Journey to Redemption

You are listening to Past and Present, the Colonial Williamsburg podcast.

This February, Colonial Williamsburg is proud to offer programming in support of Black History

Month.

One of these programs is Journey to Redemption, an incredibly beautiful and emotional piece

on the stories of slavery we tell and the actors involved.

Joining me today is the cast and crew of the program, Antoinette Brennan, Dave Katanese,

Corinne Dame, Jamar Jones, Katrina Lewis, Jeremy Morris, and Mary Carter.

Thank you so much for joining me, guys.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us.

So what is Journey to Redemption?

Who's going to take that?

That's a big question.

That's interesting because when we were devising Journey to Redemption, we talked a lot about

the title.

The title existed before the play did.

Journey to Redemption is a play that the six of them...

The cast who are sitting here and Mary Carter, who's here, who's our assistant director,

and Lucinda McDermott Pirro devised last year, utilizing the stories of enslaved people that

we portray and people that own enslaved people in the 18th century and exploring how those

stories weave together and then looking at us as actors that come here to play these

characters, play these historical figures, and how...

How it affects us, what we are trying to do by telling these stories.

Help me out, y'all.

Yeah, it's all of those things, and it's an answer to the call, the apparent call these

days of what is mine to do, really.

We find ourselves asking ourselves these questions as artists when it seems like the world is

just devoid of harmony.

We know for a fact that it doesn't just fall to one person, and so we explore that based

on the fact that we're different folks who come from different backgrounds, but we've

all ended up here to tell this specific story that needs to be told and needs to be done

justice.

And the consequences of that, the results of that, the ramifications of that are very...

They're heavy.

We take on a very specific role.

We take it on for a very specific purpose, but it's hard.

We do it with a joy.

We do it with an understanding of our responsibilities.

And so we can do it, and we can share it, and we can trust one another.

And so all of those things are part of what Journey to Redemption is, that the fact of

this collective being able to do it the way that we do it is in hopes that we'll be able

to inspire whoever sees it.

To find whatever it is that they have to do, whatever their role is, in furthering the

conversation and hoping to bring the world to a bigger place of unity.

We want to raise awareness, and we want to start a dialogue.

It's a journey.

Quite literally.

Some bumps in the road.

The first step on a journey.

For us.

So Katrina, you mentioned a little bit about how the program came about, but can you go

ahead and kind of explain what kind of a play this is, and what people can expect to see?

It's not a typical play you'll go and see on Broadway or in a typical theater where

it has a beginning and middle and end complete narrative.

It's more of, well, it's divided into several parts, and the parts are each their own individual

piece, but they blend together.

It's something you come in with an open mind.

I'm not explaining it very well.

Well, I think what you'll see when you come in, what's unique about this piece, and kind

of makes it distinctive from the other work that we do here at Colonial Williamsburg, or

at least our unit does, is that you get the opportunity to see these six individuals portraying

their characters.

Two of them actually portraying two different characters within the play.

And for the first half of the piece, they're in character, whether they're free or enslaved,

and talking from that character's point of view about the situation in the 18th century.

But then there's this moment where they come out of these characters, because the difficulty

of telling this story is remembering that we aren't in the 18th century, and figuring

out how to communicate with each other.

And that's what we're trying to do.

And so the second half of the piece, you'll see all of these individuals out of character

and talking about their experience in telling this history to our public, and sharing this

history with each other.

And that journey, it takes up exactly the same amount of time as the time that we spend

in the 18th century, because it's just as important to us to build those relationships

outside of character, so that we can show the accurate history.

And that's what we're trying to do within this time period that we're representing here.

And then promote dialogue.

We have what we call our post-program chat at the end of the piece, and we do it every

time.

It's really a part of the show, where we take an opportunity to dialogue with the guests

that have come to experience our play.

They can talk to us.

We also encourage them to talk to one another, because we really want to build bridges, and

talking about race and racism, and how it dates back to the beginnings of our country,

it's very difficult.

And it's an elephant kind of in our country, forget about the room.

And being able to talk about it across race, across socioeconomic divide, we don't have

a lot of spaces where we can do that.

And here at Colonial Williamsburg, our demographic does skew in a certain, what am I trying to

say?

It's not as diverse as it could be, but you do have a lot of different people coming here

for a lot of different reasons.

