It seemed appropriate that it was Memorial Day when I went to Bynx Orlando for May’s Next Step Screenplay Series reading of “Songs From the Home Front,” a World War II drama by my friend, Jeffrey Rembert, and directed by my other friend, Kimberly DiPersia.
(That makes it sound like I only have two friends, but I don’t. I have three.)
“Songs From the Home Front” is a story of three couples who came of age in the midst of World War II. Two young men, Don Lynch (Brian Allred) and Pauly Rothstein (Thomas Vanduyne-Lopez), are sent overseas to fight, while another, Jimmy Draper (Marc Lucia), is classified as 4-F, not qualified for military service. On the home front, three young women — Dee Morgan, Annie Cox, and Kay Morgan (Andrea Howells, Brooke Hill, and Paige Weinsheimer) — cope with hope and despair, sadness, and love while memories of the Great War still linger in their small town in Missouri.
As Rembert said in a press release, “I’ve long been in awe of how so many people in their late teens or early 20s came together, after the struggles of the Great Depression, to fight and win a war that drastically changed the course of the American dream and all of mankind. It’s hard not to explore these greater stories and the stories behind the stories. It’s really who we are today.”
The story opens inside a B-17 bomber, Homesick Angel, as it flies a bombing mission over Germany, six men inside hollering orders and status updates at one another as they’re being shot at by German anti-aircraft guns.
We quickly flashback to the three, well, boys really, as they recently finished high school and are horsing around when they hear on the radio that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered the war. Don, Pauly, and Jimmy quickly rush to the recruitment office to sign up.
Don is accepted as an airman, Pauly is going to become an army medic (he dreams of becoming a doctor), but Jimmy was in a truck accident that ruined his leg and his baseball career.
The three young men all have girlfriends — Dee, Annie, and Kay — but Pauly and Annie take the extra step of getting married before Pauly heads off to his deployment.
We watch Jimmy and Kay fall in love. We follow Don onto the plane until he gets shot down and goes missing. And we’re there with Pauly until his very end, when he sacrifices himself to save Al Tharp in a foxhole.
We’re in Missouri with the three women, as well as Pauly’s mom, Mrs. Roth Franny Titus), and Mr. Sutter (David A. McElroy), the owner of the local diner. We get glimpses of how the boys are doing overseas, but more importantly, how everyone else is holding up at home.
I only learned about World War II from history class, as well as a few stories from my dad’s family when I was growing up. My own father was born in 1943 in Bandung, Indonesia, three weeks before his mother was taken to a Japanese internment camp. (You can read that story here.)
But I only ever learned about what life was like for people “back home” by watching TV and movies. Writer Jeff Rembert learned everything that went into “Songs From the Home Front” from his father who was an airman in World War II. The story was inspired by his dad’s friend, Don “Shank” Shankland, who was the pilot, Shankland, in the show.
Don Lynch’s character was saved by Shank when their plane was shot down, and Shank ordered him and the surviving crew members to put on their parachutes and jump from the plane.
As Rembert told me, “Shank was based on the real-life Don Shankland who was shot down in December ’44 and buried in Belgium. Five crew evacuated as Shank stayed at the controls. He was my father’s bunkmate at officer’s training in West Texas. Don Lynch (navigator) was inspired by my father and Frankie (the bombardier) was inspired by his real-life best friend. They flew together. Lili Marlene was their favorite song from the war.”
This was an emotionally stirring story and brought home the horrors of a war that ended nearly 80 years ago. While we may understand how hard soldiers have it during a war, we sometimes forget the anger, sadness, fear, and frustration everyone felt on the home front. And I was swept up in the frustration and fear of it all.
- When representatives of the Army gave Mrs. Roth and the new Mrs. Roth the news that Pauly had been killed, the representatives seemed to be cold and uncaring. They had a job to do and didn’t know how or care to deal with women’s emotions.
- And again when they came to Don Lynch’s house to tell his mother that her son was missing. When Dee told them she was visiting family and demanded to know what happened to her love, they were more concerned with following protocol than putting this young woman’s mind at ease.
- When Jimmy considered ending his life because he didn’t feel like he was contributing anything to the war effort and decided the world would be better off without him because he wasn’t over there fighting the Germans.
In watching “Songs From the Home Front,” you realize just how little we actually knew about PTSD and mental health back in the 1940s. Back then, it was called “battle fatigue.” During World War I, it was called “shell shock.” Today, it’s called combat fatigue and PTSD, and it’s still a real battle that our veterans are carrying with them, no matter what war they fought.
Later, we shift from the Home Front and follow Annie Cox-Roth, who has become a nurse and headed overseas to France to work in the field hospitals. We hear her story and how she carried on after the death of her husband, fulfilling her promise to him of becoming a nurse. We learn how Annie brings comfort to the dying soldiers who are brought into her and how she spends the last minutes of their lives talking and singing to them. (By the way, Brooke Hill can sing!)
She returns to America and heads off to Hollywood to meet a movie producer she met at the field hospital when he showed up to do a documentary about the war effort and instead stuck around to help out, not afraid to get blood on his hands in aiding others.
Meanwhile, Jimmy learns a new trade, that of creating artificial legs for soldiers who had lost their limbs in the war. It was almost an atonement for not being able to serve. He went from not being able to “contribute” to the war by improving the satisfaction and quality of life for the survivors.
Rembert said Jimmy’s life was inspired by a cousin who spent his life building artificial limbs for others. “Best human being I’ve ever met,” said Rembert.
Finally, Don finds Shank’s wife and son and fulfills a promise he made to Shank moments before he leapt from the dying plane: to take Shank’s wings and give them to his son after the war. He tells them stories of how his father bravely sacrificed his life so the others could live, and other stories of their time in the war.
My only complaint with the entire show was the sound quality. Since this was a reading and not a performance, it operated like a live radio theatre play. Some actors stepped right up to the microphones and get close, others stood too far back, and it was harder to hear them.
But the story itself was strong and heartfelt, the actors knew their stuff, and they were able to convey the emotion and dread that came with seeing your loved ones go off to war, only for some of them to never return.
You can see a video recording of the show on the YouTube channel.
The Next Step Screenwriting Series is held on the last Monday of every month at Bynx Orlando at 7 PM. Next month will be my own script called “Polk Fiction,” a comedy about a bookstore owner who secretly wrote her generation’s great American novel, only no one knows it.
Cast and crew
- Don Lynch: Brian Allred
- Jimmy Draper: Marc Lucia
- Pauly Rothstein: Thomas Vanduyne-Lopez
- Annie Cox: Brooke Hill
- Dee Morgan: Andrea Howells
- Kay Morgan: Paige Weinsheimer
- Mrs. Roth/Rothstein: Franny Titus
- Mr. Sutter: David A. McElroy
- Al Tharp: Michael F. Lewis
- Narrator: Brian Walker
- Director: Kimberly DiPersia
- Writer: Jeff Rembert