Brother's Keeper Info
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BROTHER'S KEEPER INFO
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Brother’s Keeper is a play about courageous survival. The play tracks the journey of the central character, William, from ten years old to middle age. Unable to hide his uniqueness, William, like many LGBTQ+ youths, suffers brutal abuse in school just because he is different. The toxic effect of bullying is a key theme in this work. Brother James, his priest, takes a "special" interest in William. What damage is done when a priest sexually abuses boys? How do predators justify what they have done? Why do some victims survive and others perish? In middle age, William finds the courage to confront his abuser. This cathartic event leads William to a path of healing. He finds hope and joy and love.
Developed over several years in the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Lab, the play has evolved into a non-linear memory play for one actor. Following the traditions of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form, Shakespeare’s soliloquies and storytelling, the fourth wall is often broken in a solo play of nine scenes with thirteen characters.
Developed over several years in the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Lab, the play has evolved into a non-linear memory play for one actor. Following the traditions of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form, Shakespeare’s soliloquies and storytelling, the fourth wall is often broken in a solo play of nine scenes with thirteen characters.
Photography by Dion Ogust
About the Performer/Playwright
Wallace Norman
WALLACE NORMAN is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of Woodstock Fringe. Beginning in 2002 and for more than a decade. Woodstock Fringe produced the annual Woodstock Fringe Festival of Theatre and Song. The first Festival of Theatre and Song spanned two weeks. Ten years later the festival was six weeks long. Over the course of that decade, Woodstock Fringe was the producer and host of some 400 performances of original plays, solo performance art works, chamber opera, puppet theatre, concerts of new American songs, high-art clown shows, and readings of more than 50 new plays.
In 2005 Wallace instigated the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit, a playwriting laboratory. The Unit is now in its 18th year. The Unit met in Greenwhich Village in New York City every other Tuesday until the Covid plague arrived. The Unit continues to meet every Tuesday evening using the Zoom platform.
Wallace is a playwright, director, actor and singer. He has appeared in more than sixty-five productions in Off-Broadway, Regional, Stock and Hudson Valley theaters. Wallace has been a soloist at Carnegie Recital Hall and participated as a singer in the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference Cabaret Symposium. For years prior to moving to Woodstock, Wallace was a denizen of the Off-Off Broadway arena in New York City. In his city days Wallace produced over 30 works for the stage. He was a founder of The Gilgamesh Theatre Group, part of the “At The Beckett Theatre Campaign" on 42nd Street in NYC. Norman also has enjoyed a long and artistically rich association with Golden Fleece, The Composer Chamber Theatre. At the beginning of his theatrical career he was mentored by Lou Rodgers, Artistic Director of Golden Fleece both as a performer and theatre producer.
Wallace trained extensively at the Herbert Berghoff Studio in NYC and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He taught acting at Nassau Community College.
Plays recently directed in the Hudson Valley include: The Realistic Joneses, by Will Eno (Performing Arts of Woodstock); Breaking The Code, by Hugh Wittemore (co-director Bette Siler); Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett, produced by Woodstock Fringe; Proof, by David Auburn; It Can’t Happen Here by Wallace Norman; Old Hickory, by Ric Siler; Women on Fire, by Irene O’Garden, The Great Nebula in Orion, by Lanford Wilson and Oh Virgil!, A Theatrical Portrait by Wallace Norman. Oh Virgil! was commissioned by the Virgil Thomson Foundation.
In 2005 Wallace instigated the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit, a playwriting laboratory. The Unit is now in its 18th year. The Unit met in Greenwhich Village in New York City every other Tuesday until the Covid plague arrived. The Unit continues to meet every Tuesday evening using the Zoom platform.
Wallace is a playwright, director, actor and singer. He has appeared in more than sixty-five productions in Off-Broadway, Regional, Stock and Hudson Valley theaters. Wallace has been a soloist at Carnegie Recital Hall and participated as a singer in the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference Cabaret Symposium. For years prior to moving to Woodstock, Wallace was a denizen of the Off-Off Broadway arena in New York City. In his city days Wallace produced over 30 works for the stage. He was a founder of The Gilgamesh Theatre Group, part of the “At The Beckett Theatre Campaign" on 42nd Street in NYC. Norman also has enjoyed a long and artistically rich association with Golden Fleece, The Composer Chamber Theatre. At the beginning of his theatrical career he was mentored by Lou Rodgers, Artistic Director of Golden Fleece both as a performer and theatre producer.
