By: Debbie Minter Jackson
Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV July 13, 2006
Why, oh why has it taken me sixteen years to finally get to Shepherdstown, WV for the Contemporary American Theater Festival, which started the same year I moved here from Chicago? I have heard rumblings about it since its inception, so I had No excuse - reasons, sure, but no excuse. My reasons started with two little letters that implied unreachable distance, unknown parts waaaaay over the river and across mountains somewhere out yonder-WV. For some pathological reason, I was averse, okay, terrified, of crossing the Potomac into West Virginia on my own. This year I had fortification-fellow sisters of the Black Women Playwrights’ Group. We packed our bags, grabbed that highway, and in just shortly over an hour we were in Shepherdstown for an invigorating line-up of new plays. What an inauguration to what I am publicly announcing will be an annual pilgrimage for me. Sometimes, you just need a little nudge, okay, for me maybe a push, a hand, or even a kick to get me off my couch.
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