Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 46 OCTOBER 2022 L I V E + P L AY TAKING SALEM'S HISTORIC STREETS ON THE ROAD A n Essex Heritage grant is helping the immersive theater company Histor y A live make its "Charlotte's Salem" walk ing tour portable and accessible. BY ALEX ANDRA PECCI PHOTOGRAPHS BY KRISTINA STEVICK Salem is known around the world for its connection to witches and draws nearly half a million tourists each year who want to immerse themselves in all things witchcraft and supernatural. But what many people don't know— including many North Shore locals—is that Salem was also a hub of the abolitionist movement in the years before and during the Civil War. History Alive, Inc., tells a small piece of that story through "Charlotte's Salem," a walking tour of downtown Salem set in the 1850s that's led by a costumed actor playing abolitionist and educator Charlotte Forten as a very young woman. Now, thanks to funding from the Essex National Heritage Commission's 2022 Essex Heritage Partnership Grant Program, History Alive is opening up the "Charlotte's Salem" experience to people with disabilities and others who may not be able to access the walking tour. It's doing this by creating a portable adaptation that brings "Charlotte's Salem" to audiences with ambulatory challenges and economic barriers. "The grant will help us take this piece and adapt it for audiences that are not as mobile and might have a lot of difficulty Samantha Searles in Charlotte's Salem