Threads - A Rare Experience

Watching Tonya Jone Miller in Threads is an emotional experience. Spanning a time period from 1962 - 1979, Miller's play tells the true story of her American mother, Donna Miller. As a girl who grew up in rural Indiana, Donna Miller's life journey took her to Vietnam in 1968 as a teacher at the Buddhist University in Saigon. How she got there, what happened to her and the consequences of that time are the subject of this riveting theatrical tale.

As an adult, the playwright began to learn more about her mother's life and her own Vietnamese heritage (from her father). Inspired by solo shows that she saw on a Canadian Fringe tour in 2009, Miller began videotaping interviews with her mother and started to create Threads. The show is an interwoven tapestry of time and place, jumping forward and back adding up to an entire understanding of an extraordinary life led by an ordinary American woman. 

The performance by Tonya Jone Miller is outstanding. Staged simply with two suitcases and minimum props, Miller is able to evoke a multitude of locations, characters and events with her body and voice. We are transported from the U.S. to Vietnam and back again. We see the orphans she cares for, we meet the students she teaches and we grieve for those who are lost. Threads is clearly a passion project for Miller and it is a rare privilege to share the passion with her, in a darkened theatre.