Story inspired by bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

“The Women of Lockerbie”

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngtown Playhouse will open its 2012-13 Griffith-Adler Actors Series on Friday with “The Women of Lockerbie,” a story of grief and healing.

Written by Deborah Bravoort, “Lockerbie” won the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.

The play is loosely based on factual events and recounts the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Set in 1995, seven years after the event, it focuses on Bill and Madeline, who lost their only son, Adam, in the tragedy.

Unable to stop grieving, the couple has come to Lockerbie to attend a memorial service. There they meet four local women who lost family members when the plane fell on their houses.

The women are working to have 11,000 articles of clothing retrieved from the crash laundered and returned to the victims’ families.

Through this act of forgiveness and love, the grieving people are able to heal and move on with their lives.

The play uses Greek Tragedy structure, layered under poetic language.

Directing “Lockerbie” is Playhouse executive director Mary Ruth Lynn.

The cast includes Stephanie Cambro, Susi Thompson, Terry Shears, Tommy O’Donnell, Tanja Temelkoff, Jill Cataldi and Dana Dunnovant.

All plays in the Griffith-Adler series, which focuses on edgier material aimed at adult audiences, are presented in the Moyer Room, the Playhouse’s black box theater.