Wallace trained extensively at the Herbert Berghoff Studio in NYC and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He taught acting at Nassau Community College.
Plays recently directed in the Hudson Valley include: The Realistic Joneses, by Will Eno (Performing Arts of Woodstock); Breaking The Code, by Hugh Wittemore (co-director Bette Siler); Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett, produced by Woodstock Fringe; Proof, by David Auburn; It Can’t Happen Here by Wallace Norman; Old Hickory, by Ric Siler; Women on Fire, by Irene O’Garden, The Great Nebula in Orion, by Lanford Wilson and Oh Virgil!, A Theatrical Portrait by Wallace Norman. Oh Virgil! was commissioned by the Virgil Thomson Foundation.
Shelly Wyant - Stage Director
As a child, Shelley was bigger, louder and bolder than most of her classmates, thereby realizing she was destined to be “a theater person.” After graduating from Brandeis University, she became part of NYC’s original Off-Off Broadway movement, performing with a modicum of success and some wonderful reviews. But it was in 1981 that Shelley found her true calling while studying mask work in Bali, with the great Idi Bagus Anom. Continuing her studies with legends Pierre LeFevre at Juilliard and Jacques LeCoq in Paris has lead to a long and successful teaching career of her own at numerous institutions and conservatories such as Brown, Yale, Smith, NYU, and currently, The Terry Knickerbocker Studio in Industry City, Brooklyn. In 1996, Shelley received her MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. After starting her own company, MaskWork ETC/Joy Presenters, Shelley directed theater pieces locally and beyond, including, LOVE REINCARNATION AND GARBAGE (Edinburgh Festival), PERMANJALI AND THE SEVEN GEESE BROTHERS (Widow Jane Mine), AMA (Kingston Point Park) and THE SCOTTISH PLAY (Holy Cross Church). She directed a talented trio from New Zealand at LaMama in NYC and then brought them up to High Falls in their zany romp, HAMATSA, and she served as mask consultant to Terrence McNally’s production, A PERFECT GANESH at Manhattan Theater Club. For Performing Arts of Woodstock, Shelley has directed GOOD WOMAN OF SETZUAN, THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND and most recently GOD OF CARNAGE. She is a Fulbright Senior Specialist, a founding member of Actors and Writers of the Hudson Valley, a board member for both the NYC Halloween Parade and Arm of the Sea Theater Company and is delighted to be directing with the Woodstock Fringe!
Origin of Brother's Keeper
The idea for Brother's Keeper came to me in a dream while I was visiting Rome a few years ago. I was staying with my brother and his family in a beautiful apartment near Vatican City. From the terrace of the apartment one can see the duomo of St. Peter's Cathedral. The dream was very powerful and I woke up in a state of excitement. I felt instinctively that this dream was important and I wrote it down. The form of this work has changed many times. Early on there were eight or ten actors. In the past nine months it has evolved into a one-actor play.
Cultural Context - LGBTQ+
The themes and events of Brother’s Keeper are very much informed by the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community. 65% of middle school LGBTQ+ youth report that they have been bullied. For transgender youth some studies show that 80% suffer the abuse of bullies both in person and online. The trauma of bullying can be devastating and deadly. It leads to suicides. Equally, or perhaps more profound, is the damage done to the young and powerless by adult sexual predators. This play was completed just before the news broke this fall reporting that priests and others involved in the French Catholic Church sexually abused more than 330,000 children over a period of some years. My central character William grew up to be gay. When younger he anguished: “I felt that there was something about me, something wrong about me that made Brother James do it.” The feeling of defectiveness and shame for victims of sexual abuse is scarring. For many the wounds never fully heal. Brother’s Keeper is William’s personal journey. I believe my play also sheds light on the toxic, hateful and contemptuous culture that the LGBTQ+ community, my community, continues to live in. Some perish. And others, like William, courageously survive.