So we have a space where diverse people, the seed is planted, and we try to plant it in

a way that says, what you bring to it is okay.

We're going to listen to one another, and we're going to work this thing out together.

And the guest reaction has been amazing, I feel.

They're very eager to pour out their feelings.

They thank us for bringing this to the fore, and they seem to go away a bit different.

It's also amazing how they talk to each other, not just us.

You see.

Guests stay for over an hour talking to one another about their personal experiences,

how this play affected them, and so.

Some of them are a bit teary-eyed.

So you know we've touched them in that case.

We don't have a lot of spaces where this kind of conversation can happen.

And I think that there's something in our society that's really longing for that, in

our society.

I think we as a society are longing for those spaces.

To have dialogue.

Comfortably.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Does everyone want to give a little bit of history about their character, talk a bit

about who they portray?

Some of you portray more than one person in this show.

Sure.

I'll go.

I portray two people in this piece.

One is Mingo from the Powell House.

He was owned by Benjamin Powell.

And he's a great actor.

He's a great actor.

And I also portray Roger from the Randolph House, the Peyton Randolph House, which you

can tour, if—for the listeners out there.

What's interesting about both of them, I'll say Roger, he lives in one of the most affluent

homes here in the—within the city of Williamsburg, by Peyton Randolph being his master.

And he is the Speaker of the House.

And also, with Mingo, I interpret him as a carpenter, and they're both enslaved.

Now, what's interesting about both of those characters—now, Mingo's story we do touch

on in the piece, but they both have very significant life events that happened to them, and we

have them documented.

And so, if you look at Roger—

Yeah.

Roger, he is one of the few people on the Randolph's inventory after Peyton Randolph

dies to be sold, I believe, in the early 1780s, he is sold off, and he's one of the few people

that is.

And I find that story to be interesting.

But what we touch on about Mingo is that he is someone who was branded in 1772 and accused

of stealing one of Lord Dunmore's sheep.

Now.

And he was branded on his left hand with the T for thief and received 25 lashes on his

back.

Now, that's all we have documented, but the thing about Mingo that I find so fascinating

is that no one knows for sure if he actually did it, because an enslaved person or a free

black person, they were not able to testify in court at the time.

So we explore that pain happening.

Right.

And that's something that I try to use in my work.

And I try to use that confidence I try to use to craft their energy and their stories.

And it's something with Mingo that I especially that I like to explore the idea of a carpenter

who has taken pride in his work, but because he's because of this situation and what he

was accused of, something, this unfortunate thing is happening.

What does it do to the spirit?

And.

In the piece, I play Joseph Prentiss, who is a Christian.

Right.

Who is the son of the guy who opened the Prentiss store in the middle of town.

He is his youngest son.

He's raised in Williamsburg, lives here his whole life, does everything in his power to

live here his whole life.

In fact, his house was where the Matthew Whaley School is now, up past the palace.

That's where his house was right there in that spot.

And he was a statesman, a lawyer.

He represented York County for, oh, geez, about for many years in the House of Delegates.

He wound up being a speaker of the House of Delegates, and then he winds up not retiring,

but getting assigned as a district court judge of York County and lives here his whole life.

We've got plenty of documentation on him.

He's an important guy to at least the city.

But he was raised surrounded by slaves his whole life, always.

He was fine with it.

He and when he was a kid, he was he had twenty five, twenty five slaves in his house.

When he's an adult, he's got seventeen.

And then even his son, one of his sons, this is later in life, his son, John, gets sent

to Philadelphia for schooling and for education in the printing trade.

And his son starts taking on some ideas from Philadelphia, because that's if there was

an abolitionist movement in America in the 1700s, it was in Philadelphia, if at all.

And he starts following in with it.

And his and Joseph winds up writing a letter cautioning his son to not get involved with

it.

He does that.

And his son evidently takes to heart because in the 19th century, John B. Prentice winds

up becoming one of the largest slave traders in the South.

So he's a man who, like like Thomas Jefferson, like George Washington, like these other much

larger figures.

Who?

So.

He speaks on the rights of man, speaks on what is free and good in society, yet keeps

dozens of people in bondage and has no wish to ever free them and doesn't think that they

should be free.

That's just the way that he thought.

So he was also just as was also known for being a gardener.

He wasn't a gardener.

