On 2/2/2012 I attended the reception for and preview of Bruce Miller’s new play forTheatre IV, “The Oliver Hill Story,” at the Sara Belle and Neil November Theatre.
 
Bruce has written it for Theatre IV’s school-touring productions, and it’s not only good, but it’s also important. The play’s theme concerns civil rights, and at a pivotal point in the play Barbara Johns says to Oliver Hill, “We had to do something BIG!”

Of course that statement accurately reflects important actions in the lives of Barbara Johns and Oliver Hill, but I couldn’t help thinking that “We had to do something BIG!” can also be accorded to Bruce Miller, Phil Whiteway and the entire Theatre IV family.

Founded by Bruce and Phil in 1975, TheatreIV has become the nation’s largest school-touring theatre, and among the many ways it serves its communities are included presentations of 5,000 African-American-themed productions that have reached 1.5M children.

Ours was an engaged audience for the 2/2/2012 staged reading of “The Oliver Hill Story,” and Bruce spent a while on stage afterwards fielding a whole bunch of questions and comments. One of his responses resonates among all great art forms: “Our goal is not to answer all the questions; our goal is to encourage the questions.”