Revolution’s Edge, with Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart (episode 276)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 76. Revolution’s edge. Hi, I’m Jake.
This week, I’m talking about a new play that’ll be debuting in Boston later this month.
Revolution’s edge tells the story of three Bostonians and their families on the eve of the revolution.
Mather Byles is the loyalist rector of old North Church.
Cato is the African American man who’s enslaved by Byles.
And John Pulling is a wig ship’s captain and he’s a member of the old North Vestry.
The three men have very different stations in life, but they all have young families with intertwined lives.
And on April 18th, 17 75 they all had to make very different decisions about what to do with those lives before we get started.
Listen to this clip from an early rehearsal of revolution’s edge where Vicker Byles and Captain Pulling debate when it would be too late for pulling and his Children to leave Boston safely.

Revolution’s Edge:
[1:15] Perhaps you should consider joining the others elsewhere.
Perhaps. Now would be a good time to visit Sarah’s family in Hingham.
Say we were to leave for our safety as a friend and pastor. When would you recommend we depart?
You would know better than I Agnes John and Sally deserve safety if you were to protect Little Anna’s friend, when should she sail for Ingham?
She should have left a week ago.

Patrick:
[1:50] Before I reveal our special guests for the episode, I just want to pause and thank the Patreon sponsors who make this show possible.
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And in exchange, they get a hub history sticker. My heartfelt thanks and not much more.

[2:15] Their support makes it possible for me to make the show and to keep making it better over time with more tools and resources.
One example of that comes from today’s interview over the past year or so.
Our sponsors have made it possible for me to start using a video conferencing system that’s similar to Zoom for our interviews.

[2:36] It doesn’t seem like much but being able to see each other’s nonverbal cues makes a huge difference when it comes to carrying on a conversation like this.
It’s the ongoing support of our Patreon supporters who made this upgrade possible, if you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy.
Just go to Patreon dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com.
And click on the support us link and thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors and now it’s time to welcome our special guests for this episode.
I’m going to be joined in just a moment by two people who helped to bring the play revolution’s edge to life.
Patrick Gabridge is the playwright who created revolution’s edge and he is also the brains behind several other historical dramas that have been seen in Boston as the producing artistic director of the plays and Place theater company.
You may have seen his work at Mount Auburn Cemetery, the old State House or Old South Meeting House.
Now, Patrick’s latest production will take place at Old North.
So we’re also joined by Nikki Stewart nikki is the executive director of Old North Illuminated, as well as the co-host Emerita of Hub History.
Patrick and nikki. Welcome to the show.

Jake:
[3:52] I’m joined now by Nikki Stewart and Patrick Gabridge.
Nikki is the executive director of Old North Illuminated and Patrick is the playwright behind a new play. So, welcome to you both.

Patrick:
[4:04] Thank you. Great to be here.

Jake:
[4:06] So I’ve asked you both to join me today to talk about a new play that’s gonna be performed at Old North this summer.
And it’s called Revolution’s Edge.
Patrick. I was hoping that just to kick us off, you could tell our listeners a little bit about who the main characters of the play are.
I’ve seen a preview video, but I haven’t seen the play itself, but I’ve seen three main characters. Can you tell us about them?

Patrick:
[4:31] Sure. So we have Mather Byles Junior um who is the rector of Old North Church at that time.
The play takes place in 17 75 on the verge of the war, right?
The, the day before Lex to in a concord the afternoon before the lanterns that are hung from the steeple.
So Mather Byles Junior has been the rector for seven years and has just resigned his position um somewhat under pressure thinks he’s got a new job in, in Portsmouth.
Um He has been serving a congregation that is severely politically divided.
This is AAA um Anglican church and so he’s serving that population, but half of the, a third of them are on the patriot side. A third are loyalists.
He is an avid loyalist.

[5:20] The other one of the other characters is Cato who is enslaved by mother Byles and his family.
And so Cato is facing great uncertainty if the Byles family moves to New Hampshire, Cato will lose leave behind his wife and Children who are enslaved by Mather Byles uh in-laws in Roxbury, so nearby but not, they don’t live in the same household.
And then the third character is John Pulling Junior. Um who is a vestryman at Old North and or Christ church at the time.
And so he was partly responsible for hiring Mather Byles seven years ago and has stuck up with him through a tumultuous tenure.
And um but now has accepted the resignation on behalf of the, the vestry, the church.
And he knows, or he’s finding out that that night, he might be hanging one of those lanterns to signal the uh patriots across the water.
And so these men are all trying to figure out in a very uncertain time, what’s gonna happen with them and their families.
I think one thing that was really interesting to me is that all three of these men are fathers of young Children.
And so part of what we’re examining is how do people deal with uncertainty of war and devastation that’s gonna affect them.
Um So the play is looking at a whole bunch of things around politics and faith, but also family.

