Premiere of New Play

[Arroyos]

I have a new play opening next month that some of you might find interesting. Last year I completed a cycle of short plays dramatizing the disastrous wagon journey across the California Trail by the infamous Donner Party. My campus has chosen to produce the first half of the cycle, 4 plays, this spring. I've been directing the rehearsals for the past month.

Donner-Postcard-Front.jpg

Donner-Postcard-Back.jpg

The Donner Party left Independence, Missouri in the spring of 1846, expecting to emigrate to California, which was still part of Mexico but recently settled by Easterners and Midwesterners looking for land. The 23 wagons that became known as the Donner Party split off from a much larger wagon train (over 100 wagons) just outside Fort Bridger in Wyoming. The others continued along the well-established Oregon Trail to Portland and wintered over before heading south down the Oregon and California central valleys to arrive at Sutter's Fort (Sacramento).

The Donners, however, took a recently blazed trail southwest over the Wasatch Mts., along the Great Salt Lake, and through the desolate deserts of Nevada before arriving, very late and nearly starving, at the Sierra Nevada Mts. The story of them getting trapped by early winter snows high in the mountains (near what is now Donner Lake) and resorting to cannibalism to survive are well known by those of us who grew up in the West.

But the earlier part of their story--the decision to split off from the larger company, their mistakes along the trail, the devastating losses they suffered crossing the Salt Flats, the 3 men murdered along the way, and their major blunder of resting for a week on the east side of the Sierras--are not as well documented. Yet it is those mistakes, those decisions, that sealed their fate. And it is those decisions that the 8 acts of my cycle of plays dramatize.

I have been working on this cycle, off and on, for 25 years. It is a huge relief to finally have it ready for production. And it is incredibly gratifying to see actors bring to the life the characters who have populated my imagination for so long. There is nothing quite so inebriating as hearing your own words and sentences spoken by actors who fully embody characters you only imagined. It's a real high. I had to share it with you.

[Matt]

Wish I could check this out. If get in that neighborhood around those dates they will need to make room in the parking lot for a really big truck.

[Arroyos]

Wish I could check this out. If get in that neighborhood around those dates they will need to make room in the parking lot for a really big truck.

Matt, if you find yourself in my neighborhood that week, I will find you a parking spot! Thanks for the encouragement.

[Matt]

The company I am with has a terminal in Fontana. If I am anywhere in the vicinity I am going to try to check it out. I just looked up where the campus is, about 100 miles from Fontana. That's what, 17 hrs in LA traffic?

[John]

I knew nothing about the Donner Party before Bob posted this. I've been reading up on it now (this site has some nice background). Sweet Lord, what an ordeal! 41 of the 87 members of the party died. Seven of them were cannibalized. A number of those who survived lost fingers and/or toes to frostbite. The article notes that emigration to California fell off after news of the ordeal got out. No kidding! Good thing there was a gold rush to kick start things back up.

Bob, congratulations on getting your play produced! Matt, if you can make it - and that would be so awesome if you can - I would love to see some set/cast pictures (if taking those before/after the production is permissible). Let's get an update on this once the show goes up!

[Matt]

Having lived in a Reno a long time, I am quite familiar with the Donner Party story. So the play actually sounds quite interesting to me. The part that Bob is portraying is little known to most people. Usually the only part that people know is the part about eating human flesh. (Which some evidence suggests was quite overplayed).

I've begun trying to plan my own logistical nightmare to get there, but it's certainly a possibility. I'm going to try to make it happen if it is at all possible. If I can get to Fontana, I can rent a car at the Ontario Airport and drive over there. I'll do my best to grab a few pictures. Time for a new digital camera anyways.

[Arroyos]

Matt & John,

Thank you for your enthusiastic responses. I'll make sure to post some photos from the dress rehearsal shots that will be taken in three weeks. That way Matt can focus on getting from Fontana to Camarillo, no mean trick in LA traffic.

Here are the two most informative and reliable websites on the Donner Party that I found, and relied on for my research:

1) http://www.donnerpartydiary.com/
Dan Rosen's day-by-day account of the Party's struggles is amazing in its detail, and in his accumulation of data from other sources.

2) http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/
Kirsten Johnson's website has the most up-to-date research in the apparently unending debate over whether the tales of cannibalism are rumor or fact.

And the best single book on the Donners is The Donner Party Chronicles, which I relied on for much of my information about the poor decisions that sealed the group's fate BEFORE they ever reached the mountains.

[Daniel Diemer]

Congrats, Bob! That's outstanding. It's so cool to think about seeing actors doing you stuff.

[Jim]

That sounds like a very interesting story line. I might do some research on that Donner party, having never heard of them till now. Congratulations on getting your plays going. I can imagine that it's a tremendous amount of work.

[Bill]

Congrats Bob, that's great! I think I've heard the story before, but I need reacquainted.

[Mike Dunn]

Thanks for sharing this Bob. If getting even a short story published is a difficult task, I'd imagine that getting a original play produced is monumentally difficult. Just getting to this point is an achievement.

Given the outcome of the Donner party, though, I'd imagine ticket holders would want to grab dinner beforehand .

[Arroyos]

Given the outcome of the Donner party, though, I'd imagine ticket holders would want to grab dinner beforehand .

I suggested we have vendors in the audience selling beef jerky during the show, but that idea didn't fly.

[Borealis]

Great stuff Bob!

Donner Lake and Donner Summit, very near Lake Tahoe, is also site of the Donner Memorial Park and Pioneer/Emigrant Trail Museum in Truckee, CA. Home of the Donner Party Monument

[John]

I'm so intrigued by the subject of the Donner Party that I've ordered this book for further research.

[Borealis]

I'm so intrigued by the subject of the Donner Party that I've ordered this book for further research.

I want to say I've heard that was an excellent book, but I can be for certain... Good reading. There certainly lots of story lines surrounding this tragedy.

I had heard that there was a group somewhere in the Nevada desert that would mislead groups northward, away from the main trail, just to force them to buy supplies from another town (north of what today is Reno) that would mess groups supply trains up because there would be such meager supplies in this other region.

Does that sound right Bob?