Jets present ‘ Silenced on Barbour Street’

James Clemens Theatre will present “Silenced on Barbour Street” in the school auditorium on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. and the district festival of Alabama Conference of Theatre on Nov. 7 at Lee High School. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Actors with James Clemens Theatre will have the rare honor of presenting a stage play with the playwright sitting in the auditorium.

Drama students at James Clemens High School will present their one-act play, “Silenced on Barbour Street,” in the school auditorium on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 and are available online at showtix4u.com or at the event.

In additional, students in individual events and ensemble categories will perform at 6 p.m.

The show on Nov. 5 is a ‘dress rehearsal’ of sorts for the district festival of Alabama Conference of Theatre on Nov. 7. Lee High School in Huntsville will host the district Trumbauer competition.

James Clemens will perform at the district festival at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 at Lee. This performance is free and open to the public to attend.

“‘Silenced on Barbour Street’ was written by my dear friend, William Prenetta, who will be here on Nov. 7 to watch our performance at the Trumbauer festival,” drama instructor and play director Amy Pugh Patel said.

Pugh describes the play as “an exploration of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944. It is an original play by Will Prenetta, a Hartford, Conn. native, who researched and interviewed survivors of the fire with his students. The James Clemens production is only the third ever and the first in the Southeast” for the play to be performed.

“We are bringing the circus — and the tragedy — to the stage, complete with jugglers, unicyclists and stilt walkers. The play explores individual lives forever changed by the worst circus disaster in history,” Pugh said.

M. Clinton Merritt is working as technical director for the one-act play. Merritt also teaches theatre courses at James Clemens.

Winners at the district festival will advance to the 2015 Walter J. Trumbauer State Drama Festival on Dec. 4-5 at Troy University.