It’s not uncommon for Hill Fire plays to have someone in the play who has some sort of connection to it. After all, it’s kind of hard to do a play about a local person’s life without coming in contact with a relative. In this case, “Coming Home” follows the lives of Alice Dorris, Gary Anglin and his grandfather Rev. Clisto Anglin, and Staff Sgt. Earl Jenkins.
Gary Anglin, Minister of Music at First Baptist Church in Winona, wrote and sings the second song in the opening of the play “My Home, Mississippi.”
“I wrote that song while going to visit my mother in Meridian,” he said. “I would travel from the coast to the top.” He said the song is about all the things he saw along his travels. It highlights a lot that a native Mississippian would recognize like the Tallahatchie, Bogue Chitto, and Big Black Rivers.
Anglin said that it was nostalgic to see his childhood play out. He told the story of him and his cousin Tony as they tried to mount a horse.
“My grandfather used to pastor a church near French Camp,” he said. “They just moved it to Kosciusko actually, everything except the cemetery.”
Shed Hunger said it’s his first time acting in a stage play and at first, he was nervous but once he stepped on stage it became natural to him.
“I would encourage anyone who hasn’t done a play to do one,” he said.
Wilton Neal said he’s been in a few plays and he recently learned about Hill Fire. “I didn’t know that they did plays like this. It’s interesting,” he said. “I’m 70 and the boy who plays my grandson is eight. I have to lean on him to remember what I have to do and he has to lean on me. It takes team work.”
Hill Fire’s play Coming Home will run Friday, March 6 through Sunday, March, 8 starting at 7 p.m. each night.
