The Noblesville resident plays the title role in Carmel Community Players’ production of “Violet” March 1-10 at The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St., Suite D, Fishers.
“She’s a very deep character,” she said. “I tend to do a lot of very comedic characters, so it’s a very different play for me to be doing a more serious character and be able to show a little bit more of an emotional range than being somebody who’s just there to kind of make the audience laugh and bring brevity.”
Violet has a huge scar on her face and is traveling to seek a miracle cure from a TV preacher. Set in 1964 during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, Violet waits for a bus in Spruce Pine, N.C., and encounters two soldiers.
“She’s gone through this very traumatic experience when she was a young girl and has always been kind of trying to figure out, ‘Why me? Why did this happen to me?’ She’s held on to a lot of anger throughout her life,” Marone-Sowers said. “She’s trying to get herself healed from what she thinks physically healing will kind of solve all of her troubles and it’s her emotional journey of going through and just kind of figuring out what’s her place in life. That’s more than just the girl with the scar.”
Violet was hit in the face with an ax blade.
“It’s kind of left up to the imagination of the audience for their own interpretation on what they view would be this disfiguring scar to them because it varies from person to person on what they would view,” said Marone-Sowers, a 2007 Hamilton Southeastern High School graduate. “I actually had a very minor scar on my cheek when I was about 8 years old, but when I was young, it was all I could ever see. As I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten smaller, it’s diminished, it’s healed. It’s not as big a deal but when I was young, that’s all I used to be able to see on my face.”
One challenge is there is a lot of music in her role and Marone-Sowers said she has worked to be vocally strong enough to sing through the whole show.
Marone-Sowers, who is on the stage for all but about 3 minutes, said there are a couple of emotional scenes that will be challenging. She is making her CCP debut.
“I’ve worked with (director) Kathleen Horrigan before at Footlight numerous times and I saw she was directing ‘Violet,’” she said. “I wanted the opportunity to work with her again because she’s just so amazing.”
Marone-Sowers had never seen the musical, but when she researched it, she wanted to play Violet.
Indianapolis resident Scott Fleshood plays the preacher.
“It’s interesting to play what I would say is a Benny Hinn-type character,” Fleshood said. “Somebody who is there to what she thinks will provide hope, but ends up being more of a sham.”
Fleshood said his friend Ben Davis, a Lawrence North High School graduate, played the preacher in the Broadway production.
Horrigan, who retired as a Lawrence Central High School theater teacher in May 2023, directed CCP’s “Tick, Tick …Boom!” In 2022.
The Fishers resident said “Violet’ was a musical she wanted to direct.
“You know how hard it is to look at someone that is scarred or disabled physically, but also the scars inside that we carry with us,” Horrigan said. “And, of course, that scar was inside of her as well as she thought she was extremely ugly when she was really a beautiful person inside. She felt that no one would see that because her father didn’t really recognize that and nor to the community. Her whole life, she’s never felt like she was attractive to anyone until she gets on this bus. These two soldiers both kind of vie for her.”
One of the soldiers is Black, which creates another issue in a era when interracial marriage wasn’t legal in all states until 1967.
For more, visit carmelplayers.org.
