Honest Pint Theatre Company presents local storytellers at one-night-only Home Brew event.
In the U.K., an honest pint of beer is full to the brim, satisfying and as advertised. Searching for a name and direction for his new theatre company, actor David Henderson found the idea of an honest pint inspiring.
When the company opened its first production in 2013—Keith Huff’s “Steady Rain”— Henderson didn’t know if Honest Pint would make it beyond the first offering. But the next year, there was another play. And then another.
Following a 2017 production of “Night Alive,” local director, actress and Henderson’s lifelong friend, Susannah Hough, came aboard as the company’s co-artistic director. Hough and Henderson share the work load and provide balance to one another; she has wide eyes when excited, he has laugh lines. She puts out fires, he might stoke the flames a bit before helping her extinguish them. Their combined skills draw patrons to the theatre and make each show an unforgettable experience.
“[Studies show] that an audience’s heartbeats synch up when they watch a live performance, and that’s kind of like our cue,” Hough explains. “What’s going to make that happen?”
After six years, Honest Pint has ten shows to its credit. Productions are fueled by expression, decaf Americanos and peanut M&Ms, and plays are selected as dares to be fulfilled. Hough and Henderson agree that the most valuable reviews are from attendees moved or challenged by what they saw. And, to continue building this community of story-lovers, Honest Pint began its one-night-only Home Brew series.
A Home Brew evening begins with the essentials: socializing, food, beer and wine. Hough and Henderson create a warm party atmosphere, complete with decor, a playlist, and introductions. Then, the stage is opened to local storytellers, everyone from podcasters to writers, actors to bloggers; if someone has a story worth sitting with, Home Brew has a place for them.
The December 1 Home Brew event features actor David Bartlett, presenting his one-man show “In the Boots of St. Nick.” Bartlett has been playing Santa since 1969, and he draws on his experience to speak on the necessity of preserving belief. Bartlett’s show includes anecdotes that will make you laugh and break your heart, Henderson says.
While most Home Brews are pay-as-you-will, this is a ticketed benefit, with sales directly supporting the artists working on future Honest Pint productions. Henderson says that the message of “The Boots of St. Nick” is essential in theatre — that the suspension of disbelief and the perpetuation of belief are both parts of filling a theatre-goer’s cup.
A plant from Raleigh’s “orchid lady” makes for the perfect gift or home addition.
It all started 28 years ago, with one orchid, white with hot pink stripes. And then, two more the next day. Soon, Catherine Merriman found, orchids were the things she just could not resist. Looking ahead to the holidays, she ordered 30 orchids from a supplier in Hawaii and sold them to friends and family who needed gifts. When Valentine’s Day rolled around, Merriman sold out of plants yet again.
In short order, Merriman became known as Raleigh’s orchid lady. People stopped her in the grocery store, asking if she could add them to her next order. With the growing know-how inherited from her father’s side of the family and an appreciation for beautiful flowers from her mother’s, Merriman took her love of orchids and turned it into a business.
For the first year, Merriman sold the flowers out of her house, before starting the long process of scouring Raleigh for her first greenhouse location. Nearly at her wit’s end, Merriman had a “eureka” moment at the Snoopy’s Hot Dogs on Wake Forest Road in 1990. Looking up from her meal, she spotted a tiny vacant lot across the way. It was overgrown and wild, but Merriman saw its potential and operated her business from that plot of land for the next 26 years. These days, she keeps her plants in greenhouses out near the airport, and runs pickup and drop-off out of a storefront at 1604 Dixie Trail.
When Merriman started her business, orchids were difficult to find in the Triangle. Now that they’re readily available at grocery stores across Raleigh, Merriman’s model has shifted; she boards orchids in their off-season, makes and delivers arrangements and helps with their presentation. Other than a modest sign that reads “Raleigh Orchids” outside her shop, Merriman has never advertised; her clients have all come to her by word of mouth.
