Episode 1, The Suitcase
We discover Ely Green through his granddaughter Patricia, asking questions about a man she never met.
It’s 1964. The audience is introduced to Ely Green, a biracial man born in 1893. He is returning to Sewanee, Tennessee, where he was raised, and from where he fled 50 years earlier. He brings his handwritten autobiography to a man he’s never met. His book, a tour-de-force of the biracial experience in America, will be published four years later.
We meet Patricia Ravarra, his granddaughter, who only finds out about his book—and more about the grandfather she never met—many years later.
In episode 1, we hear excerpts from his manuscript read by a voice actor, Bruce Manuel. The audience hears about Green’s two families, the one that brings him up, the one that does not claim him, and how both the Black and white communities in this small town both leave him without a space to fit in. He learns to be a mountain man from his independent Black grandfather, making his living off the forests surrounding Sewanee, and describes it in beautiful detail. We check in again with Patricia, to learn more about her knowledge about Green, and a little about his memoir, Too Black, Too White.
The audience learns that some things in the book, including the name of his father and possibly even the fact that he was born in Sewanee, are not true. Who changed the names? And why did Ely return to tell his life’s story? Who is Ely Green? And what other secrets are in that suitcase?
Listen now:
THE SUITCASE IS PRODUCED BY APRIL ALVAREZ, HANNAH HUBER, AND SAM WORLEY
CREDITS FOR EPISODE 1
THE SUITCASE is produced by April Alvarez, Hannah Huber, and Sam Worley
Episode 1: Writer: Sam Worley | Voice of Ely Green: Bruce Manuel | Narrator: April Alvarez
Audio Editor: Ryan Crouch | Consulting Audio: Bria Suggs
Original Music: Sarah Rimkus
Cover Design: Thomas Lakeman
Studio Recordings in Sewanee at Alvarez Photography Studio, the Ralston Room of the duPont Library, and Shiverick Recording Studio
Guests: Patricia Ravarra, Tiffany Momon, Cynthia Greenlee
Voicework: Thomas Lakeman, Pamela Macfie, Adam Latham
Recording Engineers: Madison Sellers, Amelia Barakat, Gus Goldsmith, and Stephen Alvarez
