Roanoke Valley playwright Meredith Dana Koop-Levy's “The Bread Play'' has received a lot of attention even before its premiere.
Not to mention perfectly toasted bread.
“So much! There's so much bread every night!” Lauren Brooke Ellis, the play's director, responded when asked how much bread the actors baked during rehearsals. He goes on to say, “We're not making sourdough. We're making this very special Eucharistic bread.”
Jokes aside, the serious bread baking serves as the framework for a serious drama set in the kitchen of an Anglican church. Estranged sisters become entangled in each other's lives, venting their unpleasant grievances while working together to make the bread promised in the title. The women were united by the death of their brother, who, like their father before them, was a church minister.
To further enhance authenticity, the premieres of these “bread plays” take place in the kitchen of an actual Anglican church, amplifying the impression of a fly perched on a wall observing a real conversation. .
St. Elizabeth Episcopal Church in Roanoke is hosting the play, with shows this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Although St. Elizabeth's has an established track record of showcasing the arts, “to my knowledge there has never been a play performed in the kitchen. During the time I have been here, almost seven years, there has never been a complete The play has never been performed.'We've been here before,'' the church's pastor, Karin McPhail, wrote in an email.
Mr. MacPhail called the play “amazing” and wrote that the church's lay leadership committee had reviewed and enthusiastically approved the play. “St. Elizabeth really wants to make the community as welcome as possible into our grounds and buildings, and this seemed a great fit for that mission.” It's a very creative and original idea, and we're thrilled to be able to help bring Meredith and Lauren's vision for the play to life.”
Partnerships built at Hollins
According to Cope-Lévy, one of the challenges involved in creating and revising the play was adapting it to the actual process of making bread, from rolling the dough to warming the oven and removing the finished loaf. He said he had to adjust the timing of conversations and events. Works naturally with scripts.
As an example of a challenge posed and overcome, “Lauren sent me an email a few weeks ago when I was out of town,” Cope-Levy said. During rehearsals, Ellis explained: “You put the bread in the oven, you read all the lines, and you get to the page where you take the bread out of the oven. There's still six minutes left to bake.” The director asked the playwright, “How are you going to solve that problem?” I asked.
Cope-Levy's name often comes up in conversations about Roanoke's growing reputation as a hotbed of new playwriting. Her historical drama, Decision Height, was published by leading theater publisher Samuel French in 2014 and has been performed more than 100 times since.
A native of Bergen County, New Jersey, Cope-Levy majored in theater at Hollins University in Roanoke County. “Decision Height” is her senior thesis and was first produced in 2012 at the Black She Box Theater on the top floor of the Hollins Theater building. She enrolled in Hollins' Playwrights Lab graduate program, where she continued to develop “Decision Height,” and also took a job in the university's Office of Institutional Advancement, where she still works today.
“I came for Hollins and never left,” Cope-Levy said with a laugh.
Decision Height won the 2013 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Best New Work Award before publication by Samuel French. Among the honors Koop-Levy has received since then, her plays, including The Bread-Baking Play, were named finalists in the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference's annual New Play Competition. Two were selected. Mr. O'Neill, for whom the conference is named, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize-winning classic dramas “Here Comes the Iceman'' and “The Long Day's Journey into Night.''
Not surprisingly, Ellis met Cope-Lévy through the playwright's lab. Ellis, a native of Aiken, South Carolina, said, “I attended the Playwrights Lab and its new playwriting program in 2016, where I met Meredith during my first summer.” “Then we started collaborating.”
Under Ellis' direction, collaborative partners and friends have taken Cope-Lévy's play, “She Made Space,” on a regional tour starting in 2017. Although set in 1920s Paris, “She Made Space'' only requires one actor, which is ideal for the production. An experiment in producing your own play. Cope-Lévy himself sometimes played the role of narrator and main character, Echo. They took the play to venues and festivals in Washington, D.C. Lexington, Kentucky. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. and Raleigh, North Carolina;
That experience proved to be a spiritual precursor to their new project and its unusual launch: the first since the coronavirus shutdown. “This brings the band back together, definitely,” Ellis said.
The Baking Theater is inspired by the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John and his sisters Mary and Martha. The play is also based on Cope-Lévy's own experiences growing up in an Anglican church. When sisters discuss issues that resonate with people of many faiths. One sister stays in the community to raise a family and volunteer at her home church, while the other travels around the world on missionary work.
Ellis argued that audiences did not need a religious background to understand the play. “It's actually a story of two sisters trying to get each other through life after grief and learning to be okay with each other. It's such a universal theme.”
Nevertheless, additional resonance applies to people from such backgrounds. During a recent rehearsal break, actor Alex Voller, who plays Oliver, said that rehearsing in the church kitchen brought back strong memories for him.
“As someone who grew up in the church and grew up in a very small church like this with both parents being pastors, this is just like a weird niche subculture,” Ferrer said. “And to have the audience here have some of the mannerisms and things that I grew up with and that I'm familiar with…even though there's not an overt religious message, they're in a way very familiar to me. It is our congregation.”
He hopes audiences will see the play in that perfectly matched environment and feel, “You're part of our community.” You are here, you are with us, you are participating with us in a very loving and intimate way. ”
Cope-Lévy donates the large amount of Eucharist bread to the church.
