TCCT To Benefit Homeless

Truth or Consequences Community Theatre, Inc. will produce Sleeping Indoors this December. In addition to producing the play, which features a homeless person, TCCT will have a non-perishable food drive to benefit the homeless in Sierra County. The food drive will begin immediately, with your donations and will continue throughout the play which will be on stage December 2-11.

Sleeping Indoors, written by Jim Holt of Savannah, Georgia, is a drama centering around a homeless man, Duane, who stays with a couple for the Christmas holidays. It is the story of a well–to–do literary couple who invite a homeless man over for dinner, out of concern for the welfare of their fellow man, and possibly guilt over their own wealth and complacent life. Dwain, who was found under a highway overpass, giving his last sip of milk to a starving kitten, does not drink or take drugs nor is he suffering from subterranean mental defects. But he is strange nonetheless, and it becomes the mission of Paul and Nora to find out just what Dwain is all about.

Paul is a writer and a successful book critic, and he reluctantly agrees to read what he considers scribblings in Dwain’s ratty backpack journal. What he finds there knocks him for a loop, and he and his wife are soon convinced that Dwain, with his filthy clothes, scruffy beard and darting eyes, is actually a brilliant student of the human condition. But Dwain is not an idiot savant and as Sleeping Indoors progresses, we find out precisely why he chooses to live the way he does. A lot of the play concerns the preconceptions people have about homeless people.

The play is cast with P J Waggaman as Paul, Susie Wootton-Wisdom as Nora, and Ginger Henry as Nichole, Nora’s sister. Nichole is man–starved, and once she gets past the smell and the quirks, she sees Dwain as a potential target. Dwain is played by Rick O’Neill who gives the character a sweet Southern accent and a convincing sense of confusion and panic. And eventually, we see that Dwain might be the smartest person in the room. P J Waggaman is a well-seasoned actor from Las Cruces. In the past year he has been in several plays in Las Cruces at the Community Theatre, at the Black Box and the University, and in El Paso. He was last seen in A Thousand Clown at the Las Cruces Community Theatre. Also a seasoned actor, Susie Wootton-Wisdom was last seen this past summer in the trio of plays TCCT produced called Summer Shorts. She played in and directed the first one-act entitled Post-its and acted in the third one-act entitled Y’all. In her last appearance on for the second one-act in Summer shorts entitled Life-line, Ginger Henry portrayed a behind- the-scene operator who would not give any quarter to the caller. Last seen in Seniors of the Sahara, Rick O’Neill has taken on a different type of role in the character Duane.

None of Sleeping Indoors plays out the way you’ll expect it to, which will not only keep you guessing, it’ll keep you entertained and engaged. Please call 744-5411 for drop off locations for the non-perishable food drive.