Cd'A Charter play 'All My Sons' opens tonight
Ruby Larson, left, paints a tree as Sam Lambert waves at the camera with help from Jackson Hermsmeyer as the students spend time Saturday working on the set of Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy's production of "All My Sons." All three are actors in the play, which opens at 7 tonight. Without any assistance from teachers, Lambert designed the set and directed his dad and other students and parents in its construction.
Photo courtesy of Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy
Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy's production of "All My Sons" will open at 7 tonight in the north multipurpose room of the school.
The Tony Award-winning play was written by renowned American playwright Arthur Miller, who also penned "Death of a Salesman," "The Crucible" and "A View from the Bridge." The Charter production stars students Ruby Larson, Sam Lambert and Jackson Hermsmeyer and is directed by Charter theater arts and communications teacher Dana Fleming.
"All My Sons" is a tragic play that takes place in a small Ohio town just after World War II.
As a director, Fleming said she has avoided drama and tragedies over the past few years because things have felt so heavy in real life for so many.
"But I felt it was time to pick up the tragic form again so I and my students could reflect on the human condition in its complexity," she said. "Miller does a brilliant job in this script of humanizing every character. You see their flaws, you see their pain. You find some piece of yourself in these characters and are left to wonder, 'What would I have done?'"
She said as society reverts to its tribal impulses, this play brings to mind the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the author of "The Gulag Archipelago," a memoir and history of the vast Soviet Union prison system: "Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts."
"All My Sons" plays tonight and Friday at 7 and at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for general admission. Seniors 60 and older will received a 50% discount for the Saturday matinee.
This production contains strong language, heavy themes and a gunshot sound effect.
Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy is at 4904 N. Duncan Drive, Coeur d'Alene.