Were it not for supportive friends, Amy Hartman's "Mercy and the Firefly" might never have been.
The tale of homecoming, redemption and forgiveness opens Thursday as a production of The Rep, Point Park University's professional theater company.
It began life as a 10-minute play written and staged for one of Bricolage's annual B.U.S. (Bricolage Urban Scrawl) Festivals that take plays from the first scriptless meeting of writers, directors and performers to first performance in 24 hours.
"I really liked it and decided to turn it into a full-length play," Hartman says.
But while she was working on the longer version, cyber tragedy struck.
"I lost it on the computer -- the 10-minute play, the draft (of the full-length work), the research I had done on fireflies and on the Catholic church. I was devastated," she says.
Attempts to retrieve the manuscript compounded her misery.
"I called Microsoft (tech service). They made me pay $36 to tell me there was nothing I could do," Hartman says. "I was about to jump out the window when (actress and film producer) Adrienne Wehr called. She said call (playwright and director) Melissa (Martin). This happened to her. She knows how to deal with it."
Thinking Martin had a technical solution for retrieving the lost documents, Hartman called her.
Martin's advice?
"Boot up your computer. Open a blank file. Start with Act One, Scene One. Call me in a week."
Two weeks later, Hartman sent Martin a completed script.
Martin liked it and began working with Hartman to develop it.
"It's highly dramatic and also highly funny," says Martin, who is directing the production at the Playhouse.
"I love the character of Vivian. She has built a personality like a human callus or scab," Martin says. "You can't play this wistfully. It has a series of experiences that kick your (butt)."
Like many of Hartman's dramas, "Mercy and the Firefly" is filled with characters whose lives are messy, chaotic and out of control.
Lucy, a recently professed nun who teaches history at an inner-city Catholic school in Los Angeles, turns up at her mother's home in Homestead after driving cross-country in the convent's stationwagon with Mercy, a 15-year-old student she has kidnapped. Lucy's intention is to protect Mercy from gang culture and possible murder. But the teen proves uncooperative. So does Lucy's distant and evasive mother, Vivian, and Oliver, a former friend who's a recovering drug addict and alcoholic.
"They all came to a crisis and did the wrong thing," Hartman says. "They get this shot and do the wrong thing and are (then) forced to do the right thing."
The messiness of their lives is central, Hartman says.
"The thing I wanted to talk about is how we avoid looking at heartbreak in our life," she says. "We try to protect people from ourselves and ironically create the thing we are trying to avoid. By not telling the truth, we are inventing holes in (the people we try to protect). It shoots a hole into those trust issues. Truth has to come to the surface to do what it has to do. The only person who can do that is the woman who shot the hole."
Hartman and Martin are both delighted with their cast: Shammen McCune who plays Lucy; Chelsea Mervis who plays Mercy; Penelope Lindblom who plays Vivian; Patrick Jordan who plays Oliver and Cassidi Leigh-Parker who appears as the ghost of Aisha Sun, a recently murdered teen.
"It's an incredibly talented cast. They ask lots of questions and bring their own sensibility to this," Martin says.
"What we were looking for in the cast was that it had an honesty about them that you can't teach and you can't direct," Hartman says.
Additional Information:'Mercy and the Firefly'
Produced by: The Rep
When: Thursday through April 17 at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays
Admission: $24-$27
Where: Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland
Details: 412-392-8000 or website
