Ryk Lewis
Writer, Musician, Composer, Theater Professional
Garreville was performed as a staged reading at University of Penn Museum in Philadelphia, PA on July 27, 2019.
Notable Philadelphia performers included Steve Wright, Camille Young, LaTice Mitchell, Tim Richardson, Janae Rockemore, Blessing Osazuwa, Kahil Wyatt, Loretta Graham, Christopher David Roche.
Garreville is a sharecropping community much like others in the rural, southern early 1900’s America.
Nelson is a sharecropper and the patriarch of his family comprised of himself, his wife Estelle and his six daughters. They are typical members of the community, good neighbors, and Nelson even maintains a delicate balance of civility with the landowner and several of the white foremen involved with the local farming industry.
While there are sweeping cultural and economic changes occurring both locally and abroad, Nelson and his neighbors concern themselves primarily with their everyday existence. Farming, their homes, church, love, friendship and the general community. This includes the potential love lives of Nelson’s three oldest daughters. The daughters have their own opinions of how their lives should unfold regardless of cultural or societal norms cast for them by others.
As Nelson endures the changes in his life, family, community and the world, he’s forced to examine how these changes around him will impact his place amongst them all.