This Is For Lisa

This is for Lisa. This is for all Lisa's, or Julie's, or Mark's. Domestic Violence The Musical? is dedicated to her memory and theirs, in hopes that because of the knowledge gained through this production, another mother, father, sister, aunt, friend will not lose a loved one to domestic violence.

The auditions, the rehearsals, the trips to El Paso to promote Domestic Violence The Musical? What an incredible adventure this has been for me and John, my husband and biggest fan, Loren Marsters, our amazingly talented writer/director, Anne Pratt, my friend and super composer, Ceci Cortez, choreographer supreme, and our wonderful cast, who has caught the vision of the message we want to send. I have seen the play a number of times and each time at a certain point my eyes fill with tears. One member of the cast watches me and after the play, says "gotcha" again.

Domestic Violence The Musical? began as John and I were searching for a different way to present the message of what happens to victims, their children, their families and friends and as we researched extensively, and found that aside from training opportunities, seminars, books, and lecturers, there did not seem to be a "gotcha" method of sending the message we felt needed to be heard. John said, "Let's do a play." "A play. . . what do we know about writing a play?" We didn't know anything about writing a script, but we certainly knew someone that did. Enter our friend, Loren Marsters. As we sat and told him our thoughts about a play . . . his comment was, "Let's make it a musical - Domestic Violence The Musical?" And so it began this journey of meeting incredible people, gaining support and encouragement and acceptance and touching lives.

The El Paso Center Against Family Violence and the YWCA Transitional Living Center welcomed this production with open arms and early on said, "Let's do it."

The highlight of this work was performing in El Paso and seeing the reaction of the audiences, hearing their comments and knowing that we had achieved our goal -- that people were actually listening and hearing the message we were sending.

We are so excited to bring Domestic Violence The Musical? to the Herberger Theater in Phoenix, AZ on September 22, 2008, sponsored by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

This is just the beginning, and we won't stop until the communities get the message, victims are liberated, abusers are held accountable and domestic violence STOPS. We are not naive enough to think that just attending the play will accomplish this goal, we stand ready with well-planned training programs to train, educate and enlist the community in this fight.

Linda King

Photo courtesy of Arizona Republic