---

Presented at:
the Third Annual Performance Studies Conference, Atlanta, April 11, 1997

---

In 1996, playwright Barbara Lebow worked with residents of Cobb County, Georgia, to develop a theatrical performance based on local history, folklore, and current events. Lebow first interviewed residents, acquiring over the course of a year their oral histories expressing various points of view on the growth and change in the county from its agarian past to its current position as a major metro-Atlanta suburb. In this first and several subsequent performances, Ono herself sat kneeling on the concert hall stage, wearing her best suit of clothing, with a pair of scissors placed on the floor in front of her. Members of the audience were invited to approach the stage, one at a time, and cut a bit of her clothes off which they were allowed to keep.

Then, working with a small cast comprised of selected county residents, some with little or no theatrical background, she developed a performance which addressed the county's often troubled history of conflict and change. Much of the performance and rehearsal process dealt with the current politics in Cobb, still colored by the controversial resolutions of 1993, which cut all county funding for the arts and condemned the gay lifestyle as not representative of "current community standards." These resolutions triggered a county-wide social drama which received national attention as part of the nation's Cultural Wars. The resolutions and the ensuing social drama informed the stage drama of conflicting narratives in "Cobb County Stories."

John Gentile, a member of the cast, met Lebow while working on his own research project dealing with the resolutions. Together at the conference, they presented the collaborative creative process developing the community-based performance, "Cobb County Stories."

The community-based performance was presented at the Theatre in the Square in Marietta, GA, in May and June 1996 and was supported by a grant by Pew Charitable Trust.