CATF Artistic Director Peggy McKowen, right, listens as playwright Jeffrey Lieber answers questions from Shepherdstown residents Richard Kendall and Robert McAfee, far left, in The Church on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — On Friday evening, the first act of a new play, commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), was read in The Church.

The Church, dubbed thus by CATF after Christ Reformed United Church of Christ’s former building at 304 East German Street was donated to the 501©3 nonprofit in Jan. 2023, will serve as the permanent home for the play, according to CATF Artistic Director Peggy McKowen.

“We wanted to create something new and unique, to celebrate the transition from it being a church and a place for a congregation to meet, to it being a theater and place for everyone else, too,” McKowen said.

The history of the building, which was constructed in 1798, makes it particularly appropriate for the kind of play that is being written to be premiered in the space. That play, “Our Shepherdstown,” will be a modernized and personalized version of Thornton Wilder’s acclaimed play, “Our Town,” written by Jeffrey Lieber, whose play “Fever Dreams (of Animals on the Verge of Extinction)” premiered at CATF this past summer.

“The inspiration for ‘Our Shepherdstown’ came this summer. After rehearsals for ‘Fever Dreams,’ I’d go out and walk about town. At night, with fireflies everywhere, the sound of the train in the distance, and the reverent silence in the various graveyards, I kept thinking [that] Shepherdstown is the real-life embodiment of Grover’s Corners from Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,'” Lieber said. “And sure, CATF could do another production of ‘Our Town,’ but what would it look like if we took Wilder’s intention of knowing something about ‘the way we were in our growing up and in our living and in our dying,’ and wrote something about this actual place, in this actual moment?

Dr. John Aldis shares his family's history in Shepherdstown inside of The Church on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

“This is our starting point to something we hope can be an enduring, but also honest, love letter to a place as unique as Shepherdstown,” Lieber said.

On Saturday afternoon, community members were encouraged to come to The Church to assist with Lieber’s creative process, by sharing their stories of life in Shepherdstown. A number of community members, old and new, showed up for the event, which was also live-streamed on Zoom.

“In September, I was talking to Jeff and we started envisioning what this was going to be like, and then we recognized very quickly the it was important for Jeff to meet as many people from Shepherdstown as possible,” McKowen said. “He’s already done a small list of interviews, but every time we talk to somebody about this experience with the play, we get recommendations of another 10 people to talk to.”

Among those interviews completed before Saturday’s event, was a lengthy one with O’Hurley’s General Store owner Jay Hurley, who passed away a week afterward, on Nov. 25. This interview and many others like it will help with the development of the play, according to Lieber.

“Over the course of the next year, we’ll be doing many more interviews, but we thought it would be a lot of fun, as part of this process now, for you all to share your stories with us and for us to share our development process with you,” McKowen said of the weekend’s events. “We hope next fall to share another moment of the development in the play, until we can show you the final product.”

Ken Lowe shares memories from his life in Shepherdstown in The Church on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

One of the people to share a story on Saturday afternoon was CATF General Manager Casey Hayes-Deats, who detailed her full circle experience of moving from West Virginia to pursue an education and career in the Arts, only to return back to West Virginia and continue on a similar career path.

“My son — if you ask him where his favorite place is — he says ‘West Virginia’ now, which is so meaningful to me!” Hayes-Deats said, noting she enjoyed comparing her lived experience to the play’s first act the night before. “Last night, watching the show, one of the characters has been away and is coming home and feels this pull [toward Shepherdstown]. I felt seen, that there must be other people who feel like this! I just am so happy that I finally get to have this experience in my life and not feel like I have to choose which parts of myself to let be. I’m really excited that I’m not the only person that feels that way — it gives me a lot of hope for the future.”

“Our Shepherdstown” will be CATF’s 12th commissioned new play.