Two things have been running through my head like a song, since I've been working on this play, ICE GLEN. One is a line from a song that a friend wrote: "We're all gonna live like people in a book." The other is from OUR TOWN, when Emily asks the Stage Manager (I'm paraphrasing here) "Do human beings ever realize how beautiful life is, every minute?" and he says, "The poets and the saints, some."
ICE GLEN is about being truly alive in the place where you belong. About being in that special place, inside and outside yourself (in the woods, or in a poem, or in a circle of people you love) where, if there's a frozen part of your heart because once something hurt too much for you to feel it, you can allow the ice to melt and come to life. Of course, there is an element of danger to being truly alive. When parts that have been too cold for too long warm up, they burn. But one of the surprises, when you open and feel, is how much fun and laughter you find where you feared to find only pain. There's a lot of fun and laughter in ICE GLEN. And we've all laughed a lot working and playing in this production.
The theatre has always been the place for me where the ice melts and the heart comes to life, and I find it happening again with this lovely play.
Ellen McQueen
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