Twenty-year old Henry Dolgoff is a longtime Falmouth summer resident and an alumnus of CCTP’s intern program. Inspired by his time at CCTP, Dolgoff crossed the pond for college and is now studying drama at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he is poised to graduate this spring with a B.A. in acting. But before finishing up his studies in Glasgow, Dolgoff came back stateside to study at Carnegie Mellon University for the fall semester where he joined its third-year acting students in the school’s drama department. Here Dolgoff writes about his experience at CMU rehearsing the play Blood at the Root, a harrowing drama about racism in the American South.
Blood at the Root is an American play by Dominique Morisseau about a group of Black students who deal with racism in high school. Known as the Jena Six, these students face several racist and disturbing situations throughout the play. Toward the beginning of the play, a Black student asks to sit under a tree at school. White students then proceed to hang three nooses hung from that very tree the next day. A few months later, a group of six Black students attack a white student and they are arrested and tried as adults for attempted murder. It is a “bold new play” that “examines the miscarriage of justice, racial double standards, and the crises in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the shattering state of Black family life” in the United States. Blood at The Root is Carnegie Mellon’s Junior Performance Project (JPP), the first performance opportunity that CMU gives its third-year students. In that sense, the experience of performing at Carnegie has been as new for them throughout this process as it has been for me.
It has been an extremely rewarding and unique rehearsal process putting this show together. From the very beginning, our director Ausar Stewart instilled a detail-oriented approach to the work. The first week was completely dedicated to table work where we all sat down together as a company and just read the script aloud. We started with table work, so we could eliminate all other variables and focus on getting a deep grasp of the internal world of the show. The informality and camaraderie inherent in table work also allowed us to find a healthy and safe way to go into this play due to the strong themes it covers. Throughout this initial stage of the rehearsal process, we were always reminding ourselves that we are carrying the message, not becoming the message. This way, we can leave the work in the space with us at the end of the night, rather than carrying it home with us in unhealthy ways.
I’m super excited to be sharing this show with a live audience— I haven’t performed a show in front of a live audience in 2 years! Right now, Carnegie Mellon is limiting performances at CMU to the only drama community, but staff and faculty are hopeful shows can open up to the general public in October. The show has absolutely found its footing in the past week and is ready to deliver its timely and impactful messages to audiences.
Blood at the Root ran from September 22nd to the 25th in the Rauh Theatre at Carnegie Melon University and was directed by Ausar Stewart, a voice and acting teacher at CMU. The Cape Cod Theatre Project thanks Concord Theatricals for use of the quotes within the piece.
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