A Civil War Christmas

Paula Vogel

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781559363785
• eBook ISBN: 9781559367202
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

"A rich and moving play with music . . . it taps into seasonal themes of redemption, forgiveness and community, with a decidedly American bent."—Variety

Set on a chilly Christmas Eve during the latter days of the Civil War, Paula Vogel's new pageant for the holiday season weaves a tapestry of both fictional and historical characters—together with period holiday music and lesser-known marches, hymns, and spirituals—to tell a story of peaceful companionship and communal hope.

Paula Vogel's plays include How I Learned to Drive (winner of the Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Drama Desk, and New York Drama Critics awards), The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot 'N' Throbbing, and Desdemona. She is chair of the playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama, and is playwright-in-residence at Yale Repertory Theatre.

Preface and Acknowledgments

During a dinner break while in tech at Berkeley Rep in 1997, I had dinner with my director Molly Smith. Molly had just gotten the job as artistic director at Arena Stage, and I broke forth: “Why are we doing A Christmas Carol about Victorian London poverty? Where is the American Carol?!” The play came to me in a flash: and with crayon on the paper table cloth, I diagrammed the play.

All of it spilled out—the battlefields around Washington, D.C. that I visited as a schoolgirl, the trips to the Peterson House opposite Ford’s Theatre (where they brought the dying President Lincoln), the lyrics to our state song “Maryland, My Maryland” and all of the Civil War battle songs we learned in childhood . . . even the feeble efforts I made as a teenager, visiting Vietnam War soldiers at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval hospitals, trying to solace working-class teenagers, only a few years older than I, who had been drafted into a war not of their own choosing.

Although I decided to develop this play at the home Long Wharf provided, my thanks to Molly Smith for that first discussion.

But the play might have remained words on paper passed from reader to reader had it not been for Chase Mishkin, whose support made it possible to explore this play from workshop to stage, and who helped give me one of the great productions of my life at Long Wharf. Thank you.

To Tina Landau, for the workshops and the premiere: I am still overwhelmed by your production.

My thanks to Daryl Waters: his amazing score, his unflappable presence, his soulful ear, his brilliance.

And as well to Andrew Resnick, our musical director, for launching the show each night in New Haven and Boston, and keeping musical vigil.

To Gordon Edelstein, and the entire company at Long Wharf: my thanks, my love. I have been so happy in your halls and rooms. It is wonderful at last to have a home in one of my hometowns.

I am honored by all of the companies and casts, the directors and designers, who have brought this show to fruition: Long Wharf, Huntington, TheatreWorks, Northlight, and the little company that could: New Haven Theater Company—a small community theater that produced the show with local actors.

And my gratitude as well:

To Jerry Patch, whose generous mind gave insightful notes, and whose company gave us courage;

To Jessica Thebus, who tackled this work in three weeks with unflagging spirit and gave us a gorgeous Christmas.

To Dan Ostling, whose visions haunt me still.

To Peter DuBois, to all the staff and folks at Huntington—I am grateful. To Robert Kelley, to BJ Jones, my thanks for the honor of being produced in your theaters.

My gratitude for the research by Michelle Hall, April Donahower, Charles Haugland, Katie McGerr, Krista Williams, Matt Cornish, Noëlle G-M Gibbs and all the dramaturgs.

I have been fortunate in my ensembles, the lovely actors, choruses, the children who tread the stage each night as troupers; so fortunate in the companies I keep.

Thanks to Kathy Smith, Washington, D.C. historian, for her insight and time. And to Carroll Gibbs, for his work and his encouragement. Many thanks to Jean Baker, for her work on Mary Todd Lincoln; to the remarkable historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her book that I could re-read for another decade. And thanks to Anna Deveare Smith for her challenging mind and her encouragement. Thanks to Dr. Evelynn Hammonds for a great reading list.

Mark Brokaw did the impossible (yet again): directing a staged reading with a chorus in Independence, Kansas, in four days (perhaps I should not write this, in case artistic directors realize it can be done in four days). It is always a great honor to work with Mark, and I thank him.

And, oh, the chorus of citizens and students at the Inge Festival who had memorized the music and sounded heavenly—my gratitude.

I have trampled over Virginia ground with a lovely Mosby expert/impersonator; tussled over the war (“of Northern Aggression”!) with a Confederate reenactor at Washington and Lee University; argued with a John Brown impersonator who showed up in New Haven, perfectly attired, over the legitimacy of making up dialogue; and been corrected, gently and not so gently, over my historical mistakes by so many audience members. I am grateful to the folks from the National Trust for Historic Preservation who allowed me to walk through the Lincolns’ summer cottage before it had been restored.

In the writing, dreaming, reading, and listening, it has taken a decade to make this play. It has taken more than a village—it has taken an army. My thanks to everyone who has helped me.

But beyond thanks, I am indebted to my wife, Anne, who liste...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL CELEBRATION
• AFTERWORD
• A CONVERSATION WITH DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN AND PAULA VOGEL
• FURTHER READING