Peggie Matthews founded Chronicles of Truth Productions in 2003 to provide faith-based, family-friendly theater in Prince George’s County while addressing social issues like the county’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. Information about upcoming productions and auditions can be found at www.cotpinc.org.
How did your current production, “Love and Liaisons,” come to be?
Our production company’s goal is always to do original work, and the playwright the Rev. William “Ted” Jones and I had been talking in early 2005 about how the community might embrace a play dealing with the issue of HIV/AIDS. A month later, there was a script in my mailbox. I stayed up all night reading it, and by the end of the year, we started rehearsing.
Do you have any personal experience with HIV/AIDS?
In 2005, when the play started, I had no idea my baby sister had AIDS, and she died the following November, in 2006. After that, we started to reaudition the lead character, who has AIDS in the play, but I couldn’t find someone who conveyed the emotion, so I cast myself.
Is there a social message for the audience?
Our goal was to have someone there at intermission to speak about where people can getfree testing. Howard Burnett, the county’s director of health and human services, has done that for us.
You’ve brought theater workshops to schools and community centers. What’ve you learned from your student actors?
Listen. Listen to every idea and let them own it. It doesn’t matter if you’re the writer, director, producer — take those hats off and throw them under the bus, and let them do it.
How do you hope Chronicles of Truth will affect Prince George’s County?
My eventual goal is to build a theater and to offer an alternative to today’s media that has culture and character, and to provide jobs for the arts community in Prince George’s for which they don’t have to compromise their faith or standards.