Jake:
[6:47] Obviously, as an enslaved man, Cato is in a very different social standing than Mather Byles.
What does it mean to be a vestryman? Is John pulling in a similar social class and situation as uh the director Ma Byles would be.

Patrick:
[7:03] Right. So John Pulling, his profession is a ship’s captain. So he’s a merchant ship captain.
There’s kind of this ministerial class, right?
It would be interesting to figure out exactly if you’re going to figure out the level that they exist at. They’re similar to the merchant class, right?
They’re not super well heeled and he he is not, he’s always fighting for his salary.
But social standing wise, I think they’re at least as highly ranked as, as a minister, as a merchant like John Pulling and Pulling is definitely on strong on the patriots side, pretty decent chance he could have been at the tea party.
Um Friends with Paul Revere hangs out with John Hancock and Samuel Adams, but not one of the big leaders.
And I think one of the questions that is actually raised in the play is is part of the reason for that because he worships the church of England, is that a problem politically for him?

Jake:
[7:55] Before we get too deep into the political side of things, you said that this is as much as anything a, a story about family.
So why don’t you tell us a little bit about the families of these three men at the center of the story.

Patrick:
[8:07] One thing I always look at when I’m tackling historical play like this is to try to understand the family relationships that these people have and and how that makes them more fully human to us because a lot of times that’s what gets glossed over when we look at the historical record. Right.

Jake:
[8:21] Yeah, we talk about the great men but not the world they live in.
As much the day to day world they live in.

Patrick:
[8:26] Yeah. So who, who are their people? And in this particular case, I think the Children is really interesting because Mather Byles and John Pulling both have kids around the same age.
Pulling at this time has three Children and, uh, Baler Byles has five of various ages from.

[8:47] Little to big and, but some like, uh, pulling and Byles had daughters almost exactly the same age and they lived not too far from each other.
So it’s easy to imagine that their wives would have hung out a little bit.
The Children would have played together. They go, they’re at the same church.
So they’re part of the same faith community.

[9:05] So I think it’s really easy to think like, oh, these people are on different sides of the political aisle, but they’re part of the same faith community.
So that means their families are interacting in a very daily way.
What’s particularly been challenging for Mather Byles is at that when this play is taking place, is that his youngest daughter, Martha just passed away, just died two weeks before this happens.
So he’s a man in mourning and that was one of the things that first caught my attention and this is the second uh daughter, he’s buried recently, a few in 72.
His daughter, uh Mary died at the age of like three weeks.
Um It was pretty heartbreaking for him and, and their whole family and for John poling, he has been through some serious loss too.
Also around a few years prior.
Um his wife, Anne died, so his first wife died and he is, at the time of this play has recently remarried.
But I think it’s easy to imagine that Byles as minister would have helped him get through the grief.
You know, that’s part of the process. He buried Polling’s wife and has baptized his Children.
So they’re tightly interwoven as family. And that’s, that’s the thing that again didn’t get lost that they’re politically separate but community and faith wise and family wise, they’re very tied together for Cato.
It’s, it’s always harder to find historical record for enslaved people and for poor people. Like they’re just not well recorded.

Jake:
[10:33] Baptismal records and a few things like that.

Patrick:
[10:36] And that’s true for all poor people and also for women.
A lot of the time in, in this particular case, the main record we have for Cato in relationship to Byles is we know he was baptized um just a week before by Byles at the church, right before all hell breaks loose.
And so, and we know he’s an adult.
We know he’s listed as a servant of Mat Byles. It was a private baptism.
So trying to understand like what does that mean?
And I dug through Byles family correspondence and one thing that was interesting that I came across was a note from 17 84 from Halifax mentioned the fact that he had prayed for and cared for, but then also baptized, which is we’re still trying to figure that out.
Uh a man named Cato who had been married to his mother-in-law’s former servant, Zora.
So that’s really interesting because there aren’t very many Cato’s in Halifax in 17 84.
Not a lot at all. There were, there were lots in Boston in 17 75.
There’s probably 10 of them but not, not in Halifax.
And we suspect that Cato went with Byles when they were, when they fled in 17 76.

