LU Theatre’s Writing Project receives grant to produce original play on female spies in the Civil War

For the third consecutive year, a team of students from Liberty University’s Department of Theatre Arts has received a grant to produce an original play based on Virginia history, with this year’s show sharing the story of two female spies on opposing sides of the Civil War.

The show will recount the lives of Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew and Confederate spy Belle Boyd and how their paths crossed at various times, mainly in and around the city of Richmond. These women were largely responsible for their respective army’s operations in Virginia, with Boyd working directly for General Stonewall Jackson and Van Lew for General Ulysses S. Grant.

“They were constantly crossing each other’s paths with their spy rings, and they were both extremely successful,” said Theatre Arts Department Chair Linda Nell Cooper. “The two of them were notorious, almost to the point of being celebrities, but one was celebrated and one was ostracized.”

Both women kept a journal of their experiences during and after the war that, along with other books and accounts of other spies, are being used by the students to ensure accuracy in the script.

The grant, which was awarded to the department’s Writing Project by Liberty’s Center for Research & Scholarship (CRS) last week, will be used to support the research and production costs involved in the project.

Cooper has served as the writing facilitator for all three Writing Project installments, which include “Bloodroot: The Ballad of Clinch Mountain” in 2018, which was selected as a regional finalist by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF), and “Bedford Boys” in 2019.

Senior Teagan Cooper, who has worked on all three Writing Project scripts, said that she has thoroughly enjoyed these three years of working with her peers to create original plays.

“I’ve loved seeing the work happen amongst my friends and watching these shows take shape, and I think my favorite is seeing the transformation it takes from the start of the project to when it is placed onstage,” she said. “We get to see what it takes to get a story from our mind, onto the page, and then give it to actors and designers and let it take a whole new life.”

Students auditioned for the writing team in January by submitting excerpts of their original work and an original monologue. The group now consists of nine students, some of whom have worked on the Writing Project in the past.

Together, the team settled on the story of Van Lew and Boyd after reflecting on aspects of the two prior projects that audiences enjoyed most.

“They loved that ‘Bloodroot’ was about Virginia women and they loved the intrigue of war in ‘Bedford Boys,’ and so we looked for what stories we could come up with that had those two pieces,” Cooper said. “After researching online, they came across the story of Van Lew and Boyd.”

Following the widespread closings and cancellations caused by COVID-19, including the final two shows of the Theatre Arts season, the writing team has continued its work remotely through Google Drive and a biweekly meeting over Zoom.

“We do the writing through Google Docs and so they each get to write on top of each other’s work and add to it,” Cooper said. “They are currently working on the last scene of Act 1 and we’ve come together (over Zoom) to read the scene, talk about revisions, and decide what part we need to work on next.”

Freshman Aaron Hall has enjoyed his first experience on the project, stating that he values the ability to create something original with his peers that will then be performed on the stage. With the shift to working online, Hall said the team has remained connected and the goal is the same.

“Bringing all of our ideas together to create a cohesive story of heart and passion, and then imagining how it will develop into a full-length production, is inspiring and makes me proud to be a part of something so original,” Hall said. “Thankfully with these video chats, we have been able to stay connected, make continued progress and keep this piece of normalcy in our lives.”

Even with the unforeseen changes in their working conditions, the team remains on pace to reach their goal of finishing Act 1 by Easter.

“I was afraid that the project was going to fall, but the students have kept it going just as strong,” Cooper said.

Instead of opening the show in the fall like past Writing Project productions, Cooper said they plan to bring the show to the stage in March 2021.