{"id":16064,"date":"2025-02-03T08:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=16064"},"modified":"2025-02-05T13:48:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:48:29","slug":"family-history-inspires-professors-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/02\/03\/family-history-inspires-professors-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Family History Inspires Professor\u2019s Play"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two Union soldiers during the Civil War are each fleeing past lives: Toliver Holmes is a fugitive slave, and Sarah Rosetta Wakeman is disguised as a man to get away from family discord. These two main characters\u2019 theorized experiences are told in Toliver & Wakeman<\/em>, an original play by Assistant Professor of Theater Kyle Bass. The play premiered in 2022 at Franklin Stage Company (Franklin, N.Y.) and was presented at Brehmer Theater during family weekend in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the success of Bass\u2019 Possessing Harriet<\/em> (2018) \u2014 a production set in Peterboro, N.Y., portraying the escape of an enslaved woman \u2014 the Franklin Stage Company commissioned Toliver & Wakeman<\/em> with funding from a New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy family is very connected to upstate New York, and the area is rich in histories, including those of abolition and, relatedly, slavery,\u201d says Bass, whose course offerings in the fall semester featured CORE C186: Black Upstate New York.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Olivia Larson \u201925 as Sarah Wakeman and Donovan Stanfield as Toliver Holmes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Toliver, a character inspired by Bass\u2019 great-great-grandfather, flees to New York and changes his name to avoid capture. When he is later mustered into the Union Army\u2019s 26th Regiment of Colored Troops, his wit and thoughtfulness distinguish his character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wakeman, on the other hand, is a young white woman born in rural upstate New York. She disguises herself as a man to flee family discord, enlisting into the Union Army as Lyons Wakeman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though these two real people never met, Bass\u2019 play brings them together in conversation. \u201cTo position a once-enslaved \u2014 now Union soldier \u2014 Black man with a white woman who is disguising herself as a man to join the Army gives us a picture of America, the image that it\u2019s a country of many stories,\u201d says Bass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the performance, there was a talkback about the play with Bass and Diane Ciccone \u201974, who is Bass\u2019 second cousin. \u201cIn the \u201990s, she privately published a book about the history of our family that was the bedrock of my research,\u201d says Bass, who lectured alongside Ciccone at Yale University\u2019s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery in 2022 to discuss historic and dramatic interpretations of their family knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Kyle Bass’ new play, based on real characters, tells the Civil War story of a fugitive slave and a woman on the run. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":16536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2688,2681,1165,2683,2682,2685,2689,2686,115,2684,2687],"coauthors":[1451],"class_list":["post-16064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scene","tag-abolition","tag-civil-war","tag-colgate-university","tag-disguised-soldier","tag-franklin-stage-company","tag-fugitive-slave","tag-historical-drama","tag-kyle-bass","tag-theater","tag-toliver-wakeman","tag-union-army"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4b6","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/01\/mag-scene-hero-family-history.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16064"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16636,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16064\/revisions\/16636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16064"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}