Police Departments To Host Reading of Addiction Play "Recovery"

BILLERICA, MA — The Billerica Police Department, Burlington Police Department and Tewksbury Police Department will present a staged reading of Recovery, a play about addiction about recovery, next month in Billerica. The play is by Anne Lucas, a local playwright whose daughter is a recovering heroin addict. Billerica Police Sergeant Stephen Elmore organized the staged reading.

The staged reading will be Dec. 5 at Billerica's Marshall Middle School at 15 Floyd Street. The event is free of charge. The play is 90 minutes long, and will be followed by a half-hour question and answer session with area police, clinical staff and "those with lived experience."

The play has had multiple productions, including one at the Theatre for the New City, Off-Broadway in New York, and a more recent one at Marblehead's Little Theatre. The all-female cast of the Marblehead production will present the Billerica stage dreading.

Lucas explained that her daughter has been in recovery for 10 years, and she decided to write the play after coming to believe that parents and other loved ones of people with addiction need to look after themselves as well.

"I struggled as the mother of a child who graduated from alcohol and pot to heroin, and was in fear for her life for a long time," she said. "I came to believe, through finally being persuaded that I should try al-anon, that parents have to figure out how to recover too. Being in a relationship with someone with the severe illness of an addiction causes personality changes, severe symptoms, in parents. Parents have to figure out how they're going to deal with their PTSD."

"In neglecting self-care, they are making a huge mistake for their child, as well as their selves and their families," the playwright continued. "Whether your child gets well or not, you still have to live in this world. You're missing in action for everybody in your life."

The play tells the story of three daughters with addictions and their mothers, in a game show-style setting with "the reverend" and "the demon" in a battle over their souls.

"The demon is the embodiment of temptation, trying to lure them back. The demon sees it as his or her game," Lucas said.

The reverend is also an addict, an alcoholic with 25 years of recovery, that the demon is trying to tempt, Lucas said. The three mother-daughter pairs come from different socioeconomic classes.

Elmore explained that he heard about the play and wanted to bring a full production to Billerica, but because he wanted to do it quickly and with little funding, a staged reading made the most sense.

"I'm just a regular guy. I've been to overdose deaths. I've seen families shredded and trashed," Elmore said. "I just wanted to do something for the families, see what we can do."

Elmore got the chiefs of all three police departments on board, as well as local substance abuse coordinators and other officials. If the staged reading does well, he said, there might be a possibility of a full production in the area.

"I've been so grateful. The people who are like me and have lived with this disease, repeatedly come up to me and thank me," said Lucas. "They say, we felt that the play was very true to our reality."

Recovery is Lucas's second play. In order to write it, she got a master of fine arts in writing for stage and screen, after a career as an actor, director and professor, she said.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.