By Hannah Curran, Editor
LEEDS — The Leeds Arts Council offers a behind-the-scenes look at their upcoming show Shadowlands with performances scheduled for February 25 – 26 and March 4 – 5, 2022, at 7 p.m., and February 27 and March 6, 2022, at 2 p.m.
Clay Boyce directs Shadowlands, and this is his second time producing the show. However, don’t expect to see the same Shadowlands as before. Instead, Boyce wants the audience to experience the show in a whole new light.
“It’s a true story of C.S. Lewis, the writer, and how he met his wife Joy, and their love story,” Boyce said. “It’s one of my favorite scripts because it’s just a beautiful love story. It’s what we all have in our lives when it comes to meeting the person of our dreams, and how that turns into love from a friendship.”
The Leeds Art Council is a small community theatre that allows its participants to step into the shoes of another person, even if it is only for a couple of hours, and make the character their own. Shadowlands has actors ranging from 8-years-old to 70-year-old.
“It’s really generic when you come to this show because so many people know C.S. Lewis, through his writings, they don’t really know what he looks like,” Boyce said. “So it can be anybody, and the main thing is finding the actors who want to work on the show and devote the time because the character of C.S. Lewis never leaves the stage. It’s 102 pages of you. So you have to really want to learn all those lines.”
The role of Douglas was double-cast because Boyce saw something in both actors that he wanted to work with both.
“I wanted to work with both of them and give them a chance to do it,” Boyce said. “So one is going to do it one weekend, and the other one will do it the second weekend. They’re just really good young men. So it’s nice to give them both a chance.”
The cast practices for almost three hours Monday through Thursday, and as the show dates get closer, they will begin practicing on the weekend. Actors also provide their own costumes for the show, and many times they reuse old costumes from previous shows.
“If you do community theater, you end up keeping all of your old clothes,” Brian Allison, playing Priest/Waiter/Dr. Oakley/Clerk said. “You never can tell when you’re going to need that priest costume again.”
Allison explained that people who are involved in community theatre have to have a certain amount of “hey, look at me!”
“This is so drastically different than my everyday work persona,” Allison said. “This is almost my therapy because I can worry about this guy’s problems and their problems for two hours. Instead of worrying about everything, I have to deal with it all day, every day. Honestly, as a performer, if I can get these people to forget about their lives for two hours, it’s giving by giving.”
Boyce explained that the humor in the show is what stands out to him because “if there’s humor to be found in everyday life, that if we don’t find joy, then what’s the point?”
“I think if you don’t know, the story of C.S. Lewis, and how he originally set out to disprove religion, and through that, he discovered his own faith,” Boyce said. “That to me, is a journey we all take with faith, of how do we end up believing in God? I was telling somebody earlier that one of the show’s characters was an atheist, and it was C.S. Lewis’ friend, Christopher Riley. When they talked about religion, they could talk from the standpoint of knowledge, give their opinions, and never lose the fact that they were best friends. That, to me, says so much about friendship.”
Michael Bridges, playing C.S. Lewis, said it’s been a good challenge to learn his lines. Bridges said that the moment he announced he was auditioning for the show, his friends were ecstatic because they are huge fans of C.S. Lewis. Bridges’ hope is to depict C.S. Lewis in a way that reaches every member of the audience.
“I think what people will get out of it is that whether you’re a believer or not, and that there is hope,” Bridges said. “We’re never going to understand the reason for all pain and suffering. It builds us and makes us strong. So I hope it will give them hope. I hope it will make them feel like ‘I’m not so crazy feeling this way.’ Here’s this guy, this was a famous writer who had these feelings too, and he grappled with, and he wrote these very inspiring books like ‘The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,’ but he had some hard times.”
Tickets are available for purchase at www.leedsartscouncil.org, and are $10 per person. For more information call (205) 699-1892.
Cast List:
- C.S. Lewis – Mike Bridges
- Joy Gresham – Holly Ford
- Major Warnie Lewis – Jon McClaran
- Christopher Riley – Matthew McCarron
- Harry Harrington – Kenneth Hurst
- Douglas (2nd weekend) – Eli Duckworth
- Douglas (1st weekend) – Jax Rutledge
- Alan Gregg/Doctor – Carter Sanderson
- Woman/Registrar/Nurse – Brandi McClaran
- Priest/Waiter/Dr. Oakley/Clerk – Brian Allison
- Stage Manager – Shannon Jordan