He was a scheduler for his two gardeners that he owned to do it for him.

So.

So he's a guy who had no qualms taking the credit of any of his slaves, none whatsoever,

because he just needed to keep up with the Joneses or rather keep up with the Jeffersons

in his day and spend more than he had to basically put on the show of I'm affluent.

I'm good.

And in his day, you did that via slavery.

My character's name is Ann Wager, who was a white widow.

The first thing I did when I was a kid, I was a white widow.

I was a white widow.

I didn't have the до, I wasn't a white woman, but I was a white woman.

I was a white woman.

I was a white woman and a white man, and the only thing I do know about her for sure is

she was a tutor at Carter's Grove for Carter Burroughs four daughters.

Six years she stayed there.

That went by the by, and she next took up a position with the New Bray School, which

was a charity school for Negro children to learn reading and writing basic skills to

come to the truths of Christianity.

She does that for 14 years until her death toward the end of 1774.

We don't know a great deal about her personally, but there is a professor at the college, William

and Mary, Terry Myers, who has done a tremendous amount of research.

He identified the house that was used.

At least we think it's the 18th century house, unless that one burned and they rebuilt.

That's still to be determined.

But it is down—it's been moved.

It was down where—the corner of Prince George and Boundary Street, and the Brown Hall is

there now.

They had moved this house across the street and down a couple lots.

It's there now, owned by the college, used for ROTC offices.

But we're hopeful.

I portray Lydia and Ginny.

Lydia is the housekeeper for George and Elizabeth Wythe.

The documentation that I have for Lydia is sparse, as it is with a lot of enslaved women,

but it's substantial in its—it's very detailed.

In its scope, I have her free papers.

So she gets manumitted in 1787.

I have a letter that she wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1806 after George Wythe passes away while

he's president, when she's a free woman.

And I have her will, which shows that she died in Richmond, a free woman with property

that she leaves to free grandnephews of color.

I don't have a lot of information.

I don't have a lot of information about Lydia in the 1770s, what we interpret.

But I utilize these really juicy resources, even though there's not very many, to sort

of backfill what would her life have been like as an enslaved woman working at the Wythe

house.

She must have gained some business acumen because she has her own business when she's

in Richmond.

So she serves to explore the sidelines.

She's a woman who has some status and clout within her household, who works very closely

with her mistress, who works as an intermediary between the other enslaved people on the property

and her master and mistress.

And so it puts her in this very interesting space.

And Corinne and I—Corinne plays Mrs. Wythe, and she does it in the show.

You'll hear about her in a moment.

They have a really interesting kind of parallel lives.

They both get to Williamsburg when they're in their teens.

But Mrs. Wythe is her mistress, and Lydia is her enslaved woman.

And neither one of these women have children.

We know that from the historical records.

So we explore that in the piece.

The other woman that I play is Ginny, and she shows up on Peyton Randolph's inventory

in 1775 and 1776 and some subsequent inventories as being at Martin's Hundred, which is a

plantation outside of the city.

And that's really all the information that I have on her.

Thank you.

It's really a name on an inventory.

So what she has become is a way to look at a woman who is a tobacco farmer that lives

in the country but has the opportunities to come to the city and has this—I don't know,

I guess I can call it an awakening to how she fits into this world as an enslaved young

woman who is a tobacco farmer.

So Lydia and Ginny are kind of my urban and my rural enslaved women that show different

aspects of slavery.

I play Jack Booker, and I have a little bit of information on him, specifically his runaway

ad.

And I choose to use his story as a means by which to focus on the practice of advertising

runaways.

So, again, first you have these homeless people who are attempting to find their freedom,

find their families, or what have you, taking on a very dangerous act in that—in—so,

early 1776.

His then-master, who is one of the—who is the postmaster and owns one of the Virginia

Gazettes at the time, Alexander Purdy, places an ad for him in his own newspaper when he

runs away.

So, he ends up on—back on Alexander Purdy's inventory list.

Alexander Purdy passes away in 1779, and so, you know, we know that he doesn't make it

to where he's going.

But his previous master, his previous owner before Alexander Purdy was a man named Joseph

Scrivener, who was a merchant.

There were four enslaved people on his inventory, and the names were Jack, Jenny, Suki, Child,

indicating very clearly that it's a child, and Old Ben.

