charades list as "Getting on the bus / Waiting for the Hearse" — a frame spanning the span of a life from its beginnings to its end. Ken's journals from late 2014 and early 2015 track him assembling the first act from the students' "Where I'm From" submissions, chasing down the last responses he needed from Alex, Kyler and Jamie to finish the script. The show ran at the Playhouse on May 15, 16 and 17, 2015. No complete final script survives in the class folder; this page is reconstructed from the class schedule, the blog topics, the students' childhood responses, and Ken's journal entries written while building the script.
Themes and Sources
The revue was assembled from the students' own material, including:
- "Where I'm From" autobiographical writings
- Childhood and birth-story responses the students wrote about themselves
- Weekly blog prompts: dating stories, parental advice, redoing childhood, first love, junior-high memories, a first prom, and most embarrassing moments
Cast
The spring 2015 class, who devised and performed the show:
- Ally Bunfill
- Elly Crawford
- Mackenzie Musch
- Emily Burns
- Abbie Link
- Elisabeth Werries
- Brittany Davis
- Alex Stanberry
- Jamie Schnepper
- Kyler Miller
- Hannah Werries
- Brenan Pool
- Rachel Skillett
Production Notes
- Spring (second semester) 2015, performed at the Playhouse on May 15-17, 2015.
- An original class production devised by Ken Bradbury's LLCC Traveling Theatre students from their own writing.
- Known informally to the class as the "Bus / Hearse" show.
- Elisabeth Werries wrote songs for the show, including the finale.
- Ken's journal notes the difficulty of collecting the "Where I'm From" responses needed to complete the first act — by late December 2014 only Mackenzie had submitted hers.
- After closing on May 16, the cast traveled to a "Mystery Night" supper where graduating seniors Jamie, Elisabeth and Brittany performed their "Swan Songs" to close out the year.