BUEN CAMINO: MY WALK THROUGH 540 MILES OF RAIN is Coming to Shaker Bridge Theatre
The performance will take place on Wednesday, July 23.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jul. 10, 2025
Briggs Opera House Inc and Shaker Bridge Theatre will present a one-night performance of Susan Edsall's original work Buen Camino: My Walk Through 540 Miles of Rain, Resentment, and Redemption at the Briggs Opera House on Wednesday, July 23, at 7PM. Touring from Hawaii, writer and performer Susan Edsall brings Buen Camino, directed and developed by Jessica Lynn Johnson, to the Upper Valley. Susan premiered Buen Camino at the SOLO STARS Series in Los Angeles in December 2024, winning their Encore Award. The show has also played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland, and in New York City at the United Solo Festival.
Susan has a perfect life, a perfect love, and perfect happiness. When she suddenly undergoes an unexpected loss, her perfect life ends. Consumed by excruciating pain, she finds it impossible to imagine any future worth living. Until, on an ordinary trip to the grocery store, she hears The Voice. The trouble is, Susan doesn't believe in Voices. And yet, when The Voice tells her to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, she obeys despite knowing nothing about this ancient pilgrimage. At rock bottom, Susan has nothing left to lose except the stories that bind her to the past. With the help of some improbable Spiritual Guides and the Camino itself, Susan must face her past to have any hope of creating her future. Alone on stage, she becomes 23 characters to take the audience on her solitary walk through 540 miles of rain, resentment, and redemption. Buen Camino is a moving story of how grief can lead to surrender and ultimately to freedom.
Susan Edsall (playwright and performer) is a vital part of what has resulted in White River Junction becoming "the theater district". In 1988 the White River Theater Festival was founded and housed by River City Arts. Our fledgling arts organization WRTF brought professional theater to the Upper Valley (and encouraged by the HOP who shared their volunteers). Susan was living here as a traveling consultant and acting for the Parish Players. When she saw what WRTF was doing she jumped in with both feet. She and the founders (both named "Steve") took WRTF to almost a $1M annual budget. When River City Arts had to close, a WRTF "alum", our own Matt Dunne, stepped in and in the course of a time of uncertainty, found Brooke Wetzel and her nascent company Northern Stage. The rest as they say is history. Now we have Northern Stage, Shaker Bridge Theatre, and over 60 recurring arts initiatives coming to WRJ for performing arts as both audience
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