Great Barrington — Eliza Keenan, who calls Stockbridge home, has been engaged in an ongoing conversation over the past few months: “What are our journeys?” and “What makes home?” have been the two queries guiding her involvement in a multimedia performance of art, memoir and Berkshire Immigrant Stories in collaboration with the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. The show, originally slated for March 13th, is based on four personal immigration stories by artists David Macaulay, Frances Jetter, James McMullan and Yuyi Morales, part of the exhibit on view at NRM when it closed to the public in late March. These artists’ visual memoirs are woven with Berkshire Immigrant Stories to invite reflection on our own and others’ stories, and how together we make a community. A Zoom-based performance, directed and performed by local high school students, will air on the museum’s website and YouTube channel Friday, April 24, at 7 p.m.
“It has been a joy to read [Morales’] story,” said Keenan, who both participates in and directs the upcoming production. “I think she says the most with the fewest words [and] it’s very hopeful: remembering what we have with us wherever we go.” Keenan, a senior at Monument Mountain Regional High School, shares Morales’ story about arriving in the United States from Mexico, with her infant son and nothing else, or so she believed. “[Her work] depicts all the objects and symbols she brought with her in a backpack — representing her old life but also resilience and hope,” Keenan said of the impression this left on her. And then there are the butterflies. “[Each takes part in the] journey, but it takes multiple generations to get from where they begin to where they arrive,” Keenan explained of an entire new generation that often reaps the benefits of the myriad efforts of those who came before.
“It’s been a joy to work with [these students],” said Mary Berle, chief educator at NRM. “Eliza is extraordinarily positive and skilled in the director role, and took on the challenge to move the program from a live program at the Mahaiwe to a virtual experience,” Berle added. Liam O’Gara, Lucy Ernst and Fiora Laina join Keenan in a production that brings stories to life, explores what home means and sparks community discussion. The students, who Berle calls “amazingly talented and positive,” bring the artists’ stories to life with voice acting (including excerpts of their published stories) along with recordings of real Berkshire County immigrants that reflect their experiences. “Our hope is that it will extend beyond the Berkshires,” said Keenan, whom collaborated with her peers as well as Berle and Rich Bradway, director of digital learning and engagement at NRM, to create not only this experience but also the infrastructure as a platform for other communities to engage in similar discussions.
“Ultimately we hope audiences come away knowing our Berkshire community a little better and realizing we are all connected and deserve each other’s empathy and care,” said Berle in a written statement. “We will offer the program in person [to] middle and high [school students] when that time comes!” she added. School, after all, was the genesis of this collaboration. “Mary [Berle] knows me really well,” Keenan said of her former third-grade teacher at Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School. Last year Berle invited Keenan’s brother, Toby, to direct an old-school radio play based on illustrator Gregory Manchess’ critically acclaimed book “Above the Timberline.” “He killed it, of course,” Keenan said of her brother, calling him “a natural.” A cohort of local high school students brought that story to life on the stage of the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, and Eliza participated as a voice actor. This year, she was invited to direct the cast. “I reached out to students I knew from around the community,” Keenan noted, pointing to Fiora Laina as one such collaborator. Laina, an 11th-grade homeschooled student who is also enrolled at Berkshire Community College, took part in a print workshop at NRM with Francis Jetter. This exposure to the artist allowed Laina, who reads Jetter’s story in the forthcoming production, to pick up her diction and lend authenticity to her performance. “Her artwork is fascinating,” Keenan said of Jetter, calling it, “very layered, very deep.” Keenan and Laina also collaborate on the singing of a song about the Golden Rule (inspired by a Rockwell painting of the same name).
Prior to this pair of productions, Keenan was unfamiliar with the prevalence of radio drama, presented through sound alone, which achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. “I just accepted the idea of a radio play,” she said of last year’s experience, which was enhanced by performing in front of a live audience. “It just made sense,” she added of the unique platform that “worked very well for our community even if you couldn’t be present,” noting that “it could reach a much broader [sector] of our community in a way that a single, isolated performance couldn’t.” As luck would have it, the deal is stacked in Keenan’s favor once again. The current COVID-19 pandemic precludes our community convening to see the long-awaited production in person, so it will launch on Zoom. This culmination is in no small part due to the diligence and expertise of Bradway. “I am truly happy this project will be released,” he said in a written statement. “There was so much positive feedback last year when we did the radio play [and] working alongside the students, the Berkshire Immigrant Stories Project participants, the Mahaiwe staff — not to mention my NRM colleagues — has been truly rewarding,” he added. After overwhelming interest from the public in attending the show, Bradway remains “equally happy that we will be able to make this available not only to them but also a broader online community.”
Keenan’s passions run the gamut from performing and acting to creative writing, and she really loves storytelling. “It comes in [so] many shapes and sizes and [mediums],” she pointed out, adding, “I couldn’t imagine limiting myself to just writing or just performing — I see them as interconnected, just like in ‘Finding Home.’” Tune in on Friday night, with or without video, and experience for yourself what Keenan and the cast call a really fascinating process, one they embarked upon in February. Looking forward, Keenan is confident that “some[one] who [is] already involved will carry the torch,” she said in a nod to the growing student community, one she sees gaining steam and growing in a positive direction in years to come. For the time being, she remains focused on the moment at hand: “Storytelling does change lives, [at least that is] our hope in creating a more educated and compassionate community.”
