QUILTERS warms up the stage

Before Ross Valley Players’ “Quilters” begins, the musical’s director, Linda Dunn, points out a quilt that is draped on part of the set. It’s hers, she says, a family heirloom. Her family were Texas homesteaders, and sitting beside her grandmother at the quilting frame is a treasured memory.

Like the piecing bags each character carries, “Quilters” is a collection of skits and songs, joined together through the ongoing construction of old Sarah’s legacy quilt, a colorful cloth album of her life on the 19th Century American prairie. It was a hard life. Sarah remembers a blizzard so hard the cows froze. She recalls Pa’s disastrous experiment with windmills, dust storms and prairie fires. Each memory shows up as a block in the quilt.

But prairie life was also joyous and exuberant. The all-female cast of eight performs musical numbers that vary from an old spiritual and folk songs to adaptations from poems. But the show is more than a choral work. An offstage piano, played by Kathryn McGeorge, accompanies the singing, while onstage, cast members perform on the guitar, dulcimer and drum. With the addition of fine choreography arranged by Linda Dunn, these songs move.

“Thread the Needle” leads into a happy dance based on a children’s game. A covered wagon is constructed onstage, and the wagon bumps its way, musically, across the landscape. “Every Log in My House” guides the cast through construction of a shelter, and a baptism by immersion washes more than it was expected to.

One audience favorite depicts a quilting bee organized by the mother of James Prentice to prepare a special new quilt for her son Jamie’s 21st birthday. As they sew in time to the music, the young ladies stitch in hidden affectionate messages for the birthday boy. (We never get to see Jamie; we can only imagine what inspires all this devotion.)
Other male characters are played by the women of the cast, seven of whom take multiple parts. Only Sarah, the mother, (Sandi V. Weldon) is consistently steady and wise. Quilt pieces, she says, stand for “what’s given to you and what you make of them.”

Sheila M. Devitt, Kele Gasparini, Dawn Marie Hamilton, Olivia Harrison, Carolyn Montellato, Monica Turner and Rachel Watts complete this talented cast.

Michael Berg’s period costumes are too good to cut up, even for quilts. Billie Cox’s whip-cracking sound effects and Bruce Lackovic’s rustic set build on the 19th Century mood.
The audience does, eventually, get a look at Sarah’s Legacy Quilt – and it’s a beauty.

This 1984 work by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek started life in Colorado, at the Denver Center Theatre Company. In the years since, it’s had a full production schedule, including runs in New York and three Tony nominations.

“Quilters” will play at The Barn Theatre in Ross through Sunday, April 17.
Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturdays at 8:00, and Sundays at 2:00. Ticket prices run from $20 to $30, $25 for seniors and students. For reservations or more information, see www.rossvalleyplayers.com or call the box office, 456-9555.