The staged reading of Mother's Day was presented as part of BLT's Playwright-in-Residence program

BLT’s Playwright-in-Residence program is made possible by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the McKean County Commissioners through the McKean Arts Council. 

About the Show  ·  Cast List  ·  About the Playwright  ·  From the Director  ·  Return to BLT's Main Page

Mother’s Day (working title) is a play about family, aging, alcoholism, old school Catholicism and, finally, forgiveness. 

Tina, a childless, divorced woman of 45, has returned to her parents’ home after several years away.  Her mother is scheduled for hip replacement surgery and her father, Tina learns, has health problems of his own.

Through direct monologues spoken to the audience, conversations with her parents, flashbacks to earlier times, and readings of her mother’s poetry, we learn of Tina’s troubled childhood, her father’s alcoholism, her mother’s Catholicism, the impact of both of these on their family life, and her parents’ current declining health. 

As Tina grapples with thoughts of her mother’s life, her father’s life and her own, she learns to see their perspectives and gains insight into herself, as well.

(In the Photo, from Left: Charles Church, Adria Torrey, Jessica Yohe, Rebekah Blair, Carleton Campbell, Nanci Garris, and Gus Gocella)

Diane Kerner Arnett — Director
Charles E. Church — Young Father, Priest, Timmy 
Bridget Harris — Playwright
Nanci K. Garris — Tina
Adria Torrey* — Little Tina, Girlfriend from Church 2
Jessica Yohe — Teenage Tina, Girlfriend from Church 1, Tammy
Rebekah D. Blair — Mother
Narrator — William "Gus" Gocella*
Carleton Campbell* — Father in 70s 

* Welcome to Gus, Adria, and Carleton, who are each making their BLT debuts.

Behind-the-Scenes
Chris Mackowski — Producer 
Jan Frederick — Hospitality 
Betsy Matz — Box Office 

Bridget Harris’s most recent theatrical work has been with Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. Her first play, These Dreams of You, was produced in January 1992 by Pittsburgh Queer Theater, which subsequently produced her second play, The Burning Half, in March of 1993. Her work has also been performed at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont and at Penn Theater in Pittsburgh.

Harris believes the best writing is writing that helps the audiences see the world in a new way while also showing the writer something new about herself. "My main goal is art, not therapy," she says. "But writing that’s the most enlightening is writing that sheds light on one’s self."

Harris has worked as a freelance writer and editor for more than twelve years. She writes regularly for three of Pittsburgh’s best advertising agencies, and she has done public relations writing for several healthcare facilities. She has copyedited technical papers for Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association and the Materials Research Society’s MRS Bulletin. Harris also served for a time as associate editor of the Measurement & Data Corporation’s trade magazines, Measurements & Control and Medical Electronics.

Aside from promotional and technical writing, Harris has published personal essays and articles in venues across the country, including USAir magazine, Pittsburgh’s Out, Pittsburgh City Paper, and ACF News. Her opinion column, "Broadly Speaking," appeared for three years in lesbian newspapers across America.

Harris has a master of fine arts degree in playwriting from Goddard College and a bachelor of science degree in psychology and English writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She’s a member of The Dramatists Guild, the Theatre Communications Group, and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company.

Ms. Harris’s work-in-progress tackles a universal theme.

In Mother’s Day, her parents' failing health prompts Tina to re-examine her childhood and her parents’ relationships with her and with one another. Things look different at the dawn than at the noon or twilight of our lives, and often the blacks and whites of certainty give way to shades of gray when filtered through compassion and empathy instead of judgment.

Being right becomes less important than understanding, and  acceptance follows forgiveness.

I think you will either find much to consider here, or much you  recognize from your own life.

— Diane Kerner Arnett, director