Oh, Lord, you know I have no friend like you. If heaven’s not my home, oh, Lord, what will I do? The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
Court Square Theater in downtown Harrisonburg presented five performances of Dr. John T. Glick’s original play “Can’t Feel at Home,” adapted and directed by Stanley W. Swartz.
The sold-out performances, held on December 1-3 at 7:30 p.m. and 3-4 at 3:00 p.m., portrayed (as advertised) “the story of families displaced from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the 1930’s to allow for the Shenandoah National Park and the Skyline Drive.”
The show focused on the Lamm family, the last family to be displaced off the mountain, and featured two timelines–one with ten-year-old Zada Lamm and the members of her family and community and another with an elderly Zada Lamm explaining to her granddaughter what had happened to them.
The story of this community has already been immortalized in several different ways. In 2013, the Blue Ridge Heritage project was created to honor and remember the displaced families, aiming to “develop a monument site in each of the eight counties where land was acquired for the park and educate visitors about the lives and culture of the people who once lived the land that is now Shenandoah National Park.”
In Sept., 2022, Kellen Stepler from the Daily News-Record published an interview with “Can’t Feel at Home” co-producers Bob Wolf and Joe Appleton and the show’s director and adaptor Stanley Swartz, detailing the lengthy process of getting the show (originally written in 1998) off the ground and the effect its author, Dr. John T. Glick, has had on the Shenandoah community.
Present-day Harrisonburg community members gathered to make up the show’s large ensemble cast, who recognize the importance of what they are presenting. “I didn’t grow up here but I moved here in ‘88 and this show is truly about the place I live now–the Shenandoah valley–and I love feeling a part of that,” explained actor Lea Hedrick, who played the character of Granny.
Co-producer Joe Appleton recognizes their impact too: “We have lots and lots of tickets sold to members of families who were forced off the mountain and lots of cast members who are members of those families,” he explained. “When we started with this, I didn’t know that there was a real Zada Lamm and that [Dr. Glick] knew her. And he was her doctor. So a lot of this really did come from the stories she told him.” If the past didn’t feel close enough to the present, on opening night, the grandchild of the real Zada Lamm met with the cast after the show, one of the many people with real connections to the story to visit the production.
The creative crew also drew appeal in addition to the connection to the real life events. Lea Hedrick said, “I wanted to be part of this because it was written by someone I admire and directed by someone I admire. And those two things make me want to be a part of it.”
As Appleton concluded, “we need to heal, as Bob [Wolf, co-producer] said, not only healing the people who were forced off the mountain but healing the people who forced them off the mountain. And so that’s what we hope [the audience will take away.]”
Readers interested in learning more about the displacement can investigate Episodes 79, 84, and 86 of Virginia is For Laughers Podcast (available on all podcast platforms) and book tickets for the performances in January.
