Barter Theatre’s Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights is held from Feb. 22 through Feb. 25 on the Smith Stage, Abingdon, Virginia. The festival is free and open to the public.
“Snakeroot” by Levi Shrader is read Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. Orphaned by the 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Sissy scrapes together a living digging up medicinal roots while her dysfunctional brother searches for the elusive Mothman. When an agent from the National Park Service arrives with information about a rare plant, Sissy sees a path toward building a better home for her family, as long as she can elude the secret passions threatening to upend her last-ditch effort. Faith, family and the supernatural order of reality are all tested amidst one woman’s struggle to construct a new life.
“Girl on a Hill” by Cris Eli Blak takes to the stage Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. Deana Wakefield is an African American woman living out of a motel with her musician-boyfriend, struggling with a substance use disorder. Her life takes an unexpected turn when a journalist from The New York Times shows up at her door after he uncovers who she really is: a former child math prodigy. This is a play about race, discrimination, addiction, friendship, shame, generational traum, and how no matter what we are, or who we are, we have a story to tell and a life that’s worth living.
“The Bad Guy” by Jen Diamond is presented Feb. 23 at 3 p.m. When Finn and Deirdre inherit Finn’s childhood home, they move in, hoping to repair their marriage and get a fresh start on life. But the woods are far deeper and darker than Finn remembers, and his half-sister has become a stranger. This modern, folk-horror adaptation of “The Bacchae” is about all the ways we are capable of transforming ourselves and those we love.
“Mountain Mamas” by Daryl Lisa Fazio is presented Feb. 24 at 11 a.m. Patsy Armstrong is a coal miner. Just like her daddy, Earl. And just like her mother, Wanda, who was one of the first women ever hired underground in a union mine and, at 60 years old, is still there. As of this week, Patsy’s back in her mother and daddy’s house, after a mining accident that left her with no ability to move or communicate. Her bright 18-year-old daughter, Livvy, now lives there too. In a home that’s full of humor and generosity and rowdiness and grit. But a home — not to mention a whole dang planet — that’s under more pressure than maybe it’s ever been. When the family gets news about the settlement from Patsy’s accident, Livvy jumps into the fray. And Patsy, now forced to listen and observe more than she ever did as a healthy person, is plagued by nightmares and revelations she’s able to share only with us. It doesn’t take long for her to realize she has to learn a new way of being if she’s going to save her entire world.
“Sons that Wear Dresses and Mothers that Love Sweet Potatoes” by Gage Tarlton is staged Feb. 24 at 3 p.m. When Malcolm returns home to Durham, North Carolina, for Thanksgiving, he soon discovers his mother, Lillian, is moving out of their bookshop home, where he and his sister, Chandra, grew up. New apartments are being built in its place. Across the street, 20-somethings Toby and Shay run on treadmills at Planet Fitness. They’re not real friends — just gym friends. When their worlds collide at the local gay club, they’re taken on a journey that alters their relationship to their community, to each other, and to themselves. A play about gentrification, the price of love and learning to move forward.
The festival concludes Feb. 25 at 3 p.m. with “Go Tell It On the Go Mountain” by Catherine Bush. This new play with music gives witness to the lives of ordinary Appalachians as they celebrate “the most wonderful time of the year.” From the young girl in Tennessee obsessed with being a ballerina in “The Nutcracker” to the Kentucky father whose sons are fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War, these people and songs remind us what Christmas in the mountains is really all about.