“I’m going to deliver your orchid as if it was my orchid or my mom’s,” Merriman says earnestly. “I’m going to make sure I pick one that is good and is going to last you a long time, and I am going to deliver it myself.”
With the help of an assistant, Merriman has her hands in every part of the business, from delivery to pulling dead leaves in the greenhouse.
Full of orchids in-process, the greenhouse sports plenty of foliage, but the space isn’t necessarily bursting with fragrant blooms. As tropical plants, orchids enjoy a warm environment, with make-your-hair-big-in-a-hurry humidity. As epiphytes, or “air plants,” air circulation is helpful. Merriman says, in an ideal situation, you almost shouldn’t be able to keep a hat on thanks to the breeze from the greenhouse’s fans.
The names of the different species of orchid (phalaenopsis, meltonia, dendrobium) roll off of Merriman’s tongue like the names of siblings or pets. As she wanders the rows of plants, her dog, Honey, skitters before and behind. With deft hands, Merriman tends to her plants, tying them to stakes, selecting them for use in the shop, chopping off bad roots with worn silver sheers. She tries to keep the workbench at the front of the greenhouse tidy, although this concerted effort clearly runs counter to her easygoing nature.
Despite working with orchids every day for nearly three decades, Merriman still stops short to gasp, “Look at that!” and “Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?,” as if she’s just seen a rare bird. Whatever orchid she has before her, it’s almost as if it’s the only orchid in the whole world—and that sense of wonder makes the hours of driving and pruning, sweat and care, worthwhile.
A classic elevator ‘ping!’ announces each visitor’s arrival to the search room in the State Archives building on Jones Street. Long work desks with sturdy document props, reference librarians and a wall lined with card catalogues await guests. State archivist Sarah Koonts says that in addition to the usual genealogy investigators, this time of year there are a handful of students working towards master’s degrees and doctorates. Here they sit, brows furrowed, papers to one side and notebooks or computers to the other.
Koonts started working at the archives as an NC State student in 1992. The distinctive siren call of government records drew her in and kept her working her way up through the building, with a brief detour to the State Records Center located a few steps away.
Now, Koonts serves as the archives’ director. With 190,000 cubic feet of documents—and an estimated 2,000 sheets of paper per cubic foot—it’s nothing to sneeze at. Koonts oversees two parts of the archival mission: the archives themselves and the records created every day by normal government function.
In the archives, manuscripts, letters, military histories, posters, photographs and motion pictures need care and attention. With incoming records, staffers sift through for the two to three percent of materials that have long-term value. In the moments when staffers aren’t engaged with researchers, there’s always something to be arranged, catalogued or scanned.
“What’s really transitioned,” Koonts says, “is we used to do a lot of business solely in person. Now we do that same amount of business, but two-thirds of it is remote.”
Registers of deeds, Civil War pensions, most of the archive’s collection of maps, photos (via Flickr) and selections from other records are available online. Digitizing must be a selective process, Koonts explains, because indexing still requires human time and skill. Archivists have to sit down, skim the material and write a quick summary.
Original map of Raleigh
Each year, the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources picks a theme to center around, which helps the archivists decide what gets digital priority. In 2020, for instance, the Department will celebrate a century of women’s suffrage, kicking off this month with an event at the State Capitol. For the archivists, this means digitizing and uploading more work related to women effecting change, the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements and documents from Lillian Exum Clement, the North Carolina woman who won a legislative seat before she could even vote and the first to serve in a state legislature in the South.
The archives’ mission is to give visitors as much access to original documents as possible, to hold in their hands and turn over and lift to the light. But the search room doesn’t have the library smell you’d expect; instead, the stacks do. In the back rooms, the promising scent of old ink, yellowed paper and leather fills the space, along with fluorescent light and seemingly endless rows of shelves separated by a slim aisle.
Archivists try to keep frequently requested records close at hand. Behind a heavy vault door, special treasures sit in the chill of 54 degrees. There’s a letter from newly elected President Washington to the state’s governor and his counsel. There’s an original map of Raleigh. And there’s a letter from John Adams to North Carolinian members of the Continental Congress explaining his ideas of democracy, written in 1776.
