The Hillsboro Story - Reviews/Press
"The Hillsboro Story" - Civil rights drama comes to Southern State
"On a hot summer night -- July 5, 1954 -- Lincoln School, the "colored" elementary school in Hillsboro, Ohio, went up in flames, and my sweet, sleepy, segregated little hometown was suddenly awake…"
So writes author-performer Susan Banyas, a third grader in 1954 and witness to the powerful civil rights drama unfolding around her.
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- Kris Cross, Highland County Press
"On Sunday I saw The Hillsboro Story, Susan Banyas's memory piece about a little-known but fascinating piece of American civil rights history that was not so long ago and not so far away, although life has barreled ahead so much in the past 55 years that for an astonishing number of Americans the civil rights years might as well be hung forgotten in the cloakroom alongside the colonial era's three-corner hats.
For that reason alone -- the short communal memory of a culture that consistently shortchanges its own past and often misinterprets it even when it does pay attention -- The Hillsboro Story is worth telling, and seeing. I hope the play has a healthy future in schools and youth theaters -- not that it isn's a good piece of theater for adults (it is), but because still-developing hearts and minds in particular need to understand this vital part of their heritage."
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- Bob Hicks, artscatter.com
Fertile Ground offers eclectic mix of shows
"One weekend standout was "The Hillsboro Story," presented as a work-in-progress at Artists Repertory Theatre. Created by Susan Banyas out of extensive interviews, research and her childhood memories, it tells the fascinating story of her Ohio hometown wrestling with the issue of public school desegregation in the mid-1950s."
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- Marty Hughley, Oregonian
Fertile Ground Day One: The Hillsboro Story
"There are few props and the narration is straight-to-the-point, but this is a powerful play. All four female performers' acting is superb, with the enthusiasm and theatrical prowess of Lanier occasionally stealing the show. Gregg Bielemeier's choreography brings visual charm to the narrative, keeping the show's performers in constant motion, galloping comically across the stage one moment and swaying seductively the next (while talking civil rights court case -- it's one of many poignant, yet hilarious, juxtapositions throughout the piece). Also notable is the show's well-orchestrated musical composition by David Ornette Cherry."
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- Natalie Baker, Willamette Week