Thursday, September 29, 2016

Plays plays plays

Well I should be working on the latest draft of my play DARK MARKET since I'm having a reading pretty soon, but instead I was diverted into a new draft of my play PALMYRA NJ, which I was working on over five years ago, without much success. But I think I can make it work this time. Famous last words.

I didn't realize it when I lived in Palmyra (for barely a year but it seemed longer) but the original Palmyra is
...an ancient Semitic city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithicperiod, and the city was first documented in the early second millennium BC. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD.

Palmyra New Jersey was named after that one.
...settled in the late 17th century by Swedes, marking the northernmost border of New Sweden. A farmhouse built in 1761 by the third generation settlers still remains as the oldest house in Palmyra.[21] Farming was the primary use of land in Palmyra and the surrounding area until after the construction of the Camden and Amboy Railroad in 1834 with a station in the area, after which railroad workers built homes on lots they purchased along the railroad right of way. The community was originally known as Texas, but a local landowner, Isaiah Toy, a descendant of the original Swedish settlers and a stockholder in the Camden and Amboy Railroad, who wanted to have a post office established in the community, convinced the railroad to change the name of the station in 1849 to Palmyra, which came from his love of ancient history.[22] Palmyra was the name of an ancient trading center located in central Syria.

 It turns out there are lots of Palmyras in the US and elsewhere.