And so, when, of course, Joseph Scrivener dies, as with any slave owner, whatever debts

that they have are going to have to be settled, things like that, and so their assets are

sold off if they don't have a will leaving those properties to next of kin.

And so, in that, all four of these people go to auction, and Jack ends up with Alexander

Purdy.

And so, I also interpret—

—him having lost a potential family.

So with that, it's just telling the story of a man who is in a position—might have

been in a position.

It's not very clear whether or not he ever worked in Purdy's print office, but I believe

that it's a distinct possibility.

So he is the person who is getting this information before it goes to print.

If you're the person who is printing the news, you're, of course, reading the news before

you're putting it down on the newspaper.

And so, I interpret that he's looking at all of these names.

He's constantly seeing—I mean, any Gazette that you pick up is going to have these sorts

of ads in them, or it's going to have a lottery coming up, and it's got all these lists of

names and skills, and some are whole families, and some are two, you know, some are one,

some are just women that have, like, a breeder next to them, you know, like, things like

that.

So it's just like these rafflings or lotteries that people are literally giving away, or

80-choice select Negroes for sale, 100-choice 20, 50, so it's just like the numbers of people

that are constantly coming in and out of the city experiencing this horrible institution.

And so what does it do to a man who is constantly seeing that kind of information, and what

kind of information is he searching through it, or connections that he's searching for?

And trying to locate his family?

It's a very tricky thing to do without any real concrete facts about whether or not that

was his family or, you know, whether or not—what he experienced when he ran away and what any

of them experienced when they run, but it's a really interesting story to be able to tell

about resistance, which a whole lot of people seem to not necessarily know was taking place

on a continent.

It's a constant basis back then.

I play Elizabeth with—there's not a lot of information on her, unfortunately, like

most women here in history.

You know women mostly by their husbands, not a lot about them unless they behave badly.

So we know basic things about her, you know, her death notice, which is very positive,

but all death notices are who wants to speak ill about the dead.

So we have her bio.

We have her buying curls.

We have her buying clothes.

We have Mr. Pendleton telling her that, you know, her father's doing okay.

We have her getting inoculated by smallpox, but nothing about her hopes, her dreams, her

fears, her loves, her opinions on things.

So everyone pretty much knows a lot about George Wythe and his perspective on slavery,

but we don't really know about Elizabeth.

So what I try to do is I look back to where she comes from, which is a plantation.

She was born into a plantation family.

A very prosperous plantation family, which owned a lot of slaves.

So when she actually does marry George, she brings a lot of slaves with her dower.

And I try to take on the perspective because a lot of people, when they imagine a slave

owner, they imagine the evil master who's very abusive and very physically and verbally

to their enslaved people.

Or then you imagine the master.

Yeah.

The master that is always trying to help the enslaved person or being nice to them.

Not that they're a good master, but that's what the image a lot of people who aren't

really too involved with slavery kind of think of.

No one really thinks of just the master that's a matter of fact.

This is the way life is.

This is how I was raised.

It's everything I've ever known.

I mean, think about how you were raised today in your society and things that are just kind

of expected.

And you don't really think about that.

You don't really think about if it's wrong or right because it's the only thing you've

ever known.

And that's how I try to look at Elizabeth and have her perceive slavery.

It's very Christian duty for white people at this time to have a responsibility to enslaved

people to make sure they are in their position in life.

It's Providence's plan and we must accept it.

That's how I portray Elizabeth.

It's not an easy way to portray her.

Again, because we don't have a lot of information on her, it's taking a leap.

But I interpret that she has a change in her lifetime

because being married to George Wythe, while she might have come into the marriage

with a perspective of slavery being matter of fact, it's just a way of life,

George Wythe has some very different ideas into slavery.

And after a while, I think, seeing the revolution and how things progress

through our history, that Elizabeth does have a change of heart.

And particularly, I interpret it's because of a lot of her relationship with Lydia,

who's her housekeeper.

Two days after Mrs. Wythe dies, Lydia is freed.

It's a very interesting time frame to be freed two days after Mrs. Wythe's death.

It could be one of two reasons.

One, Mrs. Wythe didn't want it to happen, and George Wythe was,

waiting until she died, which everything you read about George Wythe,

he's not that kind of callous character.

He would have mourned his wife a lot more before he would have done something like that.

