October 2007 Public Value Story

Last year four of us came to the theatre. It was a present to each other... a night out. The four of us were: My brother and I and our two spouses. The two couples are a bit like country mice and city mice, if you know what I mean. My husband and I are from north of Dayton - a town of 10,000. My brother and his wife are of the Cincinnati inner set. All of us are in our early 40s.

The other thing you should know about these sets of mice is that the country mice lean left while the city mice, well, they lean the other way on a lot of things. The play we chose to see was “In The Continuum”. It was the wives who chose the play; the guys didn't know anything about it until they were in their seats reading the playbill.

The lights went out, the play moved back and forth between the two actresses like fast ping pong. The dialects, the emotion, the swift changes of cloth swatches from one character to another were fascinating.

Absolutely everything about the play held us. And it continued to hold us. Dinner conversation was entirely about the play, the talent, the dead-on accuracy of those emotional ranges, and of course, the quality of the writing and acting. We talked about it for about 3 months after that night.

Where did that play take us? It took us to a spot where we as brother - sister, city mice - country mice and right - left found something in common. A conversation where we each agreed on every aspect of the play, we empathized with the same things and had similar thoughts about our emotions that were stirred.

At last, it seemed like we had found something in common.

If you would like to share your public value story please e-mail Jami Goldstein at jami.goldstein@oac.state.oh.us.

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