Organized and led by Jane Carey and Rebecca Noon
Jane Carey was the lead researcher on Life After Life and Rebecca Noon was the writer/director of the play. Jane received her BA in Art History and Studio Art from Wheaton College and has been a researcher and writer on many amazing projects over the last several decades. Rebecca has an MFA in Actor-Created Physical Theater from the London International School of Performing Arts and has created many amazing original performances over the last couple decades. They are both fascinated by the way learning more about the past helps us live better in the future and they both live in Newport.
Life After Life and the Common Burying Ground
Sunday May 3, 4pm-5pm
Start and end at the entrance to the Common Burying Ground at Warner St
Last fall audiences lucky enough to score a ticket to Life After Life were treated to an immersive experience in the Common Burying Ground, as hundreds of the stories buried in this 250-year old city burying ground came to life. On this walk we told a handful of the stories portrayed in the play and shared how Jane researched the graves and then artists decided who would be portrayed. From Desire Tripp who's arm was buried seven years before her death to Samuel Tennant who's assassin's name is on his tombstone to Parisi Parisi whose grave is mysteriously (and incorrectly) marked with a Newport Police Department badge, Rebecca and Jane filled the walk participants with a smattering of stories and inspire them to learn even more.
Walk Reflections
The group of 25 met Jane and Rebecca at the Warner St entrance to the CBG in the late afternoon on Sunday. As the group arrived, Rebecca gave each person a name tag in the shape of a tombstone and invited them to write their name and their epitaphs, explaining that this had been how the play the walk was based on had also begun.
Once we officially started, Jane shared a brief history of the Common Burying Ground and Rebecca explained a little about the play, making sure everyone knew that she and Jane were not trained historians — just people interested in making something who dedicated themselves to learning.
From there Jane and Rebecca took us on a whirlwind tour of many graves in the CBG — both notable and less so, but all of whom were in the play. We ended up making a large loop that went as far as God’s Little Acre and then back to Warner St. By the end you could feel how many stories are all around us, how impossible it is to know them all, but how fun it is to try.
“Real-time walk through the Common Burying Ground with amazing experts on a variety of long-ago Newport residents with incredibly interesting and important ties to Aquidneck Island and Newport, specifically. Wish I hadn't missed the full ‘play’ on which this abbreviated version was based. Creative, informative, necessary history for anyone who calls themselves an Aquidneck Island citizen.”
— Walk Participant
“I've been to the Common Burying Ground many times, both as a visitor and cleanup volunteer, and still learned a great deal about historical figures - both known and unknown - from this experience. Very well done!.”
— Walk Participant