If the names Friendly Cab, Funshine Preschool, Veterans Memorial YMCA, Richard Walker Shoes, Naomi’s TV, Chinn’s Funeral Home, Mamie Brown’s Friendly Beauty School and Majestic Barber Shop don’t ring a bell, they will after you’ve attended a performance of “From Nauck to Green Valley: Transforming a Community.”
Encore Stage & Studio’s new student-devised original play looks at the history of one of Arlington’s historically African-American communities, and how the residents thrived despite the limitations imposed during an era of rigid racial segregation in Virginia.
The show, the second produced under Encore’s “Flip the Script” diversity umbrella, provided a chance for young performers not simply to tell Green Valley’s story to a broader community, but to come together as one.
“Friendships were made during this process that I hope will last a lifetime,” said Madaline Langston, Encore’s director of programming as well as director and co-playwright of the show.
“We started the process as strangers, but left as a community,” Langston said of the experience.
Langston was joined by James Carlos Lacey and student-playwrights Elizabeth Bell, Lidia Coatthers, Layne Markowski and John Monaco, who drew from the historic record and the input of longtime Green Valley residents like Dr. Alfred Taylor in crafting the two-act, 85-minute production.
The show tells the tale of local taxi driver Theodore (Nathaniel Gels) and his passenger Saul (Timotei Mourot). In tow are their respective granddaughters (portrayed by Rose Jaboori and Dina Marjane).
Theodore and Saul grew up (on different sides of a rapidly evolving racial divide) in the Green Valley community during the 1960s, and as the tale unfolds, they not only learn stories from each other, but recognize they have a long-lost bond, as well.
The performance is packed full of Green Valley references of past and present, from its churches and businesses to towering figures like Taylor, Portia Clark and the late John Robinson Jr. and Leonard “Doc” Muse. It was presented in Theatre on the Run on South Four Mile Run Drive, which, if technically on outer rim of the community’s delineated boundaries, is (like nearby Jennie Dean Park and Weenie Beanie) decidedly part of Green Valley’s extended family.
With solid performances among the cast (ages 9-18), the show acknowledges the ills of the past but also focuses on a efforts by residents to build up their community despite legal and cultural obstacles placed in their way. It is aided by videos (by John Monaco) showing some of the sites explored during the show.
Like other parts of Arlington that, owing to segregation, once were the exclusive domain of African-American families, Green Valley has seen its share of recent gentrification, with the mixed impact that can bring.
Dr. Taylor said he hopes that, through the show, “new neighbors can gain an appreciation of what the previous residents did to preserve and grow the community they now live in.”
“From Nauck to Green Valley” – “Nauck” being a since-abandoned former name for the community – follows on the heels of the pre-COVID Flip the Script work “The Day Nothing Happened,” which told the story of the first day of integration at Arlington’s previously all-white Stratford Junior High School in 1959.
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“From Nauck to Green Valley: Transforming a Community” continues for one more weekend, with performances May 5 at 7:30 p.m., May 6 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and May 7 at 3 p.m. at Theatre on the Run, 3700 South Four Mile Run Drive.
For tickets and information, see the Website at www.encorestage.org.
