The Black History in Centre County Project is offering two workshop readings of its new play this weekend.
The play “Finding Home: Adeline Lawson Graham, Colored Citizen of Bellefonte” tells true stories from the 19th century Black community in Bellefonte. The story is centered around Adeline Harris Lawson Graham, a Black woman living in Bellefonte in the late 1800s.
Carmin Wong is a graduate student at Penn State and the play’s writer. She said the goal of the show is to showcase a part of Centre County history that is often forgotten or ignored.
“For me as the writer, it was being very mindful of, well what is the story we’re trying to tell and understanding the reason that we’re trying to tell us is, one, we want to get people to engage with it, but two is to amplify," Wong said. "This is part of this country’s history, and this is part of our history for those of us who reside here in Centre County and there is so much more history here that we can become curious about.”
The workshop readings will also include featured music by the Essence of Joy choir and Harrisburg tenor soloist, Christyn Seay, under the direction of Dr. Anthony Leach.
The play readings are free and open to the public. Saturday’s show will be at 6 p.m. in State College and Sunday afternoon’s show will be at 3 p.m. in Bellefonte.