New Play Showing in Asheboro Making Audiences Think About Race Relations

Asheboro, NC - A new play showing at Asheboro’s Sunset Theatre hopes to do more than entertain. It’s making audiences think about race relations in their communities.

"Leaving Eden" was inspired by a song of the same title written by music director Laurelyn Dossett in 2004 about the closing textile mills in Eden, North Carolina.

Dossett worked with playwright Mike Wiley for the stage production of "Leaving Eden," a story that’s much broader than a community’s identity when it comes to labor, but also embeds other themes including sociopolitical relationships and the concept of calling a place "home."

“Everyone in North Carolina who thinks of North Carolina as home has their own idea of what home is, and maybe sometimes we have a hard time seeing people that we think are different than us seeing the same place as their home also,” she said.

"Leaving Eden" is based in the fictional North Carolina town of Marah.

Archives