Apr 15, 2022 4 min read

A one-act play that honors the lives of Fayette County coal miners will be presented at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus next weekend.

The idea for the play “Black Maria Will Wait” sprung up in July 2020, when Dr. Daniel Krack, the university’s assistant English professor and the play’s director, was contacted by the university’s Coal and Coke Heritage Center about playwright Brad Radcliff’s latest project.

Now living in Wisconsin, Radcliffe is a former resident of Southwestern PA and comes from a long line of Fayette County coal miners.

“Brad was working with the Heritage Center to develop a one-act play that would honor the lives of local coal mining families,” Krack said. “I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity for our campus and the students involved with the Lion Players, so I worked closely with the playwright over the summer and fall of 2020 to revise and develop the script.”

Krack said they planned to present the play in the 2020-21 academic year, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented that. Two years later, the free show is set for Friday and Saturday, April 22 and 23.

The play takes place in Fayette County in the late 1970s where a young woman name Cindy Baker (Chelsea N. Conway) reads through a series of letters left to her by her late mother, Melissa (Lista Lucas). As Cindy reads through the letters, she discovers the intense love her coal miner father, Lewis (Josh Brady), had for his wife. Cindy soon understands the sacrifices her parents made, and learns that the power of love endures beyond the grave.

Radcliffe drew inspiration for “Black Maria Will Wait” – Black Maria being the name of the black horse-drawn carriage that carried a miner’s body from the mine to his home where he would be laid out for his family – from his own family history.

Krack said that Radcliffe makes reference to regional landmarks like the Darr Mine, Fiddle’s Restaurant in Brownsville and the Summit Inn as well as references to Curtisville and the bridge crossing Cheat Lake that was a popular vacation spot for people in the area.

Because the characters are based on real-life people, Krack said the production wanted to make sure the show truly honors those who grew up in mining families.

“For me, I wanted to make sure that we uncovered the ripple effect of experiences of the miner,” Krack said. “In other words, we wanted to show how what happened to the miner also impacted his family, in this case his young wife and infant daughter.”

Krack added that the play is ultimately a love story about family, which he thinks is something audiences will connect with.

“I also think that since Fayette is intimately linked to the coal mining industry, (that) audiences will see some of their own family histories in the story unfolding on stage,” Krack said.

Asked what was special to him about the story, Krack said he was struck by lines the play that read: “I look out from this porch and all I see for miles is a land made by coal miner sweat, by love of family, and the heartache of losing someone. Each one of those houses you see, when you drive through those old mining towns or those overgrown places that once held a mine, you feel a sense of history, of what once was there … like it’s waiting to awake from a long doze.”

“And because of this play,” Krack said. “I find myself thinking about those men and their families and what stories are left untold.”

“Black Maria Will Wait” will be performed at the Magerko Auditorium on the Penn State Fayette campus at 7 p.m. Friday, April 22, and 1 p.m. Saturday, April 23.

The show is free to the public and donations to the Lion Players, who are sponsoring the performance, and the Coal and Coke Heritage Center are welcome.