A Time to Heal

Drama by Burton Bumgarner
Multi-racial cast of 7 m, 7 w, 6 flexible
Eldridge Plays and Musicals

Jim and Lillian Fowler are having a dinner party to welcome their daughter home from college and meet her fiancé. Lillian's brother, Walt, a physician, is also there, even though he and Jim get under each other's skins, especially when Walt needles Jim about losing a recent election to become prosecutor because of his conservative racial views. When Janice and her fiancé David arrive, the strain increases as the idealistic young law student from "up North" treats the Wycrofts, the family who works for the Fowlers, as equals. The Wycrofts are already uneasy, fearing for the safety of their daughter Chloe, a civil-rights activist. Tension explodes when Walt, who had left to treat an emergency, calls the house. He's been arrested after having moved an injured African-American child to a whites-only hospital to better treat him. Set in 1960 during the North Carolina sit-ins and based on an actual event, the play combines the story of the segregated hospital with the words and experiences of the civil rights demonstrators. Appropriate for all audiences, "A Time to Heal" is laced with gentle humor and features powerful roles for a multi-racial cast. It shows the struggles that went through the hearts and minds of many people of the time.