Or maybe it was at Mrs. Wythe's behest that she wanted Lydia free.

And the reason I try to go more on that thought process is because on the free papers,

Richard Tolliver, her brother, and William Tolliver, her cousin,

are witness to Lydia's freedom.

And considering that,

it comes from her family where all the other slaves that were brought over for her dower

were returned to the Tolliver family.

I think it's a very significant,

significant to perhaps Mrs. Wythe having a change of heart in the end.

Maybe it was too late for her to make a big difference, but yeah.

Do you all feel as though the people you portray have become part of you,

the good, the bad, at all?

Yes, for me.

I feel very, I feel a lot of things.

I think it was actually this past year, wow, 2016, we're not there anymore.

But this past year, particularly Mingo,

I did a lot of exploration with him and just thinking on his life post and pre his branding

and what he was doing.

And I think that's a big part of it.

And I think that's a big part of what that meant for him.

And he grew on me a lot.

And so not as much as Roger, because I haven't, it's been a while since I've portrayed Roger

on the street.

But with Mingo, something about just the concept of someone just working all the time.

And so, of course, I know this and we all know this, people who are enslaved,

they work because they're owned by someone, it's expected, this, that, and the other.

But with Mingo, I often think of him as a very skilled carpenter,

someone who takes the pride in his work.

And I just, I think what has made me so attached to him is thinking about this man

who does all this good work and to think how does it feel to have a permanent label on his work?

to have a permanent label on his work?

To have a permanent label put upon you because of the law, because of a situation.

And I grapple a lot of times wondering what happened that day on July 21st, 1772.

And what was going on with this sheep?

Where were you?

How did they associate you with this?

And I often wonder what was he feeling every time looking down on his hand

to see a T permanently engraved into his hand.

And it just makes you think.

I think I feel for him because I think about the line of work that I do.

And, you know, it's so much of giving to people, right?

You know, acting, telling stories, and try to hope people have better understanding.

And I think one day I was thinking, wow, what if something were to happen in my life

that, you know, people would cause, I'm in the, I find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And it makes me think, well, all my work and all the audiences and all the things that I've experienced

or given as a performer and the way people have felt, would that be taken away in one moment

because of something and because of what the law or someone says about me?

And I think that's something that makes me connect so much with Mingo.

And it also makes me hurt for Mingo a lot because a lot of times if I talk with guests

and I really explore his story, I say that before he was branded,

I say that he wasn't such an agitated spirit, such a hurt spirit, a broken spirit.

They said that he had a lot of joy because he, even though he was enslaved,

and we talk about this in the piece, even though he's enslaved, he believes in his work.

And a lot of times that, you know, yes, he's doing it for someone else, but he's good at it.

He loves it.

And if he wasn't enslaved, this would be the work that he would do for himself.

But for someone to take...

to take it all away and say that you're a thief, you stole, that's what you are,

it really hurts my heart.

And I think that's the one path that makes, I think, all of us can connect to these people

and their works because they had all these folks who were enslaved,

they had people telling them who they were.

And that's what's so challenging.

Sometimes that's what's in the book.

That's the most thing that is documented about Mingo is the fact that he was branded,

he received 25 lashes,

and he was owned.

He was owned by this man, and, you know, that honestly hurts my heart.

And so, I mean, I'm thankful that I can try and keep his story alive and offer a different perspective.

But I really, I find a lot of hurt in him, but I find a lot of beauty in him, too.

It's sometimes hard.

You don't want to connect to your character sometimes.

Like, I am very connected to Elizabeth Wythe.

I've been playing her for a few years now.

And, you know, a lot of her is me that I've developed for her.

And because of lack of information,

the problem with that is the negatives that come along with her that you are naturally connected to.

A lot of the times when we do interpretations, it's not always scripted.

And Katrina and I have had many interpretations that were improvised.

And some of the things that come out of my mouth in the process scare me and hurt because...

And, and,

and then afterwards, Katrina and I talk and we're like, are we OK?

We're good.

You know, that wasn't me.

And we have that, that checking in with one another.

But it still doesn't take away from the fact that this is improvised, talking to one another.

And I'm saying these horrible, demeaning, disrespectful things.

And it's not I just try to imagine that it's Elizabeth Wythe speaking through me and it's not Corinne using these words.

