Written and performed by Paula Rockwell, Letters From Home is an autobiographical journey through letters, stories, songs and photos from four generations of women.

I have packages of letters written from the time my maternal grandmother set sail from Liverpool, England in 1935, until her mother, my great grandmother, died in December 1961. It happens to coincide with my fascination for the music of this period, the music I teach regularly with my university students, and the music I research and get excited about. It is also the music, while I developed this show, that illuminates segments of the letters and this period of my family’s history. These letters are a universal connection about the everyday life of women during this time; her preoccupations with her love of family, love of home, love of husband, loss of her parents and, loss of children by moving away. Many women today can relate to this, on some level, by experiencing the same preoccupation. The letters are illuminated, and gaps will be filled in by songs I have created based on material I have discovered in the letters.
I am interested in forms of communication and the emotional value that is carried in the voice, both in speech and song, and the historic values of ideas when they are carried in cursive writing. I have written a script incorporating these letters, which will tell the story of these two amazing women, one of whom, I never had the pleasure to meet. The use of personal archival projected photos and original songs, as well as historical songs, help evoke a time that has passed.