A Place of Consequence
July 22 - 26, 1975
by Dr. George Swetnam
and Helen Snyder Smith
 
From the Authors
From the beginning, we felt that the play should reflect the actual historical situation and actual events of the town. We portrayed the most dramatic events in a period that could be handled adequately. The characters in it are all actual persons (with the exception of Lafe Pelphrey) who do and say the things that, so far as we know, they did or would have done and said under the circumstances.
Our effort was not to invent something but to make Blairsville, in its first thirty years, come to life on the stage with real people taking part in its most dramatic real events.
Presented by
The Sesquicentennial Committee and Blairsville Drama Guild
at Blairsville Senior High School Auditorium
in Blairsville, PA
Perseverance music

Carry A Nation
One Woman's War on Drugs
by Helene Smith
Edited by George Swetnam
Carry Nation, in her green years of fury against alcohol and drugs, chopped her way through saloons with a hatchet. Later in life, after gaining wisdom and maturity, she discovered the power and more lasting effect of communication and the word. She put down her hatchet and started to write and lecture instead.
"The pen is mightier than the sword."
ISBN 0-945437-05-6
1984 (revised in 1989)
8 1/2" x 11" script
Two Acts

From the Tribune Review, September 22, 1983

H-Bomb
Fission Fusion Fission
by Helene Smith with
Charles Haldane
 
This play, dealing with the issue of morality versus man's archaic obsession to kill, shows the interaction and conflicts between physicists Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and Stanislaw Ulam, General Lesley Groves, and Francoise Ulam, who argue against the "diabolic work" the scientists are engaged in.
Presented by
The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Theatre Company
at the UPG Ferguson Theater
September 28, 2006
ISBN 0-945437-64-1
Nuclear physicist Bill Beyer who worked at the Los Alamos, New Mexico National Laboratory asked Helene Smith to write a history of the H-bomb that explained Polish-born Stanislaw Ulam's part in its production as co-father along with nuclear physicist Edward Teller. Beyer was a friend and an employee of Ulam. In order for the book to be written, official governmental clearance was required. When Fission, Fusion, Fission was finished it was presented at the Little Theater in Los Alamos and also at the University of Pittsburgh. This drama goes into detail regarding the roles that Teller and Ulam played in the making of the H-bomb, which required an atomic bomb to set it off.
World history would not be complete without the knowledge that former Los Alamos nuclear physicists, other National Laboratory staff members who worked on the atomic bomb and the H-bomb, as well as other concerned citizens, founded a Non-proliferation of Nuclear Bombs Committee in 1968. Those who know the most about the danger to Earth through developing massive weapons of devastation are enlightened in calling for greater security with smaller numbers of nuclear weapons along with verified mutual reductions with Russia and other nations. Dismantling of most of these holocaustic toxic chemicals and Earth-shattering explosives would be a head-start in lessoning the chance of earthquakes and other drastic weather conditions for Earth and all its inhabitants.
In 2009 Bill Beyer died. In his honor the non-governmental Los Alamos Bill Beyer Arms Control and Reading Room opened that year in the National Bank. His portrait honors him in this library room where the Committee meets for lectures and discussions regarding nuclear and international security issues.

Lest We Forget
Westmoreland County Bicentennial Pageant
by Helen Snyder Smith and
George Swetnam
 
Commemorating the 200th Anniversary
of the founding of Westmoreland County
1773–1973
Presented
at Hannastown Historic Site
July 12 and 13, 1973
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wellspring of Power
Westmoreland County Bicentennial Pageant
by Helen Snyder Smith and
George Swetnam
 
A Portrayal of the birth and history
of the Haymaker Gas Well
From the Authors:
A community is more than the events which have taken place in its history. In writing "Wellspring of Power", we have adhered as closely as possible to fact, but have borne in mind that the spirit of a people is of greater consequence than merely what happens to them. The characters in the historical portion of the play (with the exception of the coquette in Act 1, Scene 3) were real people who did or might have done the things portrayed here. Our intention was not merely to present happenings but to promote understanding of this community.
Presented by
The Murrysville Borough Bicentennial Drama Committee
at Franklin Regional Intermediate High School, Murrysville, PA
September 14 – September 18, 1976