Touch Points: Physical Space

"I want to be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens..."

One of the appeals of working in historic sites is the sense of place. You get sucked into the reality of life in a different time, or into the events of that time, merely by stepping foot into a space that has been preserved. I have been lucky enough to work in quite a few places where I could feel the history coming out of the wood and brick around me.

The most memorable time the space came alive though, was when I got to be a Producer¹ for a production at the Old State House in Boston called Blood on the Snow. The show, written by Pat Gabridge and directed by Courtney O’Connor, was a take on what was going on in the Old State House the night after the Boston Massacre took place, right outside the building, in 1770. It opened with the sound of a mob passing by under the windows, and effect that dropped you right back into 1770. The fact that it also took place in the Council Chamber only added to that effect. (Pat and Courtney and all the team members at Plays in Place are continuing to work on site-specific works like this.)

While that was the most memorable, I also spent a lot of time incorporating and bringing to life a historic house on Massachusetts’ North Shore. As a lady’s maid in a great house, dressed in a freshly pressed apron, with bobby pins ever at the ready in my pocket, a tea tray at the ready, and mostly only ever using the servant’s stair - putting yourself in that mindset brought the house to life in a way that you could never quite believe as a guest. The dress and the attitude added an element that is inescapable. Right before the pandemic hit, we had started expanding the universe of the Great House out to the gardens.

It’s definitely different working in one of these spaces than it is visiting, especially when you get to know the spaces so well.

But even as a guest, trying to imagine the spaces you stand in in the times when they were used is an important piece of placing yourself in another time. Having the physical structures brings it to life in a way that is almost irreplaceable. Going to the Lowell Mills and hearing the looms at work brings such a cacophony to the air that you understand the sheer volume that the mill girls listened to every day. Seeing the spikes on the machines in the carding mill at Old Sturbridge Village hints at the dangers of early machinery.

While we cannot time travel, we can have experiences that bring us closer. And experience is a far better teacher than anything I’ve yet come across.

1. A “Producer” for this production was really mostly a Front of House Manager. I was also responsible for facilitating post-show talkbacks, which happened after every show. The actors, writer, and our President/CEO were all on a rotating schedule for those talks.

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Quote in subtitle from Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda