Library keeps ‘Feeding the Dragon’ with doc about play
“Feeding the Dragon,” a play that helped forge a stronger bond between Hartford Stage and Hartford Public Library five years ago, has inspired a new documentary that’s getting a local screening.
When Sharon Washington’s play “Feeding the Dragon” premiered at Hartford Stage in 2017, it fostered a new relationship between the theater and the library. The Hartford Public Library began curating displays of books in the Hartford Stage lobby, books that explored themes from the plays being done there. The library also began a program where tickets to Hartford Stage could be “checked out” for free with a library card.
The one-person play is based on Washington’s own childhood experiences growing up in a library where her father was the on-site custodian who shoveled coal into the building’s furnace. “Feeding the Dragon” had premiered a year earlier in Pittsburgh but was extensively reworked for its Hartford run. After Hartford Stage, the show went on to an off-Broadway run and was turned into an audio play for the Audible Originals series.
Now “Feeding the Dragon” has led to a documentary, “When My Sleeping Dragon Woke.” The film is directed and produced by Washington’s husband Chuck Schultz and covers both the life stories that inspired the play and the play’s own journey from workshops and regional runs to New York success and beyond.
“When My Sleeping Dragon Woke” gets a local screening Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Cinestudios on the Trinity College campus in Hartford. The screening will be followed by a talkback with Washington and Schultz. Also at the talkback: Hartford Public Library CEO Bridget E. Quinn and Hartford Stage’s artistic director Melia Bensussen. The library and the theater are co-sponsors of the screening along with CT Humanities.
The Hartford screening happens just one day after the film’s world premiere at the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis.
The documentary mixes
footage of Washington at some of the locations discussed in the play with black and white photos of her parents and other relatives, plus animated illustrations of her as a child exploring the library. Lengthy sections of the script are recited.
“When My Sleeping Dragon Woke” shows Washington reading an early draft of her play to staffers at New York City’s Public Theater. It has both Washington and Schultz commenting on the differences between acting and writing. Washington explains how City Theater in Pittsburgh — then led by Tracy Brigden, a former associate artistic director at Hartford Stage who has also directed at TheaterWorks and other Connecticut theaters — accepted the play for production before the playwright had even written its ending.
There are long sections of the movie showing discussions of the play with City Theater staffers as well as Maria Mileaf, who directed the play in its Pittsburgh, Hartford and New York incarnations. During the rehearsal process, Washington has such anxiety about the project that she nearly cancels it. With counseling and timely advice from some theater friends, she perseveres. “When My Sleeping Dragon Woke” ends with snapshots of Washington when she brought her play to Hartford and New York City and some updates on her mother and father, key characters in the drama.
“Sharon and I are thrilled to return to Hartford, which originally set us on this creative journey with ‘Feeding The Dragon,’ Schultz says in a statement promoting the screening. “It’s important that we bring ‘When My Sleeping Dragon Woke’ and its message of belief and perseverance to communities, organizations and educational institutions where it can have the greatest impact.”