Singer/songwriter Sam Gleaves met novelist/playwright Silas House when he was a student at Berea College.

“I was his teaching assistant,” Gleaves said. “We have a shared love of music and the Appalachian arts.”

House had talked to Gleaves, who hails from southwest Virginia and now lives in Berea, for years about working on a folk opera. Now the dream has become a reality.

“In These Fields: a Folk Opera” will be performed at 6 p.m. March 23 at the Capitol Arts Center at 416 E. Main Ave. Admission is free.

The local performance is only the second time the folk opera has been performed in Kentucky, Gleaves said. It was originally commissioned by the Southern Foodways Alliance, a group that does documentary work on traditional foodways of the South and works with chefs and food products promoting Southern food cultures, to perform at its October 2016 symposium in Oxford, Miss.

“We spent most of 2016 writing and editing the piece. Silas would write a monologue and I would write the songs or use traditional songs and arrange them in a new way,” he said. “It was a real pleasure to work with (the Southern Foodways Alliance). Silas and I were thrilled to collaborate on this.”

The performance is being brought to Bowling Green by the Warren County Public Library.

“The kindness of Silas and Sam has a lot to do with this. They have not performed this in many places,” said library Director Lisa Rice. “I went to see a production in Lexington and asked them to do it here, and they agreed. Silas has a particular fondness for Bowling Green.”

“In These Fields” takes place from the 1830s to 2016.

“It talks about social justice and how food and community are tied up together in culture. The cast is wonderful,” Gleaves said. “They’re all folk musicians and actors, but mostly musicians. We’re so excited to present it in Bowling Green.”

“In These Fields” speaks to our heritage in “a very poignant way,” Rice said.

“It’s interesting how they can have a theme based around corn. When you’re as talented as Sam and Silas, you can do that,” she said. “They have taken this and shared our country’s history through our connection to the land. Silas left me in tears. That’s always a good sign. I think people will be moved by what they see there.”

– Free tickets are available online now at warrenpl.org.