"Torchbearer of Freedom"

From BC Community News:

BC Theatre to Present 'The Torchbearer of Freedom'

Last spring, Bluefield College hosted a month-long Holocaust Symposium featuring lectures, concerts, drama, and discussion that significantly impacted the campus and community at-large.


This spring, February 12-16, BC's Theatre Department will offer an encore of sorts in the presentation of "The Torchbearer of Freedom," an inspiring drama about the life of American Mary Sigillo Barraco, who helped provide refuge for Jews in Belgium during the Nazi invasion in 1940.

The performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. each night, February 12-16, in Bluefield College's Harman Chapel, with the exception of a 2 p.m. matinee for the Sunday, February 15 showing.

The play, written by Virginia author John W. Remmers, tells the moving true story of Barraco, a teenage American living in Belgium at the time World War II erupted. Within a five-year span, Barraco worked with the underground to help smuggle escaping Jews out of Nazi territory, transport weapons for the resistance, and work tirelessly to oppose the tyranny and oppression of the Third Reich.


Although captured in 1943 and tortured and interrogated by the Gestapo, Barraco never gave up. Even after her release, she continued to fight for the freedom of the Jews.


"Mary is a true hero of World War II," said BC Theatre's artistic director Charles Reese about Barraco, who still lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. "At 85, she still speaks to middle and high school students on a regular basis about what freedom means."


Bluefield College's Caleigh Keith, who recently met Barraco in preparation for the play, will occupy the lead role in the production, after starring as Anne Frank last year's Holocaust Symposium presentation of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

BC's Donnie Bales, also a veteran of "The Diary of Anne Frank," will play the role of Victor, a Belgian collaborator who joins the SS. Christian Masters, known for his role as Hook in last fall's "Peter Pan," will play Barraco's fiancée and fellow resistance fighter, Armand.

Jennifer Bohannon, recently seen as Grace Bradley in BC Theatre's "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," will play Barraco's mother, Leona, while David Sadler, another "Anne Frank" veteran, plays the SS commander Heydrich Rasch.

Other cast members include Marland Funk, Tim Kerr, Will Olive, Zach Nester, Luke Stevens, Jesse Stevens, Libby Stevens, Rebekah Transue, and James Young. BC Theatre's technical director Rebecca McCoy Reese joins Charles Reese as director of "The Torchbearer."

Admission for each performance of "The Torchbearer of Freedom" will be $10 for adults and $5 for senior adults and all students. For more information, please e-mail the BC Office of Public Relations at bcnews@bluefield.edu.



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