But it's hard.

lot of the times to be connected to your character because of that I don't have

that problem as such because my character is I think anyway is more

empathetic or maybe even sympathetic toward the children that she sees daily

and I have found that mrs. wager has because developed a rather wise outlook

on life and I sometimes find myself quoting her to my husband like she often

says that if somebody says it's not the it's not the money it's the principle of

the thing it's generally the money these things I don't really know where they

come from but sometimes they just say these things as her and I feel very

comfortable with her so it's a different relationship sometimes they do surprise

you

, when you're out interpreting and you're in your in character sometimes

something will fly out of your character's mouth and you're like where

did that come from sometimes it's it's you know a negative thing you know if

you're portraying a slave owner I can I can can only imagine but sometimes it's

like this this insight or I don't know it's I think yeah I think they do they

do come in without you know well I don't I don't mind being a little ethereal I

feel like they do speak through us and we allow

ourselves to be a vessel in order for these historical figures to speak and

sometimes it sometimes that there's you know moments of joy Ginny about a year

into playing her she's she was out on the street one day she says my mama say

I got the curse of good cheer and it just that just it just turned her to the

left and she just came into me in this way that I didn't I didn't know who she

was before that but then she just became a

live and do I know that this particular Ginny on this inventory was like that no

I don't but some somebody somebody's coming in yes one of the things that I

say in the piece as Jack Booker and like you know and in and the way that we

portray these characters the things that we've that we feel drawn to as far as

bringing their their stories to life they come out of us and then it becomes

the theme under which we we operate when we're

telling those stories and the fascinating thing I think about Jack

Booker when I play him is just that he you know the fact of his work and the

fact that it's it's indicated that he's literate taking a very very I guess like

a knowing the worth of words and so in the piece I speak about the worth of a

signature what is the worth of a signature versus somebody who is able to

write his name

to authorize something through the punctuation of one's identity.

This is my identity, and I authorize something.

What makes it more worth it that one man can do that, another man who does that, and it means nothing,

especially when you're speaking about the life that we have all been given?

How is it that I am not able to be the authority of my own life, of my own existence?

And so that kind of a question are things that I have experienced in my life here in the modern day,

if you want to say that, throughout my life, things that I've experienced, interactions that I've had,

my brushes with racism in my life.

Those are the kind of questions that I pose to myself.

What gives you the right?

And if I was to respond in any kind of like way, why is it that I would be the one marked by that response?

Why would I be?

Why would I be marked by anger?

Or why is it that I'm supposedly more predisposed to those sorts of outbursts or violence, or not even violence,

just being upset and standing up for myself?

Why is it then that I'm characterized as an angry black man?

Why is it that it's dangerous for me to assert my humanity?

And, of course, we find throughout the history, as is the nature of us studying this institution,

that that is a power.

That is a pattern.

That has been the way that it has been for a very long time.

You call a continental soldier a revolutionary, but you call a runway slave or a person who would run off to the British

to fight for the British after a promise of freedom a traitor.

And so you say, you know, basically, what's the difference?

What is the difference in the end?

But we have given it very specific characterizations throughout history, and it affects us today.

So bringing a question like that into this piece,

is something that, you know, through somebody who is seeing from a very particular lens,

I line up perfectly with that kind of man who really said,

but this is what you said.

These are the words that you used.

How can you not mean them?

You know, so in that, it's very difficult sometimes to rest yourself out of the mindset

where it's just like I'm always in danger because, in many cases,

it lines right up with the life that we're experiencing right now, you know.

And it's like we have to support each other through those sorts of things.

It's painful to watch, you know.

It's painful to experience through the stories that we tell for some of our colleagues,

and it's painful to actually put themselves in the position where they are the perpetrators of those things.

There's a great deal of love that goes into it, a great deal of trust that goes into it.

I guess I just have the opposite opinion of everybody else here.

Because also the opposite of everybody else here,

I've got lots on a page about Joseph Prentiss.

So who he was is spelled out in his own words.

He knows who he was.

He knows what he was.

And he liked who he was.

He was very proud of everything that he did.

So for me, I don't feel much of a connection to him at all

because to me it's more like, to use theatrical terms because we're actors,

he's a mask.

That's what he is.

I look at it and I see this mask that is pretty on the outside.

It's all polished and shiny, wearing the nice fancy clothes, the silver buttons.

