New play by Sonoma author tells saga of Pilgrim voyage

“Freedom’s Song,” a new one-act play about the Pilgrims will have its premiere Saturday and Sunday, not long before Thanksgiving.|

If You Go

What: “Freedom's Song”: California Mayflower Society's one-act drama about the Mayflower

When: Noon Saturday, Nov. 16; 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17

Where: Hanna Boys Center, 17000 Arnold Drive, Sonoma

Admission: $10-$20

Information: 707-996-3357

We all know about the first Thanksgiving, a three-day celebration by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the new world in 1621, attended by some 90 Native Americans.

So it’s timely and fitting that “Freedom’s Song,” a new one-act play about the Pilgrims, written by Antoinette Kuhry of Sonoma, will have its premiere Saturday and Sunday, not long before Thanksgiving.

But in fact, the play commemorates a different event, the landing of the Pilgrims’ ship, the Mayflower, at Plymouth Rock a year earlier, in 1620.

Kuhry, well-known to local audiences as the artistic director of Sonoma City Opera from 1984 to 2010, started writing the play last year, after she found out she could truthfully say one of her ancestors - Pilgrim leader William Brewster - had come over on the Mayflower.

“I discovered that I was descendant of Brewster’s because people in my family had done a genealogy, so I joined the Mayflower Society,” said Kuhry, 74. “With the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower coming up, I wanted to do something.”

The California Mayflower Society - the largest chapter of the organization, after Massachusetts - will present two one-hour matinee performances “Freedom’s Song” at Sonoma’s Hanna Boys Center.

Despite the proximity of Thanksgiving, don’t expect to see Pilgrims sitting down to dinner with members of the Wampanoag tribe for a feast of venison, clams, pumpkins and squash. This play predates all that.

“The Native Americans played a big role after the Pilgrims were there, but this play really ends on the ship. It follows William Brewster from when he was about 20, in the court of Queen Elizabeth in England, and it ends with the landing in Massachusetts and the signing of the Mayflower Compact,” Kuhry said. “Getting there was what interested me, and why they did it.”

As Kuhry researched the story, working through several published histories as well as archived letters written by the early colonists - some of them directly quoted in the play - a theme emerged. Persecuted for their faith, the Pilgrims fled England and spent a decade in exile in Holland before sailing for the New World.

“It was about their wanting to practice their religion as they thought they should,” Kuhry said. “To do that, they had to learn to govern themselves. These people were starting our democracy, and it turned into a republic 150 years later. This play is a celebration of freedom.”

The Mayflower Compact document established rules for self-governance, providing for the passage of “just and equal laws … for the general good of the colony.”

Even though Kuhry dressed in Pilgrim garb for publicity photos, the author won’t appear in the show, which has a cast of 10 characters, most of them playing multiple roles, including Queen Elizabeth. Despite Kuhry’s extensive background in opera, this production is purely composed of the spoken word.

“I am a singer,” Kuhry said simply. “I’m not a composer.”

Noting that William Shakespeare was alive and writing throughout the period covered by the play, Kuhry has adapted some of the Bard’s style and structure and prefaces her play with the phrase “as poet William Shakespeare did expound …”

The play’s director, Eric Thompson - remembered for his years portraying Ebenezer Scrooge in the now-disbanded Sonoma County Repertory Theater’s annual production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” - contributed to shaping the final work, suggesting the use of a classic Greek chorus, with actors periodically narrating or summarizing the action.

“Working with Eric, I had to make a lot of changes, but they were helpful,” Kuhry said.

Thompson’s background as director of religious studies at the Santa Rosa Junior College also was useful, she explained.

“Under Queen Elizabeth, the crown and the church were as one. It was the complete opposite of the separation of church and state that we cherish so much in this country,” Kuhry said.

Drama sometimes requires some adaptation of the source material, but Kuhry adhered carefully to the first-hand accounts still available and documented research.

“I think it’s pretty historically accurate,” she said.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.

If You Go

What: “Freedom's Song”: California Mayflower Society's one-act drama about the Mayflower

When: Noon Saturday, Nov. 16; 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17

Where: Hanna Boys Center, 17000 Arnold Drive, Sonoma

Admission: $10-$20

Information: 707-996-3357

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