Anne Thompson-Scretching's A LESSON IN BLOOD is the first play in her trilogy THE BLOOD TRILOGY, which also includes her works A LONG WAY FROM HOME and HOME IS SWEET SORROW.   A LESSON IN BLOOD premiered at the ATA and won Best Play, 2011 Jean Dalrymple Awards.

Setting: The living room of an old house in the rural south

Place & Time: Early fall Georgia, during the Jim Crow era 1940’s

SYNOPSIS:

Aggie is the daughter of Nathan, a card carrying Klansman. She has returned to the south after a seven year absence because she is dying. Unbeknownst to her family, she has given birth to a child. The father is a colored Cherokee Indian who lives with his Aunt Lucy and his brother Calvin, whose upbringing is obscured in African superstition and Georgia roots. Aggie only reveals the secret to Osceola, that he’s the child’s father. All hell breaks loose when Clara, the woman Osceola is seeing threatens to tell “the law” when she finds out the two were lovers. The law is a childhood friend, Johnny Ray the Sheriff, who is also a Klansman and a racist. When Aggie is murdered, the Sheriff gets Osceola fired from his job at Noah Cohen office who is a Jewish lawyer that befriends this colored family. The mystery is who killed Aggie, was it Clara or was it the Sheriff who loved her.

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American Theatre of Actors, Inc. (ATA) was founded in 1976 by James Jennings to promote the development of new playwrights, directors and actors, and to provide them a creative atmosphere in which to work. The plays are dramas, comedies, and hybrids, dealing with the social and ethical problems of contemporary society.

12,000 actors have worked at ATA including Dennis Quaid, Bruce Willis, Dan Lauria, Chazz Palminteri, Danny Aielo, David Morse, Edie Falco and Kathryn Hahn. Our productions are sometimes grouped as 'festivals,' such as a Playwrights Festival or a Directors Festival. In 2016 we began an initiative to feature women in theatre as directors and playwrights, today this is our WIT! (Women in Theatre) program.

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