Journey To Judge: Ona Judge's Freedom on the Horizon

Hey everyone, sorry it's taken so long to update. I have so much to tell you about what happened on the debut of the program.


Upstairs of the Brown House Tavern 
               


Saturday evening, September 1st, was the opening night of my program, "Freedom on the Horizon"  at the Historic London Town Museum, in Edgewater Maryland. When I arrived, there was another scheduled program going on for their daytime program, called "Uncertain Freedom". It was phenomenally performed by the "Sons & Daughters of Ham" where they gave the visitors of the museum an inside look of the African-American experience during the tough times of the Civil War and the Emancipation. It was truly a moving and deep program.   

After catching up with the Sons & Daughters of Ham, I went to the Brown House Tavern to get dressed in my 1790's gown and wait for Mr. Hosea, who portrayed Captain John Bowles for the program. We rehearsed a few times just to tighten up on extra parts of the script that we felt comfortable working with, and even using adlib. 

Around 6:30 Pm, the Brown House Tavern was filling up with patrons, I will be very honest in saying, that I was feeling anxious. Those pesky thoughts of "slipping up and forgetting my lines" plagued my mind, until I remembered one important thing... I wrote the script. No one would know what I would be saying word for word, plus the script was written around my stage fright (so, again, no one would know that I was actually shaking in my shoes). 

I think I'm ready...


Needless to say the program went off without a hitch. I had a great reception from the audience, and they were certainly prepared with questions for the Q&A segment. The depth and detail that went into these questions definitely showed me that the audience had done their homework and wanted to pick my brain. To be honest, that was the best part of the program. I was so excited to share with them everything that I've learned: The research and the development of bringing the interpretation to life. I know that I have more work to do on Ona's development, and definitely more research. But that's always the fun part of interpreting someone's history. 





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