“Revolution’s Edge” Premieres at Old North, 15 June

Old North Illuminated has commissioned a new play depicting the tensions within its Anglican congregation on the eve of the Revolutionary War.

The playwright and producer is Patrick Gabridge. Through Plays in Place, he has previously written site-specific dramas about the Boston Massacre and the John Hancock household for Revolutionary Spaces.

“Revolution’s Edge” portrays three men connected with Christ Church, Boston, in early 1775:

• the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Jr., the minister and a firm Loyalist, though descended from the Puritan Mathers. 
• John Pulling, a vestryman on the committee who hired Byles, a merchant captain, and an active Whig (member of the North End Caucus, for example). 
• Cato, a domestic servant enslaved to Byles, married to a woman enslaved to Byles’s in-laws out in Roxbury. 

All three men have young children. All three face the prospects of separating from their families or communities. Byles has just resigned to take a pulpit in New Hampshire while Pulling is wondering if it’s safe for him to remain in army-occupied Boston.

And it’s also the morning of 18 April.

To hear more about this production and the historical facts behind it, listen to Gabridge and Nikki Stewart, execuctive director of Old North Illuminated, chatting with Jacob Sconyers for the HUB History podcast. (Disclosure: Stewart and Sconyers are married. Double disclosure: I’m referenced in this discussion.)

“Revolution’s Edge” will premiere on Thursday, 15 June. After that, there will be performances every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evening until 19 September. Seating starts at 5:00 P.M., with the performance running from about 5:20 to a little after 6:00. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for people under age eighteen, though the show isn’t really recommended for kids under twelve.