Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts

LIZZIE BORDEN LIVE

Winner best actress:  JACOBY AWARD

Back by popular demand.  LIZZIE BORDEN LIVE is returning to The Eagle Performing Arts Center, 35 North Main Street, Fall River, MA for two performances in August. Friday the 21st at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday the 22nd at 8:00 p.m.. 117 years ago on these dates Lizzie Borden was sitting in the Taunton County Jail, where she resided for 10 months, awaiting trial.  Tickets ($30).  Purchase on line at www.lizziebordenlive.com (click on Schedule page) or at the door.

Lizzie Borden Live debuted in Fall River at the Eagle in June to a sold out house. Ms. Dalton said, “We are thrilled to finally bring Lizzie Borden Live to Fall River and the response was overwhelming.”  Jerry Donovan, who recently restored the Eagle, said “The play and its sell-out mark the beginning of a new era in the city. ”  Mayor Robert Correla praised the play saying it was powerful and exceptionally performed.  Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter, who attended the play with his wife Dottie. Said, “If she was innocent, that was an incredible price to pay.  If she was guilty, she got what she deserved.  But it raises aspects and a side of this story I never had considered.”

“Jill Dalton, who plays Lizzie and wrote the play stunned audience members with her delivery, which featured many laughs, many somber notes and a compelling tragedy.”  Ric Oliveira, O Journal

On a hot August morning the bodies of Andrew Borden and his wife were found bludgeoned to death.  Their youngest daughter, Lizzie, became the only suspect.  Innocent in a court of law.  Guilty in the court of public opinion.  Condemned by society.  The legend comes to life with humor and insight as the real Lizzie steps on stage.

“Dalton is nothing less than superb in her depiction of the character, as her Lizzie is alternating sweet, innocent, witty and savagely murderous.  The audience is left to decide which Lizzie is the real one.”  Ed Wismer, Cape May Star Wave

 Jill Dalton, (writer/performer) an award winning New York actress with a long list of television and theatre credits, was commissioned by the East Lynne Theater Company in Cape May, N.J. to write the play where it had a successful five week run garnering praise and standing ovations from audiences and critics alike.  Ms Dalton won the 2007 Jacoby Award for her portrayal of Lizzie in Lizzie Borden Live.  Ms. Dalton wants the audience to decide for themselves if Lizzie Borden was guilty of killing her father and step-mother on August 4, 1892.

The true crime thriller is set 13 years after the double murder in Maplecroft, the mansion Lizzie bought with money inherited from her father.  “Dalton gives a compelling performance enacting the humanity, humor, irony and sadness of a woman who’s had time to reflect on horrific events.” Susan Johnson, Red Rock News

Jack McCullough, (director) born in Fall River, said, “We had to get down to the very marrow of the bone, otherwise there’s no point in telling the story.  People come to see Lizzie expecting to see a monster and instead they find themselves.”

 Haunting the performance is music written by Emmy winning and Tony nominated orchestrator and composer Larry Hochman, who created his original pieces based on the script and his personal observations during rehearsals.

 Dalton’s credits include:  Law and Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Rachel Getting Married, Veronika Decides to Die (2009), Wall Street, Another World,  All My Children, One Life to Live, As The World Turns and Saturday Night Live.  Ms. Dalton was also a stand up comic for several years and won the Mary Jo Comedy Show Award for stand-up comedy in NYC. 

 McCullough, a graduate of the Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence, R.I., also directed another of Dalton’s solo plays, My Life in the Trenches, most recently at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, NY and at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the International Midtown Theatre Festival NYC, the One Festival and the 78th Street Theatre Lab in NYC.  As an actor he appeared in Third Watch, Desperate Measures, The Observer, Osmosis Jones, Spenser: for Hire, Mr. North and Providence.

 Seating is limited to 150.  The doors of the Eagle will open at 7:00 PM.   Prior to the performance there will be a cash bar and members of the Mutton Eaters, dressed in period garb, will meet and greet the guests.

  Lizzie Borden Live challenges the audience to rethink the legend that is Lizzie Borden.  Think you know her?  Think again!  

