By JESSICA CIPARELLI Staff Writer

— “You can lose yourself in the circus – I just wanted to forget who I was.”
    That line, spoken by freshman Ian Burke, who plays a young Robert Segee – the man who confessed in 1950 to setting the tragic July 6, 1944 Hartford circus fire – is one of many haunting lines delivered in the original play, “Silenced on Barbour Street: An Exploration of the Hartford Circus Fire.”
    Ellington High School’s Opening Knight Players will present the much anticipated docu-drama Nov. 10-12. The play was delayed this past spring due to ongoing renovations at the high school. At the time, last year’s senior students decided that it would be best to delay the opening and make the play the best it could be, without being rushed.
    “We realized we didn’t have the time to do it well,” said current senior Jesse Mack, an original member of the planning and writing process. “We really took our time with it – we didn’t want to rush it and have it not be as good as it could have been.”
    The story gives an interesting view on the people who the writers believe set the fire and the view from the people that died in the fire.
    “It’s come a long way in a year,” said William Prenetta, English and drama teacher at Ellington High School. “We’ve gone so many different ways [in its approach].”
    A call went out late last year for survivors to contact the high school, so students could interview them about their experience that fateful July day. More than 40 survivors were interviewed.
    “We started to write a play that was all about their stories,” said Prenetta, of the survivors. “What happened was the drama was all about the fire – all of those people were part of an extraordinary event, but lived pretty normal lives. We started to create a combination of fiction and reality, but some of their moments are mixed in.”
    “Originally, we were thinking of doing a collection of monologues and that sort of style [of performance], but we allowed it to become more broad,” said Mack.
    The first act of the performance sets up the fire and the events that surrounded the tragedy. The second act involves questions surrounding the fire, the aftermath and how the tragedy was handled.
    Several well-known names that surfaced from the fire – Commissioner Edward Hickey, Eleanor, Donald, Edward and Mildred Cook, Robert Segee, and Whitey Versteeg were all real people, but most of the other characters depicted in the play were compiled through survivor interviews.
    “Sort of an amalgamation,” said Mack, who portrays Fire/Police Commissioner Hickey. Mack said he has learned a lot about the man he will portray in the show.
    “I’ve learned that he probably wasn’t the nicest man alive,” said Mack. “It’s been interesting because being the commissioner for all of Connecticut has a lot of power [that comes with it] and it’s interesting to play with that power.”
    Prenetta also enlisted the help of several students from Ellington Middle School to portray some of the younger characters – Eleanor, Donald and Edward Cook, and a young girl by the name of Rose.
    “Mrs. [Kim] Porter [assistant librarian at EMS] has two daughters in the drama society, and she knew that Mr. Prenetta needed four younger kids [for the show],” said eighth-grader Emily Reed, who portrays Eleanor Cook. “[Prenetta] told me last year, and asked if I’d be interested in it,” she said.
    Reed’s older brother Ed, who graduated from EHS in 2005, played an active role as a member of the Opening Knight Players during his four years at the school.
    “When my brother said they were going to do [the show], I thought, ‘I want to do it,’” said Reed. “I was real excited to do it.”
    Three other students – Joe Raver, who will portray Edward, Dylan St. Germain (Donald) and Amber Krasinski (Rose) – all eighth-graders at EMS – will also join the cast for the show. Reed said the high school students have been very nice and accommodating to their younger castmates.
    “I’m glad I’ve gotten to meet them,” she said. “They’ve been nice to us.”
    Prenetta was assisted in the writing process by 1994 Ellington High School alumnus, Kelly (Mudgett) Boucher.
    “I was invited by Bill [Prenetta] to get involved with the writing process in the fall of 2004. I’ve learned so much from Bill’s students, from Bill, and from the survivor interviews,” said Boucher. “This has been an amazing learning process for me.”
    The original plan had been for the students to write the play, but Mack said it didn’t come out as expected.
    “It was a bit messy,” he said of the student attempt – with that, it was turned over to the “professionals,” Prenetta and Boucher.
    “I’m really amazed at how it’s come together – especially since there was no precursor,” said Mack. “We started from scratch a year ago.”
    Mack said it’s tough to gauge how survivors will react to the interpretation, but he hopes they may find some closure on that chapter of their lives.
    “I certainly hope they will enjoy it,” he said of the performance. “I hope they see themselves in the characters and may be able to find some closure. But, we’ve also taken some artistic liberties with it – one wonders how the survivors are going to react to those [liberties].”
    The idea for the play came about when Prenetta approached the executive board of the Opening Knight Players last year, and offered up the suggestion of producing a play about the tragedy.
    “I’ve been fascinated by the story since I was a child growing up in Hartford,” said Prenetta.. “For years, I’ve wanted to write a fictional play that had elements of the fire – yet, I never got around to it. When I hadn’t found a play I was excited to direct, I mentioned the circus fire and mentioned this may make for an exciting project for the club. My executive board jumped at the chance.”
    Boucher said the characters in the play are stuck in a limbo between life and death for different reasons. Some made errors or misjudgments that they need to contend with; some hold onto regrets and unnecessary guilt; some are waiting for others to find them, to rescue them.
    “The world of the play is an imaginary place that some might interpret as being a type of purgatory. I don’t necessarily think of it that way...characters are simply in this place until they achieve resolution in their lives and are ready to move on to the next place,” she said.
    The performances will run Nov. 10, 11, and 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Gordon C. Getchell Auditorium at Ellington High School. Tickets are $7 each, and can be purchased at the door.
    A free matinee is planned for Thursday, Nov. 10 at noon for senior citizens and survivors of the fire. A reception will follow the matinee.
    “Everyone we interviewed is getting a phone call to invite them to the matinee and reception, or any show they can attend,” said Prenetta.
    If a survivor cannot attend the matinee, but chooses to attend a different show, Prenetta said the survivor and one guest can attend that performance for free.
    For more information, call (860) 896-2392, extensions 406 (Lynn Ouellet) or 407 (Edie Vibert-Johnson).
    More than 160 lives were lost the day of the fire on Barbour Street on July 6, 1944. The tent, treated with a gasoline and paraffin wax mixture for waterproofing, went up in flames in the matter of minutes.