And then there are two particular favorites, affectionately known as “Chuck and Bill.” Chuck is the North Carolina charter of 1663, complete with a stern portrait of King Charles II. Bill is North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen at the close of the Civil War and circulated until an FBI sting operation in 2003 led to its return to the archives.
While some of the archivists’ work involves sweeping historical victories, it’s often more about paying attention to small details, hearing out a person who has brought in a snarled genealogy with a complex question.
Koonts encourages visits from all who are curious, even if visitors have no idea of where to start.
“‘Great!,” she tells these guests. “Tell me where you’re at and we’ll go from there.’ We’re equipped to deal with someone who just started genealogy to someone who’s been doing it and has a very, very complicated problem. That’s what we’re here for. All you’ve got to do is ask.”
As for her favorite resource?
“At the end of the day, if you use [any document] to end your genealogy roadblock, that’s the most important document we have that day,” Koonts says. “Glad we can have it.”
Check out the NC Archives exhibit “She Changed the World: NC Women Breaking Barriers” at the State Capitol September 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. To arrange a tour of the state archives, call 919-814-6840 or visit archives.ncdcr.gov.
Raleigh’s Civil War Round Table uses history as a lens to understanding what unites and divides us.
Once a month, members of the Raleigh Civil War Round Table file into the Daniels Auditorium in the North Carolina Museum of History. Meetings begin like all good and true Southern gatherings—with food—and then, the members seat themselves. Accents are as diverse as the group itself; all voices come to a hush as a lecturer starts speaking.
The Raleigh CWRT is not, as current president Ted Kunstling is quick to point out, a political or heritage group. Since its inception in 2001, the organization’s aim has been to study the Civil War with an even-keel approach to history, through monthly newsletters, lectures, occasional field trips, and a resource-rich website. “The same rain falls on friend and foe” is the newsletter’s motto, the filter through which members approach this era.
“Through every month, we have a different speaker coming from a different perspective and I think the context continues to enlarge,” says member Josephine Walker. “And so we get a very well-rounded understanding of the war.”
“It occurred in our country, with Americans against Americans, it’s all around us,” Kunstling adds. “To try to understand the Civil War is central to understanding our country.”
Members share a proclivity for being drawn in by personal stories, those that are passed down by fathers, mothers, grandparents, relatives — on either side of the conflict.
Kunstling’s Quaker ancestors ran a station on the Underground Railroad. His great-grandfather sat up nights, listening to the escapees’ pursuers gallop past his home.
Founder Bob Farrell began researching New York’s 123rd regiment because it was from his home county; 35 years and hundreds of letter transcriptions later, he’s still studying.
Founding member Griff Bartlett’s family was from the border state of Maryland. One great-grandfather helped build the ironclad ship Monitor for the Union, while another fought for the South.
“We’re not so much worried about who charged up what hill and took what position, as much as learning about the personalities of the people, and some of the events, and how they came [about],” Bartlett says.
While each member came to the group intrigued by stories, they stay to peel back more layers each year, and, as the CWRT reveals layers, members add flesh to the bare bones of history.
Studying the mundane—the manufacturing of buttons, homefront habits, music, horses, microeconomics—takes priority as a way of understanding the bigger picture. When you begin to look at the participants of history as flesh-and-blood human beings, things become at once lucid and complex. Your heart aches for the enslaved, your mind yearns to understand the mindsets of soldiers—enlisting out of intention, blind duty or youthful bravado—defending a practice that is, today, indefensible,
Kunstling says there’s no better way to bring the reality of war home than to walk the ground it was fought on.
In Raleigh, earthworks went up throughout the city in anticipation of the Union’s approach. William Peace University couldn’t open as planned when the war broke out; it was converted into a Confederate hospital and girls whose dormitory was originally a mortuary claim men in gray still wander the halls. On Morgan Street, Confederate cavalryman Robert Walsh, meant to oversee a peaceful surrender, galloped away after firing a pistol at 10,000 Federal troops. Where Lake Wheeler Road meets Saunders Street, Union general John “Black Jack” Logan stopped an angry band of Federal troops intent on bringing retribution for President Lincoln’s recent assassination. Logan was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame for saving the city.