You look on the inside and it's ugly and horrible and smells funny.

Because I need to be able to take him off and put him away

because Joseph Prentiss was such an indoctrinated guy in the Church of England

and then the Episcopal Church of Virginia and Virginia society,

Virginia government, Virginia schooling, everything.

So his way of life, as far as he was concerned,

was the right way.

So like what you were just saying, Jeremy, about what gives you the right,

he would look at you and he's like,

because I'm born better than you.

That's what he would say.

I am personally so opposite that in every single way

that it's just, I need to be able to take Joseph and leave him on a shelf

and walk away from him because he might have done things that we could consider good

but he was like so many other guys, literally men, I'm talking about,

at that time period, who could have done great and wonderful things for everybody

and distinctly chose not to.

They were uniquely poised at a position to make life better for everybody,

people of all colors and for women as well,

and they chose not to because they thought it was the right thing to do.

Because it was also the easy thing to do for them.

Because they already had it.

They were sitting up on their nice big cushions and they liked it a lot.

So saying that I'm connected to Joseph Prentice,

if you said that to me, I would get angry.

Because I'm not like that at all.

At least I don't think that I'm like that at all.

I don't want to be associated with people like that.

But what I've got to do is play people like that all the time.

So.

Instead of a connection to, I see a definite disconnect from my character

and I think it's a good thing.

It's part of the harsh reality of the stories that we tell here every day.

Yeah.

You know, I'm really grateful to know you all

and to be able to see you do this on a daily basis

because of the work that you all are doing.

What do you hope the audience takes away from this program?

The love that we put into it.

The willingness to go forward and change in their own lives.

Hopefully the way that they changed in the half,

I don't know if they were watching the program.

Yeah.

I think if anything,

if people could walk away from this

and realize that we all are talking

and having this conversation

and talking about how uncomfortable it is for us

to talk about this stuff,

racism and the history of slavery in this country,

and if they can use that as a guide

to hopefully move forward

and have these conversations elsewhere in their lives,

that for me that would be the takeaway, I would hope.

It's not comfortable.

It's not easy.

And starting the conversation is the hardest part.

But I just hope that they could take those small steps

to move in that direction.

Yeah.

I hope that they would be able to step outside of themselves,

like we all do.

I think one thing that we really need in today's world

is just the ability to talk.

Yeah.

The ability to sit down and listen to other people,

listen to people who are not like ourselves,

see where people are coming from.

You know, stand firm and, well, maybe not stand firm,

but stand true to who you are and your perspective,

but understand that there are other perspectives

and the other perspectives might be helpful

or can really nurture your own perspective

and you can really grow.

And that as long as we're all living,

there's always something to learn.

And I think that's one thing.

Learn from other people.

Listen.

Love.

Our president, our current president,

said in his farewell speech the other night,

he said, what did he say?

Take the time to talk to a stranger,

someone you don't know.

Speak to them.

Listen to them.

And I think that's important.

I think we could really take some good steps

towards some better understanding,

hopefully some healing on a large scale.

So how can we see this?

How can we see this program

in Black History Month and beyond?

Well, starting in February,

I think about twice a week,

we'll be performing in the Kimbell Theater,

which is up in Merchant Square.

It's closer to the college,

but right on the Duke of Gloucester Street.

And then I think it's starting March 18th,

we start our spring season.

And we'll be performing on the Charlton Stage,

behind the Charlton Coffee House,

also on the Duke of Gloucester Street,

right next to the Capitol.

So you can check the website for dates and times,

as those will vary.

One important thing to note is that this team,

this cast, these six beautiful people,

this piece exists because they created it.

So we try to go forward and do this piece always,

but it can't be performed if someone's missing it.

We do, if let's say someone is out,

we will be there to have this conversation with folks

and talk to folks.

So please come see us, join us, listen.

We're listening, and we'll have a conversation.

For more information on Journey to Redemption

and other incredible Black History Month programming,

visit ColonialWilliamsburg.com.

Thank you so much, guys, for talking with me today.

I really appreciate it.

I think it's important stories that we're telling.

I think you all are doing incredible work doing it.

And I really hope everyone gets a chance to come

and see this program.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

For more information on this podcast,

check out our website at podcast.history.org.

There you can send your comments or suggestions,

and we're always glad to hear from you.