Cast members of "Telling: Iowa City" block out lines during a rehearsal at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City on Oct. 18, 2011. The original show is being performed there through Dec. 4, 2011. (KC McGinnis/Working Group Theatre photo)

By Diana Nollen/ SourceMedia Group

IOWA CITY — Randy Miller endured brutal Navy training designed to help him survive being captured by the Viet Cong. Instead, it helped him survive a brutal beating on a California beach before deploying to Vietnam.

Amanda Irish went from dancing ballet as a civilian to dodging legal and illegal bullets from her peers and superiors as a female Marine on American soil in the early 2000s.

Now-retired Air Force officer Debbie Shattuck was working in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, experiencing firsthand what she calls her generation’s Pearl Harbor.

Their stories and six others are being shared, many for the first time, through “Telling: Iowa City,” onstage this weekend at Riverside Theatre (Dec. 2 to 4, 2011).

This is an honest, visceral, important piece of theater born from reality and enacted by eight Eastern Iowa veterans who actually lived the lines they’re speaking. Most live in Iowa City. Several are University of Iowa students, one Vietnam vet is retired from a career in sales and marketing and others are involved with the UI Veterans Association or the Iowa City VA Medical Center.

Several struggle with chronic illnesses, from post traumatic stress disorder to multiple sclerosis. One participant is too ill with leukemia to appear onstage, so his story is printed in the playbill.

Knowing all this makes the audience experience so much different from watching a cast of professional actors trying to imagine the reality of the words.  These vets, only one of whom had appeared onstage as an adult, presented their stories in a most professional, theatrical way.

They had expert guidance from Iowa City’s professional Working Group Theatre troupe and the national Telling Project’s executivce director, Jonathan Wei of Austin, Texas. He founded the program in 2007 “to create opportunities for veterans to speak and their communities to listen.”

The UI Veterans Association initiated the local production one year ago, contacting Wei about bringing the project to Iowa City. A collaboration between the UI group, Wei and Working Group Theatre was formed in February. Fundraising began and by August, Wei and Jennifer Fawcett, Working Group’s associate artistic director, began interviewing veterans and their families. All were invited to participate in the play. 

Nine said yes. So in September, Fawcett and Wei began transcribing the tapes and weaving them into a theatrical experience.
The cast heard each other’s stories for the first time in October. Rehearsals began under the direction of Fawcett and Working Group colleague Martin Andrews. The production debuted at the UI in November. Now it’s at Riverside Theatre.

I hope it’s being taped. It should be shown in every Eastern Iowa school and to any civic organization willing to listen.

My father, uncles and great-uncles never spoke of their World War I and II experiences. My aunt has just begun to share a bit about her WWII service. We have so much to learn.

The Telling Project is not designed as a political statement or indictment of military actions. It simply allows veterans and their families to tell their stories, to promote understanding as the veterans strive to live and work within their communities. The program notes include this summary: “We promote the belief that the experiences of soldiers are a vital part of the nation’s heritage, and as such must be both  respected and understood.”

This is a brave, powerful undertaking. If I hadn’t been so busy writing, observing and evaluating, I would have been crying, like so many others around me.

FAST TAKE

What: “Telling: Iowa City”

Where: Riverside Theatre, 213 N. Gilbert St.,  Iowa City

When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3 and 2 p.m. Dec. 4

Tickets: $12 to $15 at the door or (319) 338-7672

Information: http://www.workinggrouptheatre.org/WGT/Telling__Iowa_City.html and http://thetellingproject.org/