Theatre is helping to heal the community of Rockdale, and theatre artists with Austin ties are playing a part. Following last year’s tragic suicide of Tesía Samara/Ben Brownlee, citizens of this Central Texas town tried to confront divisive attitudes about gender and race. Out of a series of town meetings grew the idea of a theatre company that could help to “bridge the gap between the different masses of people,” says William Earl Ray, a professional actor and director who has worked at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center, most recently in the 2001 production of Stephen King’s Misery. That prompted Ray, a Rockdale native who returned home a few years ago, and Craig Wills, pastor at Rockdale’s First Christian Church, to found the CrossOver Theatre Company of Rockdale, Texas. In March, the company staged its first production: Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deveare Smith’s oral history/investigation of the conflicts between blacks and Hasidic Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Directed by Ray and performed at Rockdale High School, the show drew about 400 people. Last week, CrossOver opened its second effort, The Gospel at Colonus, the Lee Breuer/Bob Telson reinvention of Sophocles’ tragedy as a contemporary gospel church service. Ray, who had done the show at Zach in 1996, playing the Preacher Oedipus, “knew he had the voices” to pull it off. Still, he brought in one ringer from that production, Austinite Timothy Curry I, fresh from his award-winning turn in Zach’s It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues, and a veteran bluesman, Ed Kliman, for the band. With professionals on board, Ray hopes to show his hometown the difference that professional talent can make. Ultimately, Ray wants CrossOver to grow into a professional company. That, he knows, will take time. Right now he’s focused on getting through the company’s debut season: a Christmas play written by Wills, the Neil Simon comedy God’s Favorite, and the musical Working. The CrossOver Theatre Company’s production of The Gospel at Colonus continues through Aug. 29, Friday and Saturday, 8pm, Sunday, 7pm, at the First Christian Church, 231 N. Burleson, in Rockdale. Admission is free. For more information, call 512/269-9986.

This article appears in August 27 • 2004.

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