Mockingbird Fly

The goal of the scriptwriting class is to write and the goal of the blog is to post some of what I write for Mel to review. So I looked at what I've written in just the last week and I was surprised at the variety of writing. As verified by the "recent documents" on my computer, I've edited an appendix for a professor's textbook and a column for the national publication Storytelling Magazine, I wrote two grant reports, posts for my new blog, and most exciting, I wrote the three first scenes of a new play I'm working on (working title: The Storytelling Stone.) That was a good writing week! I know grant reports sound dull and dry, but I'm going to post a narrative from one of the reports. It was from a project I did last fall called Mockingbird Fly. Writing the final report reminded me how much I loved that project and what an impact it had on my life. I spent over 100 hours researching and writing the script and also acted, sang, musically directed and produced as Resonance Story Theatre. http://www.resonancestorytheatre.com/

Mockingbird Fly

“Somewhere we read a little child shall lead them… These young people are about their father’s business.

They are carving a tunnel of hope through the red mountain of despair and they will bring to this nation a newness and a genuine quality and an idealism that it so desperately needs.

Keep this movement rolling in spite of the difficulties and we’re going to have a few more difficulties. Keep calm.

Keep moving! If you can’t fly, run! If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving.”

Martin Luther King
on the Children’s Crusade


Mockingbird Fly was true community collaboration as Resonance Story Theatre joined forces with Orem City, the Orem Public Library, SCERA, UVU’s Contemporary Dance Company, Theatre Department, Education Department, and Center for Engaged Learning to bring to life this powerful performance piece. Inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird, Resonance Story Theatre created a show that wove dialogue from the book, music, dance, folktales, and true narratives from Americans who were involved in pushing the cause of civil right. Mockingbird Fly showed just how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

Atticus Finch said, “You’ll get along a lot better, if you can learn this simple trick. You’ll never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

This was our directive, to create a performance piece that would address the issues of race found in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and to raise awareness and understanding – to allow our audiences the chance to climb into someone else’s skin. We used the power of story – real stories of young people who had stood up and made a difference – and music and dance to reach our audiences. We also used images. When we said the Freedom Riders hit some trouble once they got to Alabama, a picture of a bus with black smoke billowing out of it, was worth a thousand words.

The response to the piece was overwhelmingly postive and qualitative research was gathered as UVU student essays. They show the acquisition of new knowledge:

“It was crazy to hear how many things they had to go through to get rid of the Jim Crow laws. I had always heard it was hard, but it didn’t really have the same aspect of seeing it acted out.”

The essays show the deep connection the audience made with the stories and how music and dance deepened that connection:

“It was truly inspirational and you could feel the emotion. I loved the drums; it made my heart beat fast as they grew faster and louder. This production made me want to cry when remembering how hard it must have been for these wonderful people. They had so much hope to go on.”

The essays also showed processing and relfection:

“I hadn’t heard of many of the people they spoke about and the small ways they stood up for their freedoms. I love how small acts of what was once considered rebellion and defiance are now seen as acts of heroism, showing that just because people don’t agree with what we are doing at the time, does not mean that the action is wrong, but rather that the minds of society are
not yet developed as they should be.”


We feel the impact to Orem audiences was significant, as reflected in the essays. We
reached every goal of connecting Orem enitites & people. For the writers, directors and cast,
Mockingbird Fly was truly a remarkable experience and we were all changed.