Rehearsals for the fourth Higher Ground community performance began August 11th at the Eastern Kentucky Social Club in Lynch, Kentucky. Sixty community members came together over the next six weeks to create an original community musical built from local stories and songs. For most of the early weeks of rehearsal, actors worked on individual scenes and monologues with director Richard Geer of Community Performance International and stage managers Maranda DeBusk and Austin Rutherford. In late August and early September the cast came together to assemble the show. Throughout the rehearsal period, however, cast assembled for music rehearsals. Ann Schertz, a Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College professor of music, served as music director for the production, which included nine songs.
Four of the songs were original to the production. Schertz wrote “Wings to Fly,” which closed the first act. Justin Taylor, who like Schertz has been involved in Higher Ground since its beginnings in 2005, wrote two songs: “River Taught Me to Run,” and “My Way Home.” Ryan Coots, one of the summer art and theater students, wrote a fourth song, “Pile It Up,” inspired by the junk-filled stage set and the play’s central question: what to keep and what to throw away. Other songs in the production included Caroline Herring’s “Traveling Shoes” and the traditional hymn “Meet Me In the Morning.” Schertz assembled a band of local musicians to provide instrumental backing, and later in the rehearsal period, CPI brought in choreographer Kevin Iega Jeff to provide movement to accompany the cast’s singing.
During rehearsals, choreography, acting, and music came together to create a new scene, the wordless action that accompanied “My Way Home.” In that scene, a young man who had not fit in in Harlan County and had moved to Lexington to open a successful flower business only to return to take care of his ailing coal miner father, visits his father’s grave before leaving again. Suitcase in hand, on the brink of leaving, the young man is showered by flowers from the entire cast and entreated to stay as they sing the words to “My Way Home:”
You’ve got it all in place
This is how you saw it then
I fit right into the frame
The only reason I’m still here
I think of all the love I’ve counted out
The people never taken in
I’ve been here for the ups and downs
But you’re still wond’ring where I’ve been
And now I’m staring down the lines
Of a dim, forsaken road
I may lose the day – I may stumble my way
But I’ll find my own way home
So I turn against the flow
To a place outside the frame
With a heart to let you know
The only reason I’m still here
And now I’m staring down the lines
Of a dim, forsaken road
I may lose the day – I may stumble my way
But I’ll find my own way home
As the song ends, the cast turns and extends hands to the audience. The compactness of the set and seating design allowed cast members to actually take the hand of our audience, community members, most of them, many of whom were weeping at the close of the show. It is a powerful dramatic moment, and one that evolved as a collaborative act during rehearsals.