[11:47] This is the closest thing I could find through his correspondence.
It’s clear that Byles is not particularly personally emotionally invested in the people who he is enslaved or her, her servants.
He mentions them very rarely, which is different from like John Hancock talks about people who are enslaved in his family with some familiarity and friendliness and he sends them Christmas presents and they’re on a path to freedom that he’s fully aware of Byles is not, not involved in that way.
But it’s interesting that he sends this note. The baptism reference is kind of weird. We don’t know if that meant that he anointed him or did something.
But the link to Zora is really interesting because in the record, I can find the marriage record for Zora and Ao at the church that uh his in-laws, uh his father-in-law headed in Roxbury.

[12:38] And also the baptismal records for their three Children.
So they have three Children, ages 6465 and four, something like that.
Um So we also know that if this is the Arcada, which I think it seems likely he is that he’s also the father of three Children.
So they have this in common of and in war, it’s tough on everybody, right? But it’s really hard on small kids.
And so they all know this and for Cato, he faces the additional uncertainty of, let’s say they moved to New Hampshire.
It’s not like he can just hop in the car and come back home and visit right now.
His family lives in Roxbury, enslaved by a family that’s related to the family he’s part of.
But now if he goes uh a day or two sail away or a long carriage ride, like he’s not gonna have that option.
So he’s really concerned, like, am I ever gonna see my wife and Children again?
Um And it turns out that in reality, what we think happens is that, you know, a year later after this play, they go to Halifax and he almost certainly would never have seen them again.
So I think it highlights the cruelty of slavery in all of North America at this time and especially around family separation.

[13:48] Slavery is horrible in all facets in New England. What’s kind of interesting about how slavery operated is that, you know, they were operating in small household units as opposed to like in the South where people on plantations might, often live on the same plantation together as a family unit though, often separated too here in New England.
That was quite uncommon, right? So it’s quite common for the husband and wife to be enslaved by different households, their freedom status could be different.
Um That was pretty common.

Jake:
[14:20] So having learned a little bit about our three protagonists as people, let’s set the political stage a little bit.
So the play takes place at one very specific moment in time, the afternoon of April 18th, 17 75 hours before the famous lantern signals are hung in the steeple of old North Church.
So what in the lives of pulling and Byles and Cato as well as sort of in the broader world of Boston?
What, what’s led up to the conversations that are happening that afternoon?

Patrick:
[14:51] The big thing that’s happened is this job situation with Byles, you know, he decides that the situation at the church has become untenable and has arranged for this new job.
So he has submitted his resignation.
So the big conversation that’s going on is Byles is saying you’re gonna fire me. So I quit and I’m gonna go get a job somewhere else.
But the difficult thing is that the political uncertainty of the time is really high.
So we don’t have on the record the letters from Portsmouth.
So it is easy to wonder.
He may have had a letter but then have things changed.
So he’s going into this wondering like, how am I gonna feed my wife and five Children if I don’t get paid anymore?

[15:36] He’s also been ministering to General Gauge and the troops general gauge worships at this church.
But there’s a, you know, a couple 1000 troops living in Boston Common that need someone to marry them, bury them, baptize them and they have wives and Children with them.
And so Byles has been involved with that. So, you know, the question is, you know, is that a backup job for him?
He has a lot, a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty and then pulling, you know, the moment where we’re at historically is really challenging because a lot of the town has fled like they know this is coming every like the war has begun.
I think J L Bell. I, I love his book, The Road To Conquered.
I looked at it really heavily for this piece to understand kind of the, the mood we’re at and what their, everybody’s after.
You know, the British want to know where the Canon are that have disappeared.
And that’s, you know, that’s what they’re going hunting for the next day.
And Paul is a guy, an operator, right? He, he knows what’s going on and they’re living in this police state where everybody’s watching everybody.
It’s hard to, for, we don’t just don’t think of it, right. But it’s a small town but it’s full of thousands of soldiers. I mean, picture living in Boston now.
But you know, 10 X, the number of, you know, police and soldiers that you have there just put it, you know, every third person you see is wearing a uniform and has an eye out.

Jake:
[16:55] Yeah, I’ve heard estimates that by the spring of 17 75 there was a soldier for every adult male in Boston more or less.

