Just in time for spooky season, we are excited to welcome you back to our seats for a production that has been a long time coming. The Spotlight Playhouse and our partners at The Bluegrass Players are proud to present Salem’s Daughter by Craig Sodaro, from Pioneer Drama Service.
This is the second time Spotlight has staged Salem’s Daughter. Our first production was in 2019. A return was scheduled for the season that COVID shut down, and that one never made it to the stage. So this is only the second time we have performed this show, and only the second time local audiences will see it here. We are glad to finally bring it back.
We think this play is a perfect fit for an autumn evening at the theater. Directed by Dana Hendren, this production goes well beyond a standard ghost story, and there is a specific structure to the play that makes it so engaging.
The show does not take place entirely in the past. It opens with a very short scene where we hear a judge condemn a witch. That brief prologue establishes the history hanging over the story, and then the play jumps forward.
Act One belongs to the characters as teenagers. Act Two brings those same characters back to the stage as adults, roughly a decade later. Watching them grow up right in front of you is one of the most fascinating parts of the show. The decisions they make when they are young do not disappear when they graduate, move away, and enter the adult world. The past has a way of keeping up with us.
That timeline gives our cast a real challenge. They are not playing two different characters. They are playing the same person at two very different points in life. Under Dana Hendren’s direction, our actors are finding the teenager in the first act and then showing you the adult that teenager became in the second. That takes more than a change of clothes. An actor has to think about how a person carries themselves at seventeen compared with nearly thirty. How do they speak? What has changed in their confidence? What old fears are still sitting just under the surface? What happens when someone has spent ten years trying to put a dark secret behind them, only to have it come rushing back?
And there is a mystery at the heart of this show. Salem’s Daughter has a real twist, and we are not going to tell you what it is. We would much rather have you sit in the dark of our theater and work it out along with the characters. You will not be waiting for someone to jump out from behind a door every five minutes. You will be watching people, listening to what they say, and noticing what they leave unsaid.
We also believe a community theater needs room for more than children’s shows and musicals. We love our youth productions, and they are a huge part of who we are. But grown-ups need stories too. There is something satisfying about sitting down in a theater on a Friday or Saturday night and letting a cast take you somewhere for a couple of hours.
That partnership with The Bluegrass Players is exactly why we can offer this. They bring the acting talent, and we provide the venue and the technical direction. Together, that gives local actors a place to do serious work on a serious play.
Salem’s Daughter is recommended for ages 13 and up. The show runs two weekends, September 18 through 27, 2026, at The Spotlight Playhouse, 214 Richmond Road in Berea. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 4:00 p.m.
Come sit with us and see if you can figure out what is going on before the characters do. Just remember, we are not telling you the twist.
Tickets are available online at thespotlightplayhouse.com or through our TicketSource listing. We cannot wait to see you there.
As we begin rehearsals for our last few shows of the 2017/2018 season we look forward to another season of great entertainment, all located in our new 13,000sq ft Playhouse in Berea.