Logline -
Weeks before his society wedding, a young Richmond heir learns that the woman who raised him switched her dead newborn for a stranger’s son. When the call girl he has fallen for hears his birth date and flees home to South Georgia, he follows her to a mill town where her mother buried a baby boy born that same night, and finds every reason to believe he has been sleeping with his sister.
In late-1980s Richmond, Preston Ashford is preparing to marry Caroline Bancroft when his mother, Eleanor, confesses that after her newborn died, she secretly swapped him for a Georgia woman's healthy baby. Sworn to secrecy, Preston begins an affair with a call girl named Simone, who vanishes after recognizing the details of his birth. He follows her to Merritt, Georgia, where she is Darla Jean Farrell, daughter of Lorene Farrell. Caroline tracks him there and learns from Darla that she fled believing Preston is her brother. When Lorene mistakes him for her former lover, Preston reaches the same conclusion and nearly dies on a railroad trestle.
Lorene then reveals that Darla's mother was her friend Rae Ann, and her father was Rae Ann's own father, Amos. As Caroline and Darla search for Preston with proof they aren't related, Eleanor arrives with a revolver to demand that Lorene deny him. Preston, having found a photograph of his Black birth father, interrupts the confrontation, and Eleanor's gun wounds him. The families finally face what their secrets have cost. Preston survives, but nothing returns to how it was: he and Darla part, Caroline forgives him but leaves their marriage undecided, and Preston, given his birth father's address, opens a Christmas card from Detroit.
Runtime: 1 hr. 45 min. with Intermission
Cast: 4M 4W with doubling
CHARACTERS
PRESTON ASHFORD, 25
Raised as the only son of a wealthy white Richmond family. Of Black and white parentage; perceived as white without knowing his ancestry.
CAROLINE BANCROFT, 24
His fiancée. Richmond upbringing; affectionate, observant, and wary of promises.
ELEANOR ASHFORD, 50s
The woman who raised Preston. Gracious and accustomed to control.
CHARLES ASHFORD, 60
Her husband. Proud of his family; a Korean War veteran.
SIMONE / DARLA JEAN FARRELL, 26
A call girl living in Richmond. Quick, funny, and carefully guarded. Raised in Merritt.
LORENE FARRELL, 48
Darla’s mother in every way but birth. Works nights at the poultry plant in Merritt.
AMOS PRUITT, 70s
The old man on the porch across from the Farrell house. Rae Ann Pruitt was his daughter.
FRANK DOLAN, 50s
A Black private investigator. Former Richmond detective; father of two daughters.
Wade Farrell, Preston’s Black birth father, is never seen.
The other principal characters are white.
SETTING AND PERFORMANCE
Richmond, Virginia, and Merritt, a fictional mill town in South Georgia. The late 1980s.
Eight actors may perform the play. The Lorene actor also plays Mrs. Bancroft; the Amos actor plays Mr. Bancroft.
The Charles actor doubles as the deputy, leaving time to change before Charles arrives at the hospital. The waitress may be recorded by a company member. Dolan is played without doubling.
The Farrell house and Amos’s porch remain available throughout. Furniture and light establish the Richmond interiors, motel, churchyard, trestle, and hospital. Scene changes should flow without repeated full blackouts.
One intermission follows Act One, Scene Ten. Act Two contains nine scenes. Its final hospital movement extends from the night of the shooting to the following morning.
The intimacy, assault, trestle action, and shooting require agreed choreography. The gunshot can be achieved with a non-firing prop and sound. No actual discharge, exposed fall, or physical blow is required.
The photograph shows Lorene with Wade, a young Black man. Its detail need not be legible to the audience; Preston’s recognition carries the discovery.
Content includes sexual relationships, sex work, believed incest, references to incestuous abuse, family violence, a suicide attempt, gun violence, and period racial language.