When it comes to the debate regarding Confederate memorials around town, the official position of the Round Table is to have no position, although the group disapproves of unlawful damage to property. Individual members themselves have strong and varying opinions.
Ultimately, members are not military buffs, politicians or philosophers, but they are historians. Searching the interactions of complex human beings promises to provide rich material for decades to come.
The final transformation of a tintype portrait takes about five seconds. Durham-based photographer Riley MacLean thinks it’s like watching a Polaroid from 1850. In five “Mississippis,” the image flips from a slightly eerie negative to a beautiful likeness.
“I think it amazes people,” MacLean says. “It still amazes me, after a couple thousand portraits I’ve made. I’ve never seen someone not be excited about that.”
Artist Riley MacLean
A penchant for photography has run in MacLean’s family for generations and he still uses some of his grandmother’s cameras. But MacLean came to photography in college after falling in love with the darkroom and seeing an image emerge from chemicals. After moving to the Triangle a decade ago, MacLean began experimenting with a new (or rather, rediscovered) medium.
“I realized, working as a professional, that I spend most of my time in front of a computer, and very little time in a darkroom, or making art with my hands,” he says. “I love digital photography, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful. But I missed that.”
To begin, MacLean devoured every resource he could get his hands on, including an early 20th century Kodak manual, and compiled a list of chemicals he would need. He planned to use the same large-format (read: boxy, supported by spindly tripod legs) camera he had used in college, but needed to adapt the film holder. Instead of holding film, it had to accommodate a thin sheet of metal. The glossy black metal turned out to be one of the more difficult items to acquire; MacLean buys it now in 10-by-20 foot sheets, and has it cut down. All of the tanks and chemicals required could be repurposed from either science equipment or traditional darkroom uses, but there were regulations around some of the chemicals (for good reason; ether, for instance, boils at 95 degrees Fahrenheit).
Finally, research done and materials gathered, MacLean set up his first test shot: a simple still life of a chair. It wasn’t perfect, but it held promise. The promise must’ve been strong, because after that first shot, MacLean says, a “hilarious amount” of test shots didn’t work out. He eventually found his footing, using a mix of old and new technology. These days, he opens up his orderly studio about once a month for tintype portraits.
MacLean’s voice, typically even and steady, becomes animated by two things: his work and his two Australian shepherds, who are padding around the studio during every session.
Tintype portraits begin in the darkroom, with MacLean prepping a metal plate, a fan whirring in the background. Sparing details to maintain some mystery, MacLean applies a combination of chemicals to the plate which become sensitive to light, ending with a silver bath. Once the plate is removed, the clock is on. The plate has to get into the camera, the focus double-checked, and then the shutter slides open, exposing the plate for a split second to the subject, who is engulfed with ten-thousand watts of light. After the plate is exposed, it’s carefully returned to the darkroom for more treatments: development (bringing out the negative image), rinsing and then one final bath to transform it into a positive image.
The finished product
It’s a process that feels like magic, but MacLean compares it to cooking. Certain things have to be precise—down to a tenth of a gram—and others are to taste, changing (literally) with the weather. In the darkroom, some of the tools are basic household items, while others are combinations of hard-to-find ingredients. In the precise method of making a tintype, MacLean explains that the image is deconstructed, tactile and enduring.
“I wanted to make a photo that if someone wanted to airbrush, they’d have to hire a painter,” he says. “If you wanted it cropped, you’d have to take it to a metal shop.”
When MacLean began plotting tintypes, he loved the historical idea of a portrait: environmental factors are taken away, and you are left with the person themselves, pure and distilled. There’s an intense, no-lies-told result.
It is, as he says, “someone’s likeness, burned onto a plate.”
