Step Into Christmas Past at Sotterley’s Holiday Candlelight
“From This Day Forward,” an original living history script, premiers at this year’s Sotterley Holiday Candlelight, the seasonal celebration at Sotterley Plantation.
The annual event will open as usual with a Members’ Night on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012 exclusively for Sotterley members. The performance for the general public will run the next two nights, Nov. 30 & Dec. 1, 2012 for ticket holders. Advance reservations are required and that information is listed below.
The living history production is set within the 1703 Plantation House. During its course visitors encounter Sotterley’s past Christmas seasons in a very immediate way. They will meet the families who lived and worked here. The story of Sotterley is not simple. The production brings today’s sensibilities back in time to share love, laughter and sometimes bittersweet memories at home on the plantation.
This is the second year Jeanne Pirtle has written the script and this year is also serving as the assistant director. The Sotterley Players Acting Troupe will bring alive the story and events of a transitional time in American history from the vantage point of a remarkable hub of 18th century commerce and society. Even before the plantation’s Patuxent River frontage included the prosperous steamboat landing this was a wharf used in colonial days to export tobacco, the cash crop of the New World. More difficult to visualize in the 21st Century, Sotterley served as a crossroads of the new nation for a few centuries.
By the waning days of the 18th century depicted in “From This Day Forward,” St. Mary’s County grew to one of its largest populations, a population which largely held until the 1940s. The first U.S. Census of 1790 counted 15,544 residents of St. Mary’s County; 8,216 were white.
Ms. Pirtle carries forward another century’s Sotterley tradition with her position as Sotterley’s Education Director and through her living history outreach, launching broader educational opportunities from a Sotterley perch. The generosity that first launched St. Mary’s Academy in 1885 came from a Colonel and Mrs. Richard H. Miles. “Mrs. Miles, nee Mary Blades, had come to St. Mary’s County as a children’s tutor at Sotterley Plantation,” recounts St. Mary’s historian Regina Combs Hammett in “History of St Mary’s County, Maryland.”
Also for a second year return, James LePore will be directing the Sotterley Holiday Candlelight. You may have caught Mr. Le Pore on Phoenix Radio or hosting “The Buzz” on Metrocast Channel 10.
The performances run from 6:30 – 10 p.m., opening with live musical performances from local premiere high school choral groups and complimentary cookies and punch in the historic barn prior to the reserved performance time.
Advance reservations are required. No walk-ins. To purchase online contact Sotterley. The cost is $15 per person.
Thanks so much for the article! Hope to see all at this year’s Sotterley Holiday Candlelight ~ “From This Day Forward.”