Patrick:
[17:03] It’s crazy and they also town is emptied out.
So, you know, Hancock and Adams have left, everybody knows they’ve left, they don’t know where the British don’t know where they’ve gone necessarily.
And so though maybe Dr Church has informed them, but, you know, you, but they’ve left and there’s questions to whether the loyalist political class feels very secure.
I mean, they’ve protected by soldiers but they’ve seen what can happen.
And the one big question is, you know, how, how much do they know what’s going on in the countryside?

Jake:
[17:34] So, it’s interesting how you point out that Byles is ministering to general gauge in the red coats.
Maybe give us a thumbnail sketch of the difference politically between the sort of the dominant congregational church and the close second Anglican congregations in town.

Nikki:
[17:51] Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is that the Anglican church is the church of England. It’s the King’s church.
And so it therefore makes sense that government officials, military leaders, um troops themselves, even if it didn’t match their personal spiritual beliefs, it would have been advantageous to worship in the church of England.
And then your options are going to be King’s Chapel or Christ church which we now call old North King’s Chapel was uh a smaller church, older, more established.
It could just be that King’s Chapel was full.
I mean, there are two things that we tell visitors. Like we first say that everybody was a loyalist until they weren’t, everybody was a British subject just about everybody would have been loyal to the king.
But then we also uh tell people, I, I think our visitors are very surprised to learn that Old North was not uh you know, a fully patriot congregation.
And we say that we believe about a third of the congregation were patriots, about a third were loyalists.
And the last third really just didn’t want to talk about politics at Thanksgiving.

Patrick:
[19:06] Yeah. And he, and it’s a heavily merchant oriented, uh, congregation too. Right.
So, there’s a lot of businessmen who just want to get on with the business of business.

Nikki:
[19:16] And for a time if you’re a sea captain or a ship owner or a merchant, it would have been financially advantageous to stick with the king and the church of England and to be a loyalist.

Jake:
[19:28] By the time we get to this particular day in 17 75 there’s been basically a decade or maybe more but certainly a decade of increasing political tension in Boston from the Stamp Act crisis through the Liberty riots of 17 68 through the Boston massacre in 17 70 the tea party in 73.
How does that play out among the congregation of the Old North?
What does it mean for them?

Nikki:
[19:52] Well, I think the biggest thing that it translates to in their day to day experience is just a lot of uncertainty, questions about safety debates about which path is the best way forward.
And I think when we look back, it’s very easy with 2020 hindsight to speculate like what the best path forward was.
But we, we really don’t know, we don’t know today what the other path would have been.

Jake:
[20:20] So Patrick, how do you reflect the tension more broadly across this congregation in this town?
In a drama with three characters?

Patrick:
[20:29] Right. It is tricky. I will say the one interesting thing that that allows us to keep the kind of political and economic issues is pulling being a ship’s captain because he’s directly affected by the Port Act.
So the port has been closed for a year by this time.
And then, and then you could kind of see and I think we’ve got his resentment is really directed towards parliament and you can see parliament’s overreach in the in the Port Act.
It has placed people in a really difficult position like there’s no work in a place where there’s a long, long history of independent feeling in this, in the colony of Massachusetts, right?
So yes, they’re happy to be part of the Empire. But for a very long time, they were kind of, you know, there’s a great book, The City State of Boston that really made me think differently about like, wow, ok, this was a place of its own that was perfectly happy to coexist with England, but it was its own place.
And now they’re ratcheting up by parliament. We’re feeling in the play through pulling.

Jake:
[21:28] And I will just interrupt briefly to give a brief plug for maybe our newer listeners, Mark Peterson, the au author of the City State of Boston is a past podcast guest from episode 1 55.
If anybody cares to go back and listen to that.

Patrick:
[21:43] It’s a brilliant book. I’m going to go back and listen to it now.

Jake:
[21:45] I think even in the first year of the shooting war, even after the outbreak of war at Lexington and conquered a lot of people in Boston would still say that they were loyal subjects of King George, but they were fighting against the misguided policies of parliament.

Patrick:
[22:00] Right in Cambridge, right. George Washington. They give a toast to the King’s health and then the king’s birthday. And you’re like, what, how does that make sense?

Jake:
[22:07] Yeah, it’s not as neat and tidy of a break as, as a lot of us learned in elementary school.

Patrick:
[22:13] Yes.

Jake:
[22:14] So pivoting from sort of the political climate of the day.
What is the performance of the play gonna feel like?
So it’s gonna be performed in the Sanctuary of Old North? It is it set there as well?

