Peace Child

October 29, 2007


In 1987, Grace Walsh brought us a script that she had found through her work in the peace movement. It was a musical based on the concept that if young people were to address world leaders directly, they could cut through the politics of the cold war and stop the nuclear arms race. The fundamental argument was "I Want to Live," also the title of one of the major songs of the play. It wasn't a very good script, and the songs weren't much better, but, as is sometimes the case, especially with political theatre, the concept carried it.

We applied for, and to our amazement, received a grant for $10,000 to produce this play. We had the idea that if we could bring together kids from many nations, even iron curtain countries, we could make a big splash with this production. Burt Routman was president of The Playhouse at the time, and pretty much refused to accept any limitations, so we forged ahead.

The Soviet Union had not yet shown signs of collapsing, and getting kids from Soviet-bloc countries would be daunting, to say the least. I used my connections with the American Association of Community Theatre to work with the International Association of Amateur Theatre to seek participants. Finding people willing to come was not a problem. Getting them here was a different story. We worked with the U.S. State Department, and didn't know for certain we would have people until they arrived. We had to send travel money(cash) in some cases, by DHL Worldwide Express, with the knowledge that there was only about a 20% chance that it would reach the intended recipients.

The kids stayed with home hosts. They arrived two days before Thanksgiving, a holiday most had never heard of. We rehearsed for a couple of weeks with a local cast of about 110 kids and a few adults. Debbie Westphal choreographed, Paul Dieke did the music direction, and I directed. It was a madhouse. We crammed more people on the stage than ever before. Traffic patterns and visibility were our major concerns.

Opening night was a huge event. In attendance were many local luminaries, as well as Father Robert Drinan, peace activist and former U.S. congressman, and Lureen Gephardt, mother of senator and perennial candidate, Dick Gephardt. I lived only a few blocks from the Playhouse, and as I left my house to attend opening night, I noticed powerful searchlights in the early evening sky, searchlights procured by board member Jon Batesole. I knew we were doing something big. We never played to an empty seat, and due to Burt Routman's entrepreneurial drive, never an empty aisle.

The local response was amazing. Peace activism is usually positioned left of center, but this show defied political boundaries. Everyone got it. Kids don't care if you are republican or democrat. Their needs are non-political.

International cultural exchange creates incredibly tight bonds. The host families and guests became close almost instantly. On the day after closing, there was significant weeping and wailing at the airport, followed the next summer by many European trips, with host families visiting their guests. Some bonds remain particularly strong even now, 20 years later.