Description

This is a play for family audiences about the migratory life of a show business child during the Great Depression. Carolina Lee, called Charley, is the youngest actress in the company that suddenly finds itself stranded, and she becomes a drop-in at the local school, where recess is more like a Roman coliseum. Here is a play that connects rich, fully realized characters from three generations. Audiences warm to Charley’s temperamental actress-mother; her loving, song-and-dance-man of a father; and Charley’s illegitimate adopted grandmothers. While set in the Depression, the Chicago gypsies stubbornly see their way through these worst of times to the best of times in a regenerative reunion that makes these odd yet ordinary people shine with the miracle of loving, quiet survival. Area staging