Patrick:
[22:28] Yes. It’s set there at this moment. And so hopefully it’ll feel a little bit like you’re there, there are some stylistic elements to it a little bit that is allowing us to get inside the head of Cato a little bit.
So there’s some direct address, but otherwise it’s, it feels very much in real time as it’s moving forward.
So, you know, I’ve done a bunch of other work at the old state house and uh Old South and Mount Albert Cemetery and other places.
So it’s in line with that kind of thing. But yeah, so you’re gonna feel like you’re there, these people feel really real and you’re gonna kind of experience this moment.
And I think it’s interesting because the moment itself is small and, and you could say insignificant in the historical record in a way, but it’s really indicative of what people are going through and what they’re trying to think about at this moment of revolution and reminds us that these are real people and they don’t have the answers.
And when we look back at history, a lot of times we feel like, oh, they’re making a choice because they know A or B is gonna lead to this. Right?
And which is not true. And it’s a situation we’re all in at this very moment, right?
Like we can be in very uncertain times and we’re like, oh, if only we lived back then it would be so much easier. Like, no, no, it wasn’t any easier for them.

Jake:
[23:41] Did you have to do anything to Old North to take it back to 17 75?
Is there scenery and set dressing or is the church original enough that you can, you’re already transported?

Patrick:
[23:51] Yes, we’re, we’re our kind of theatrical philosophy is to add as little as possible to any space and in this space we’re doing nothing.
Um So costumes will carry the design weight of us, we’ll bring you back, but the church is plenty enough.
And that’s what I love about this kind of site specific work.
Uh especially historical work is that we allow the space to do the heavy lifting and really becomes another character because you’re, the setup feels like you’re there.
You’re sitting in the pew is happening right in front of you.
And the actors are tremendously talented and they’re gonna make you feel like, oh wow, I’m, I’m here right now and there’s just a lot of tension that they’re able to bring to us through the script and their actions of like, oh yeah, there are people moving outside in the street, we don’t have to hear them but we get the sense of it and something’s going on.

Jake:
[24:42] So nikki, how did you come to the decision to commission a play for Old North?
How did you decide that that was the way to commemorate the, the 3/100 anniversary of the church?

Nikki:
[24:53] Well, as you mentioned, 2023 is the 3/100 anniversary of the church.
And you know, we’re also already thinking about the 250th anniversary of the lantern signals that’s coming up in 2025.
So we thought about anniversary planning holistically.
And, you know, we also thought about the current cultural and political climate.
We have a major election happening between 2023 2025.
And you know, that factors into our planning as well as we try to anticipate.

[25:26] What the world is going to be like.
But we thought that any artistic performance, but particularly a play is a really easy way I think to put people into the space and the narratives of the past.
Uh It’s a way to suspend your disbelief a little bit.
Um It’s also a way to give voice to someone like Cato who we know existed, but who wasn’t really captured in the historical record.
So it allows us to take some, allows Patrick to take some liberties where they need to be taken.
But I think it’s a really powerful way to think about the past and the present and you know, I hope that when people see their performance, if they’re thinking about it after that, it’s easy to make some of those parallels, right?
We talked about the Byles and pulling essentially being coworkers who were good friends but are now being torn apart because of their political beliefs.

[26:28] We’re thinking about these three families who may or may not be separated and, you know, it’s not that long ago that we were reading stories of all of these families, you know, separating in Ukraine and facing similar choices and not knowing what’s coming the next day or the next week.
So I hope that the play, you know, is a way to, to celebrate the 3/100 anniversary in a way that is very much grounded in 2023.

Jake:
[26:57] Yeah, I love anything that lets us put ourselves into the shoes of historical figures rather than just seeing them again as like the marble bust on a tall base or a, a portrait in a history book to make them seem like people as well.
So when you first reached out to plays in place and, and contacted Patrick, how much did you already know about what you wanted this performance to be?
Did you know that you wanted these characters to be at the center or what was your, what was your first idea when you reached out to Patrick?

Nikki:
[27:30] So Patrick, if I remember correctly, you know, this was some time last year, I think that we came to you knowing that we wanted a conversation ideally between three characters and we kind of talked about it of like two or three.
But I think it’s three and we wanted to capture a conversation between a patriot and a loyalist and either a free or enslaved black or indigenous person.
Um because we wanted to reflect those three communities at Old North and to reflect that it was uh a faith community that had difference and division.
But I think that’s kind of all we came to you with.

