Maryat Lee: The Appalachian Plays

Kentucky native Maryat Lee studied under theologian Paul Tillich and anthropologist Margaret Mead in New York City before beginning her astonishing career there writing and directing plays drawn from the real stories of real people in Harlem. Presented by a racially-mixed cast of non-actors on the roughest of small stages set down at the edge of busy streets, the plays depicted life as it was actually lived there, from the heroin epidemic then ravaging the inner city (her play Dope! was championed by Jackie Robinson) to themes usually kept hidden, such as life as a gay person (After the Fashion Show) and dysfunctional schools (The Classroom). She was celebrated in Life magazine, Variety, The New York Times, and on television. She also became of one novelist Flannery O'Connor's best friends through a lively correspondence. In 1975, tired of city living, she moved to rural Appalachia to start over, using local source material and oral histories and nonprofessional actors to produce an electrifying new kind theater--"rough" and real. This book collects four of those plays, along with scholarly commentary by her biographer Dr. Bill French and Lee's own notes on each play. They represent her belief that the reality of people's lives and the stories a community tells itself are infinitely more interesting than watered down "legitimate" theater, and can connect people back to a wholeness humans deeply need but which we've forgotten. Her work is unique, direct and absorbing.