THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY...
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| Cheryl Goodman-Morris |
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F.O.B. "Flat On Back". At home and in bed for six weeks. That was the news I was given by my obstetrician 24 years ago when I was pregnant with our daughter, Noelle. In order to carry the pregnancy full term, F.O.B. was his prescription. I suppose that's when the first glimmer of "Puah's Midwife Crisis" actually began to take shape. As a Presbyterian pastor, I was scheduled to preach the Sunday I returned to work, and put a lot of thought into the scripture passage I would want to base the sermon on. One story kept popping up, an Old Testament passage about Hebrew babies and midwives. I found that now that I was pregnant, I was drawn to this tale like a bee to honey. It was a story that took place just before the birth of Moses, at a time when a new Pharaoh who "no longer remembered Joseph" had come to power over Egypt. The Hebrews had been living in Egypt for 400 years, and had grown so great in number that the Egyptians were now threatened by their population explosion. Pharaoh's method of dealing with this situation was to call Puah and Shiphrah, two midwives to the Hebrew people, before him. He then commanded them to kill all boy babies upon their birth. Pharaoh's law was law of the land, but midwives are called to affirm life, not kill. This was a dilemma of enormous proportions for the midwives. Hence, "Puah's Midwife Crisis."
The sermon that I wrote about this story turned out to be a dramatic piece--a first person account by Puah that told of her adventures in being given this murderous assignment. Her story turned out to be such a faithful, courageous, ingenious one that I began to think that it would make a great play. Well, I really thought was that it would make a great musical, and that somebody should write it. But that idea went on the back burner. In the meantime, I raised my daughter, continued my work as a pastor, graduated from a theater conservatory, started a theater conservatory, and directed a slew of musicals.
Fast forward 21 years. Puah's musical story was still on the back burner in my mind. Then, in 2006 I ran into a friend at the airport following the National Presbyterian Women's Gathering, a conference for 4000 women that meets in Louisville, KY every three years. She told me she was on the planning committee for The Gathering, and said she would like me to consider bringing drama to the next conference. I thanked her and asked if I could think about it. The next time we spoke, I told her that I had had a musical in my head for the past 21 years. Would she be interested in us writing it and bringing it to the next conference? She took this into consideration and said she would get back to me. Several weeks later, she called to say the planning committee had said "yes" to the musical, that they wanted us to write it, produce it, and bring it. I got off the phone tremendously excited. And then it hit me. Now we had to write it, produce it, and bring it!
Last year I wrote the script and a wonderful musician, Karen Russell, and I began to work on the music. This fall we began to workshop the play with our 17 member cast. Each week we've been taking songs and scenes, running them to find out what works, what needs work, and making revisions. In January we will begin a full production schedule, and in March, 2009, we will produce "Puah's Midwife Crisis" for the first time at the Portola Valley Theatre Conservatory, our theater. In July, 2009, the cast and crew will travel to Louisville to present the musical to The Gathering at the National Presbyterian Women's Conference, in the Louisville convention center and at the Actor's Theater of Louisville.
Working on this project has been an extraordinary privilege, and I am truly indebted to all the powerful women who have made it possible--the women of The Gathering, the women of the cast who are doing such a beautiful job to bring the story to life, and of course, our indomitable heroines, Shiphrah and Puah.
Cheryl Goodman-Morris
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