FULL LENGTH ORIGINALS

ALL FOR THE UNION in Confederate Virginia!

Straight from the pages of Loudoun County, Virginia Civil War history, the play traces the true escapades of three young pro-Union journalists - Lida and Lizzie Dutton and Sarah Steer - who fought the Confederacy in their own unique way.

From the 2000 prodution performed in Waterford, Virginia. Actors stand

before the Dutton home on Second Street.

They dealt with foraging rebels and burning raids, cared for wounded soldiers, assisted with the Underground Railroad, and created the only known Union newspaper to ever be published from Confederate Virginia. From the summer of 1864 to the end of the conflict, they managed to smuggle at least eight drafts of The Waterford News across the Potomac River for printing. Despite starving conditions in Loudoun, they took the subscription monies and sent them north to Soldiers' Aid. After President Lincoln's assassination, copies of The Waterford News are purported to have been among the items found on the White House desk, along with a Union soldier's lletter which tells the President that the three girls had raised over $1300 for soldiers aid through its publication(a tremendous sum in that day).

From a version of the play filmed in 2005-06 at Clermont Estate, Berryville, VA

Heroes are made when right choices are made in difficult circumstances. Thanks to the preservation of Loudoun history, we're able to celebrate the heart of these heroes - the young women who vowed to do life justice despite all odds.

Premiered: 1997, The Growing Stage, Inc., Purcellville, VA
Cast: 18
Length: 1.5 hours
Read the Loudoun Times-Mirror REVIEW (pdf)

Read the 2003 Article: "The Play's the Thing in Lincoln," Loudoun Times-Mirror (PDF file)

Order a video from the 2003 production

Read the true story of Lida, Lizzie and Sarah

Read about the show's first production

Performance Rights: Meredith Bean McMath

SET FOR PRODUCTION JULY 2011, as the first in the five-year, five-play McMath Civil War Series

BILL THE BARD: An Evening of Shakespearean Entertainment

A romp through the Best of the Bard of Avonlea, the play begins with modern narration by a frustrated actor — someone certain Shakespeare doesn't need help from the performers backstage, because he's easily able to act out the material all by himself. His anti-actor tirade is interrupted when an actor waiting behind the curtain can take no more and bursts forth with the Chorus from Henry V: "OH, for a muse of FIRE!"

The various aspects of Shakespeare's works are then represented: pathos, comedy, history, love stories (and a sonnet), monologues, dialogues, and, as grand finale, the Rustic Play from A Midsummer Night's Dream, each introduced by the increasingly erratic narrator.

In the end, the narrator comes to a sort of peace over his lot, and the actors show their appreciation for the narrator by allowing him to have the "last words" Puck's lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream beginning "If we shadows have offended..." And curtain.

Premiered: 2001, Not Just Shakespeare, Inc., directed by Tim Jon

Cast: 6 men, 4 women

Length: 2 hours

Performance Rights: Meredith Bean McMath

Pictured at left, L to R: actors Millie Juraschek Shipe and Don Frye as Juliet and Romeo