"A big part of our mission is to bring people together," said Nancy Gagnier, welcoming attendees to the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race 2010 Theatre Benefit held on Sunday, May 16.

Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange hosted the event in the sanctuary, as the Community Coalition on Race presented the award-winning stage play "Singin Wid a Sword in Ma Han." Focused on one family's story, this piece uses the spirituals that were escape songs to tell the story of the Underground Railroad and how small African-American churches helped slaves escape to freedom. 

Introducing the work, event co-coordinator Chip Madsen noted the parallels between the story told at Passover about the exodus of the Jews and stories of the Underground Railroad. "There is a synergy to the stories," he observed.

The afternoon's events began with a lively social hour in the lobby of Oheb Shalom. Once the audience entered the sanctuary, a representative from Oheb Shalom explained the significance of Yarhzeit lights, which mark the anniversary of a death, and showed three of Oheb's Torah scrolls. "When the ark, where the Torahs are stored, is visible, we are a sacred space," she explained. The ark was covered with a screen during the performance, despite the "quality of holiness" that marked the story.

After the performance, producer Orlando Rivera took questions about the structure and staging of the piece. "Singin Wid A Sword In Ma Han" won the Audience Favorite Award at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival, where event co-coordinator and "mastermind" Judy White first saw the production, according to Chip Madsen.  

Vienna Carroll, the playwright who also takes the role of Topper, has described the process of developing the work. "As a student at Yale University I began studying the Spirituals as a body of work. And I felt there that an important part of their story was still waiting to be told," she explained. "I wrote 'Singin Wid A Sword In Ma Han' because I found their story. On an extended visit to my mother in York, Pennsylvania, I went to the local historical society and found these—books—documenting the 'Slave Grapevine' and York's historical involvement as a hotbed of abolitionism and Underground Railroad activity, books that brought black people out of the shadows, where they have patiently waited. I believe the Slave Grapevine was the actual Underground Railroad. We freed ourselves."

Attendees left the evening with a goodie bag, which included literature about Coalition activities. The Theatre Benefit spoke to the organization's goals, in Gagnier's words, by allowing attendees to both "come together and learn together."