Patrick:
[28:14] Yeah, it was a pretty broad setup, but it was enough. And I think we’re kind of looking at that set up and saying like, who are the people that kind of fit into that, that the timing of it is so, is so inherently dramatic.
Uh The people, especially Byles has we know a lot about his personality.
And so there’s just a lot of drama. So I’m, you know, as a playwright and producer, that’s what I’m looking for.
I’m like, what is the moment of drama, what, you know, raises the stakes for these men really quickly?

Jake:
[28:40] So once you have sort of the, the charge or you have the, the core of an idea, we obviously don’t know what was said between these three men on April 18th, 17 75.
What’s the process that goes into to scripting?
Something that sounds true to the characters as, as we know them through the historical sources.

Patrick:
[28:59] Yeah, that’s the tricky part. But the good news is I’ve done this kind of thing a lot. So that’s helpful.
Um But I think the research is, is first and foremost trying to understand who they are, what their situations are.
So there’s basics, you can figure out like, again, family structure, who are the parents who are, where, where did they live? All this kind of thing.
Reading as much as I can about from files.
At least there are a lot of letters preserved. So I can’t really get a sense of his voice. We have nothing from pulling.
So it’s trying to understand, well, what’s his situation, what’s he going through economically?
Who are his friends? What is he doing? And then Cato is even more difficult, but again, trying to understand his situation so that I understand them as fully as possible as humans and what it is they want from this moment.
And then let them start talking in my head and then on the page and then as writers, we all have different kind of approaches.
There’s a way that I could make these people sound really 17 hundreds, but would end up being unintelligible to a modern audience’s ear.
I don’t want to play that trick on an audience. It just makes it harder.
So I’m trying to find dialogue that’s gonna work that’s comfortable in a modern audience’s ear, but still feel gives a sense of the time.
Um So that’s part of it too. But really, it’s understanding who they are as people, as human beings and then let them loose.

Jake:
[30:24] So how long Patrick has this play been in development?
From the time nikki first contacted you until the first performances?
What, what’s that time frame like?

Patrick:
[30:35] Uh This time frame was pretty short. Uh We started talking in the fall of last year and then I think we got commitment in October and, and with the idea that we wanted to open this in June.
So that was kind of we’ve done projects shorter time periods, but I don’t advise it, but I was able to stick all my time and effort into this for, you know, for months.
And then we have a great team. So Jess Meyer, they’re our copro producer on this.
Um And so they were able to help pull everything together. We had a director and everybody.
But yeah, it’s, it was, you know, months of research and going into the archives and mass historical and just, and you got to leave time for thinking.
Uh Well, you know, it’s funny you think you don’t have to budget that but you do gotta kind of be able to schedule some time to pace around the office and think about. Yeah, how is this, how is this gonna work?

Jake:
[31:29] And so having done all the archival research and having labored for untold hours over the script and making sure that it sounds as true to life, as true to these characters as you can.
What’s it like when you attend rehearsals? Now? What does it feel like when you hear your words coming through these characters mouths, these actors, I guess, mouths in the actual space in the church sanctuary where the story plays out.

Patrick:
[31:56] Yeah, I don’t get tired of it. Like I say, it’s pretty amazing when it happens.
It feels like a gift to be with such talented people getting to hear the words.
We’re still at a working phase of this piece.
So, you know, I’m there and I get to listen to how it’s going and there’s always different stages to how you put a piece together.
So, you know, there’s initial work that we’re gonna do around the table with all the actors and hearing it and people asking a lot of questions and the director Alex is just amazing and she’s really good at helping steer the discussion.
Then we try to get on its feet a little bit. But like we just cut two pages yesterday of like, oh, this is repeating a little more than it needed to.
This feels a little slow.
So you kind of have to go in two different ways. Sometimes you’re just enjoying the flow of it, try to see how it makes sense.
And then part of it is also to be patient to say, OK, we need to let it settle in and need to bring an audience in and then the audience is going to respond to this and we’ll learn something more over the first few shows and get a sense like, oh, is there are places that we need to change that will land flat?
I feel pretty good about, I feel really good about where we’re at.
I got to say, and the cool thing is about these kinds of pieces and why I think it’s useful for museums to do them.
Is it really changes the relationship of the audience to the space.
If you spend 45 minutes there with these people experiencing this thing in this place and it feels really real to you.
You will not see this place the same way.

