K The Ken Bradbury Foundation

← The Works

Memories of Mama, Thinking of Dad

2013 · Playhouse on the Square, Jacksonville, Illinois

Memories of Mama, Thinking of Dad is a two-act readers' theatre production written by Ken Bradbury — what he called "a quilt of love." In Act I, five men take the stage to tell the stories of their fathers; in Act II, five women take over to speak of their relationships with their mothers. Each act is built of five separate stories told at once in readers' theatre style, ten portraits in all. "It's one of those plays anyone could write," Bradbury said. "Whether our parents are still living or not, they remain part of us."

The characters are drawn from people the playwright had known across a lifetime in central Illinois — the father who was a math whiz and a Cubs fan who could fix any engine by leaning his ear to the hood; the dad who insisted on five years of Latin voice lessons because he simply wanted a singing son; the mother nicknamed "Mt. St. Helens"; the ditzy mom who once misplaced her own daughter in a closet; and Mary, who invented a perfect mother named Amanda because her real one had never had a kind word for her. The play moves from comedy to grief, ending with Mary at her mother's bedside in a nursing home, where a woman lost to dementia finally becomes the loving soul she never was. "Any show that brings tears to my eyes every night," Bradbury wrote to his cast, "will surely move our audiences."

The play has a tangled origin. Memories of Mama began as a one-act about mothers; Bradbury added the Thinking of Dad half to make a full evening. Offered first to the struggling Jacksonville Theatre Guild royalty- and salary-free, it slipped through the cracks of forgetful committees. When Rich and Laurie McCoy set out to convert a former pet store on the east side of the Jacksonville square into a theatre, Bradbury offered them the same deal to help launch the venture. Memories of Mama, Thinking of Dad became the very first play presented at the Playhouse on the Square when it opened in May 2013.

Cast

Act I — Thinking of Dad

Act II — Memories of Mama

Music — Stephanie Soltermann

Production Notes

Written and directed by Ken Bradbury (of Arenzville), the play premiered as the opening production of the Playhouse on the Square in Jacksonville, Illinois, in May 2013, with performances on May 4 and 5. The cast was drawn from across central Illinois, including actors from Petersburg, Springfield, Franklin, Beardstown, Jacksonville, and Arenzville.

The production also toured to Petersburg's Salem on Seventh theatre (also billed as Salem on 7th), with performances on May 4 and 5 at 8 p.m. Half of those proceeds were given to the Menard County Food Pantry; Jim Yale helped make the local connections. Tickets in Jacksonville were reserved through the Eclectic Gallery; in Petersburg, advance ticket buyers were offered a dinner special at the Douglas Street Grill.

In October 2016, Rich McCoy invited Bradbury to bring the show back to the Playhouse on the Square — some 40 productions and 300 actors after it first opened the theatre — for an anniversary run on October 7, 8, and 9, reuniting many of the original cast. "It's nice to bring so many of the original cast back," Bradbury said. "There's something about time that allows you to grow into a role."