 The Eagle Performing Arts Center

35 N. Main Street

Fall River, MA  02723

 Tickets ($30).  Available at www.lizziebordenlive.com (click on Schedule page) and (CASH ONLY) at the door.

 Press contact:  Jack McCullough (917) 806-3243 or lizziebordenlive@gmail.com

Lizzie Borden was fortunate to come of school-going age after Fall River’s post-Civil War school reform wave hit the city. The Morgan Street, School, which became the N.B. Borden School on Morgan  St. was built in 1868 and is an imposing structure.  The front roof cupola is gone now, but the wonderful woodwork still survives.  The school was closed two years ago and is now vacant and awaiting a new purpose.  There are no plans for demolition at this date. Lizzie was at school here until she was 14 ( 1874) when she went on to the Fall River High School. She became a high school drop out in her junior year.

An article by Lucy Stone in the Newport Mercury June 1893:

A Flaw in the Jury System.

James W. Clarke, in the New York Recorder, discussing the present jury system, makes the following sensible suggestion in behalf of a woman juror in cases where a woman is on trial. Another jury reform suggests itself in connection with the Borden jury. Here is a woman put upon trial for her life, accused of a crime the alleged motive for which was a malicious enmity of  long growth against her stepmother,with the principal witness against her a woman—the whole case from beginning to end enveloped in a womanly atmosphere,and attended by circumstances of a domestic nature, of which the average woman would instinctively,and simply because she is a woman, be a better judge than the average man—and yet there is not one woman on the jury. I know that tbe law as it stands does not permit the presence of women on juries; but why not change the law, and correct another anomaly—to my thinking, one of the greatest anomalies—of trial by jury as it exists today? The old common law theory of the jury was that every accused person had a right to be tried by a jury of his peers or equals, drawn from the vicinitywhere the crime charged against him was committed. The centuries’ old assumption that is quietly made at New Bedford is, of course, that a jury of twelve men is not only a jury of the peers and equals, but of the superiors, of any woman who may be arraigned for trial. But the nineteenth century would seem to be old enough now to concede that a woman on trial for her life or liberty has the right to have equal sex representation on the jury that is to pass upon her guilt or innocence. Slowly, perhaps, but surely, the idea is growing that a jury ought to be composed of men and women, and that a woman especially should have a jury of her peers, not her sovereigns, as in the case of Lizzie Borden. LUCY STONE.

Those who follow the dark side of Victoriana, murder, mystery and mayhem might consider attending some of the events marking Poe’s 200th birthday.  Although Mr. Poe’s actual birthday on January 19th has just passed, there will be many events year long.  Visit the link  to see what’s in store for 2009 – just imagine what Poe might have made of the Borden story! http://www.nevermore2009.com/

Off to Bean Town and points North.  Warps & Wefts will return on October 7th!

It was a glorious last two days of summer with temps in the low 70’s and just a nip of chill in the air at night.  The autumn light slants through the stairwell window of the Borden house and makes a pattern of lace on the wall.

On Old Second Street the Morning Glories are a riot of blue against the hot pink Impatiens in the little garden behind the Academy Building.  On South Main the curving front of the new court house looms over morning strollers taking in the sunshine.  The Borden House can still be seen from the south end of the new construction.

Once again the much-anticipated opening of the True Story of Lizzie Borden attraction in Salem was delayed.  Hoping to open on Lizzie’s birthday on July 19th, the date had to be pushed forward to August 4th, the anniversary of the murders.  The woodwork paint was drying, the local newspapers were touting the opening, and Fall River was getting into the controversy about Lizzie’s presence in Salem-when the August 4th opening never materialized.  Hopefully eager visitors-to-be called ahead, or else there were some murderous prospective guests who must have been disappointed to find closed doors on the day.  Meanwhile, back in old Fall River, August 4th went on as ever. 

Today the word is out that the opening  date of the attraction/museum/exhibit is uncertain due to some difficulties with the city of Salem officials- red tape, paperwork, permits, -something like that.  Makes you wonder if the other famous ladies of the city- those ladies in the pointy hats- are brewing up some spells !  Maybe they don’t want any competition from another woman!