Jake:
[33:20] Yeah, for me, you know, I’ve been to Old North, especially since nikki took over there untold times.
But, you know, on whatever day I entertain myself for an hour, feels very different from attending a service there or even going to the lanterns and luminaries event they have in the, in April each year where the church is fully inhabited.
There’s somebody up speaking from the pulpit for any reason I feel like it comes closer to make you, you feel like you understand that space.

Patrick:
[33:48] I mean, all spaces have their own kind of soul and character.
I think because I think about this a lot because we’re always in different kind of spaces.
And I think Old North has a real warmth and a wanting to be inhabited kind of space, which is true of some other places we perform in too.
But it’s interesting because it’s close.
It is not a huge cavernous space. So when you’re in it, you’re kind of surrounded by it.
And I think the fact that it’s an active congregation kind of permeates still in it there. It, it never feels like a dusty empty place.
But we through the play, bring it back to, I think to the 17 hundreds a little bit.

Jake:
[34:24] Now not to divert us too much. But Patrick, you, you mentioned a few times other places where you’ve done similar productions again, the, the name of the outfit is plays in place where you’ve developed a play for a particular place.
How many of those have been history organizations or uh places in and around Boston.

Patrick:
[34:43] I’ve worked with the Old State House. We did this play called Blood On The Snow around Boston Massacre.
That was really quite popular back in 2016 and 17.
And we did another play with them called Kao Andy, that was centered around the dwarf, the Hancock mansion and that ran for two summers.
And we also did a play called I am this place at Old South Meeting House uh around Christmas attics that uh Randa Deca wrote.
So that’s been really fun. And we’re working with the National Park Service now on some plays around women’s suffrage that we’re hoping will be staged next year in El Hall at King’s Chapel Parish House and play.
I’m writing for the Senate Chamber of the Massachusetts State House.
If all goes well, and we’ve done a bunch of plays at Mount Auburn Cemetery too.

Jake:
[35:30] Well, yeah. What sort of things have you done at Mount Auburn?
It’s maybe not the first historic site that comes to people’s minds, but it’s a place I love to visit.

Patrick:
[35:37] It’s amazing. Uh We, I was an artist in residence there for two years.
And so we did two sets of five plays, each one around the natural world, one of which was a historical play and then five plays around kind of the, lens of American identity development through, through Mount Auburn Cemetery.
So looking at a whole bunch of different things through five short plays and you walked throughout the cemetery um from play to play to play.
And then we did a play called Moonlight Abolitionists, which was about six abolitionists buried at Mount Armored Cemetery.
And it’s a play designed to be done under the full moon.
We did that last October and the fall before that.
And so it’s very specifically done as a concert reading. So it’s only illuminated by the actors who have music stands with music, stand lights in front of them.
And that’s it at the, we did it at the Sphinx right by Bigelow Chapel.
And um it’s a pretty magical evening of just these voices of these abolitionists in conversation with each other.
This kind of swirling conversation under the full moon in the cemetery. It’s pretty something.

Jake:
[36:39] Nikki, what else may have changed in recent months or years?
If some of our listeners haven’t visited Old North recently.

Nikki:
[36:48] The biggest thing that’s new this year. If people haven’t been to the church in a while is an audio guide, folks who have been to the church will know that within the pews, there is a, you know, visual exhibit that takes you through the lantern signals and longfellow’s poem and kind of the more traditional stories of the church.
But over the last year, we’ve been very fortunate to have a research fellow who has been able to research the identities and experiences of Black and Indigenous Congress against.
And so we’ve been able to take some of that research um as well as the more traditional stories of, you know, revere and the lantern signals that of course people are coming for.
But we’ve been able to um put that into about a 35 minute audio tour.
And so um when folks come to the church, you can pick up a handheld device and move through the church at your own pace and listen to the stories.

Jake:
[37:41] And there’s also a major construction project going on.
It may, may not be time to sort of unveil that for public visitation.
But you’ve gotten a lot of attention in the media for some of the, uh, the work that’s been going on at the church.

Nikki:
[37:55] We do have a restoration project uh currently taking place in the crypt underneath the church, um which has been going on for several months now.
So if visitors are excited to see.
Uh I’m not gonna say new and improved crypt. Exactly, but restored and improved.
Uh We are planning to reopen the crypt tours at the beginning of August.
Um But it’s been a very extensive project long overdue.
Much of the brick in the tombs have been repoed.
The original wooden doors that still remain on some of the tombs are currently off site being restored.
And I think most importantly, we are beginning the process of making the crypt more physically accessible.
And so at the completion of this project and our next capital project, visitors will be able to enter the crypt by a ramp instead of by stairs.
And so that’s something we’re excited about.

