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Talk about living history.
For Sandy Spring residents participating in "Hide Your Horses," an original play about the history of the small Quaker village, they are doing more than just reciting lines. Some are portraying their own ancestors.
Set during the Civil War, "Hide Your Horses" explores how the anti-slavery Quaker community and surrounding Marylanders, the majority of which were Confederate sympathizers, were divided over the issue of slavery and the war.
"I had this idea to do a play about local history to bring that history to life for the students," said Evans, 52, of Brookeville.
He began writing the play a year and a half ago.
Juniors and seniors at the Friends School were given the assignment in their history classes to go to nearby Sandy Spring Museum and research the families and characters in the play. The hope is that knowing a little about what's happening on stage will make the show more interesting for the students, Evans said.
The reverberations of this time in history are felt in the community even today. Sandy Spring is a community shared by African Americans and Quakers still, with the Friends School and Sandy Spring Friends House, a retirement community, sharing the town with the Sandy Spring Slave Museum.
Evans stressed that "Hide Your Horses" is a community play, not just a student play. It brings together parents, children, grandparents, Friends School alumnae and long-time community residents all on one stage.
For example, John Hartge and his daughter Elizabeth Hartge, a 10th-grader at Sandy Spring Friends School, portray their ancestors, Charles Iddings and his daughter Beth Iddings in the production.
Hartge's brother, David Hartge, created the "Hide Your Horses" poster and plays guitar in the roving string band that provides traditional civil war music for transitions from scene to scene.
Beth Garrettson and her daughter Brooke Carroll are townspeople in the show and are related to Asa and Jim Stabler, characters in the play.
Mary Hopkins of the Sharp Street Church Choir sings "Amazing Grace" and "Oh Freedom" in the show. Sharp Street Church is acknowledged as the first African American church in Montgomery County and was built on land donated by Quakers.
Sandy Spring residents Joy Turner and Maybel Thomas, descendants of Enoch George Howard and his son John Henry Howard — both important characters in the play — were consultants about the portrayal of the Howard family members.
The play hasn't been without its challenges. Evans, who is also the director, said he has a tendency to rewrite the script little by little during rehearsals, which frustrates the cast.
Also, some of the African American students were apprehensive about portraying slaves on stage, Evans said.
"We had Joy Turner and Audrey Dutton come in and talk to the Black Student Union about it," Evans said. "They said, ‘It's a part of our history, a part of who we are. It's not who we are today, but we should embrace that.'"
At a dress rehearsal Monday night, several members of the cast reflected on what it means to be part of a play with such ingrained history.
Klanaya Oke, 15, a sophomore at the school, plays Sarah, the African American house servant of the Davis family.
"I like it a lot," she said. "It's history. I think the story is really interesting. My character has a good relationship with Rebecca Davis, the daughter."
Rebecca Davis is played by 22-year-old Elizabeth Gekas, an alumnus of Sandy Spring Friends School who recently earned a degree in theater from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
"I'm excited to come back and do a play about Sandy Spring," she said. "To play a real person is an interesting undertaking."
Gekas said she got to read her character's actual diary to help research the roll.
Bob Hoch, head of the history department at Sandy Spring Friends School, plays Alan Bowie Davis, Elizabeth's father.
"It's cool to do a play about an actual event," he said. "This is definitely a community play. We've got the [Sandy Spring] Museum involved, the lower and middle schools [at Sandy Spring Friends School], parents and grandparents — it's a nice sense of continuity. There's not just the new community, but the old as well. It's not often you find a community where you can trace the roots back like this."
On March 5, a few days after the play closes, Evans will host a discussion at the Sandy Spring Museum about the issues raised in the play. While researching the script, he heard many interesting stories about some characters that couldn't be included in the play, he said.
"In order to get people to tell those stories, we are having this discussion," Evans said. "It will focus on the evolution of this community from the Civil War to today. There's kind of this parallel existence in this community between the African-American community and the white community. There are some unpleasant things, too, that may come out of this meeting."
But it's a sense of community which plays like this foster that got Sandy Spring through those troubled times before, and Evans is confident that same sense of community will move the community toward a better tomorrow.
"Hide Your Horses" will be presented at 7:15 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Sandy Spring Friends School Performing Arts Center, 16923 Norwood Road in Sandy Spring. Admission is free, but donations will benefit the school and Sandy Spring Museum. For more information, call 301-774-7455.
