After taking a trip to the West of Ireland to visit her mother's hometown of Ennis in County Clare, Vermont resident and Broadway veteran Cass Morgan wrote a musical memoir that redefines the concept of home.
Morgan and three other musicians will perform that play, The Road To Where, in Vermont's oldest theater, the Weston Playhouse.
Morgan spoke to VPR about the trip that inspired the play and what it's like to relive the adventure each time she performs it onstage.
On her trip to Ireland which inspired the musical memoir
"I was visiting a friend in London and literally, on a whim, I thought, 'Why don't I just fly over to Shannon Airport and catch a bus to Ennis in County Clare and see what it's like? Because that's where my mother's family had come from.
Once there, Morgan says she went into a used book store and that before long the proprietor had sent her out on a "magical adventure ... on a bicycle, down country roads ... It was kind of a contemporary fairy tale that unfolded. I wrote it all down. And for years, thought I would try to turn it into something, and eventually I figured out how to do that."
On what sparked the idea to turn the trip into a play
"You know what happens when you are outside your culture zone? You notice things ... You make connections that you hadn't noticed before ... You see things that might be small details that somehow unlock memories for you. That started happening, and I started having kind of little windows into my own past. I have the story of my trip to Ireland and then I have ... kind of detours off this road that bring me back to other parts of my life and my past."
On what the audience can expect
"The set for my show will kind of be a soft representation of ... an Irish Pub. I'll have audience members on three sides and three musicians with me ... They also take on a couple of characters. I play 12 people, 12 different characters.
"There is a theater form called 'Irish Storytelling.' It's often one or two actors who just instantly become other characters without changing costumes or without the use of many props or set pieces ... I play myself as well as a lot of people I meet along the way.
"I started having kind of little windows into my own past. I have the story of my trip to Ireland and then I have ... kind of detours off this road that bring me back to other parts of my life and my past." - Cass Morgan, actor and playwright
"When you're an actor, you have to find your way to reinvent and re-inhabit the moment each time you do it. It's what acting is. You find a key that takes you to a place that's very emotionally like what's happening on stage. It's challenging doing something like this."
On whether Morgan has a favorite stage or place to perform
"No, every place I work is always fun and challenging and new. I love the discovery of what it is, what this new challenge is every time."
The Road To Where opens Thursday, Aug. 13 at The Weston Playhouse Theatre in Weston. Learn more here.
