Remembering Rick Cardenas
1996. We worked with Rick and Interact Theater on Bob Beverage' Let Heaven & Nature Sing. This play dealth with the nearly 5,000 'numbered gravestones' at Faribault State Hospital. Rick and ACT (Advocating Change Together) worked relentlessly and successfully to get our Legislature to replace those 'numbers' with the names of the over 13,000 individuals who were anonymously buried at eight state-managed institutions throughout our state.Rick was a true champion for Minnesotans with disabilities.
- Ron Peluso, Artistic Director, History Theatre and C0-director, Let Heaven & Nature Sing
Let Heaven & Nature Sing
World Premiere November 30-December 22, 1996
Written by Bob Beverage | Co-directed by Ron Peluso and Jeanne Calvit
In 1946, families and individuals with disabilities like epilepsy and mental challenges lived in the shadows of American society. This play addresses the conflicts between privacy and secrecy, freedom and confinement, care and control, as well as sexuality, marriage, human dignity, faith and our compassion for those who are residents and caregivers at institutions for challenged persons. Audience members are encouraged to see the gifts, humor and humanity of every person they encounter. The play begins and ends in the present, but the majority of the action takes place in Faribault at the Minnesota School for the Feeble-Minded and Colony for Epileptics between Christmas 1945 and 1946.
The cast featured Eric Wheeler, Cliff Poetz, Larry Hansen, Tinia Moulder, Merle McDill, Clark Cruikshank, Elizabeth Rae Peterson, Janet Hanson, Brad MacDonald, Amy Fisher, Jay Hornbacher, Jenner Snell, John Gustafson, Jeff Nelsen and Michelle Francois.
Pictured: Cliff Poetz, Eric Wheeler, Tinia Moulder. Photo by Gus Gustafson