Jake:
[38:53] You mentioned the research fellowship, besides visiting the church and hearing about some of her work through the audio guide.
There are other ways for people who are interested, who may not even be physically in Boston to engage with her work. Right.

Nikki:
[39:09] That’s correct. Um So our research fellow is Doctor Jamie Crumley.
Um and she is with us for just one more week now.
But one of her deliverables, which has been um really exciting to see unfold is a video series called Illuminating The Unseen.
And in each of those episodes, she um presents a primary source from our archives at the mass historical society and takes the the viewers through, I think in a very accessible not overly academic way.
Um What she has learned from this resource, what it might tell us about um former Congregants and um has been able to piece together.
I think some very um interesting and personal stories in a place where as Patrick mentioned earlier, black and indigenous people didn’t really get a chance to leave a footprint.
And so I think hearing her talk through her methodology of what she’s found where she’s found it.
And then what she has been able to learn from that and you know how she finds the threads to pull is it’s really interesting.

Jake:
[40:22] So we mentioned that the play would be debuting in June and listeners will be hearing this episode starting on June 5th.
So that’ll be coming up very soon for them.
What will the run of revolutions edge at old North be like?

Nikki:
[40:35] So the play premieres on June 15th which is a Thursday, um It’s going to run Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights through September 19th, I will say for opening night, there will be a reception following the performance and uh a special and exciting announcement.
So that will be a good time to join us for each performance doors open at five PM.
Um I will say that your ticket to the show does include admission to the church if you come a little early.
Um And then the show starts at 5 20 it’s time to get everyone out by about 6 26 30 just in time for dinner in the north end.

Jake:
[41:17] If one of our listeners finds themselves so inspired, how can they get tickets to this wonderful new dramatic entry into Boston’s Cultural Life.

Nikki:
[41:27] So tickets are available now on our website old north dot com um under the events tab. So it’s easy to find.
Um There’s a link to purchase tickets. There’s also uh a trailer for the play which is about three minutes.
Um So if anyone’s on the fence, you can check out the trailer, I’m sure you’ll be very happy with it.
Um I will say that plays and place productions do tend to sell out.
So if you’re a person who doesn’t buy tickets until the last minute, you might miss out on this one, I do encourage people to uh go ahead and get your tickets.

Jake:
[42:01] Tickets for Revolution’s Edge are available at old north dot com.
Is that also the best way to keep up with all the other activities and offerings from Old North Illuminated.

Nikki:
[42:13] Yeah. And there’s a lot on the website right now. So Jamie’s web series, again, illuminating the unseen.
Um There are some new virtual reality tours that we were, um fortunate to be able to work on with UMass Boston.
Uh, that includes a steeple climb now. So that’s currently available on the website and, uh, lots of other good stuff.

Jake:
[42:35] Patrick. If, if anybody wants to learn more about you or wants to follow you in your work online, what’s the best place to do that?

Patrick:
[42:42] Right. If they go to places and place dot com, we have a website and we have a mailing list and if they’re interested in this kind of work, it’s definitely worth getting on the mailing list because as nikki pointed out, sometimes our shows are very short in duration, there might just be like a couple days.
And so if you’re on our list, that way you don’t miss out.

Jake:
[43:02] Well, Patrick Gabridge and Nikki Stewart, I just wanna say thank you very much to both of you for joining Hub History today.

Patrick:
[43:08] Thanks for the invitation. It was great to talk about this.

Jake:
[43:10] To learn more about the new Play Revolutions Edge. Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 276.
I’ll have a link to the old North illuminated website where you can watch a trailer for Revolutions Edge and I’m sure you’ll be convinced to go ahead and purchase your tickets.
You can find that at old north dot com slash revolutions dash edge.
We’ll also link to place in place dot com where you can learn more about Patrick’s work.
Plus, I’ll include links to our past interviews with Mark Peterson, the author of the City State of Boston and J L Bell who wrote the Road to Concord.
If you’d like to get in touch with us. You can email podcast at hub history dot com.
We are a hub history on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and most active on Twitter.
If you’re on Mastodon, you can find me as at hub history at better dot Boston, or just go to hub history dot com and click on the contact us link, while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode.
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Music

Jake:
[44:29] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.