On the Horizon

Written by Shelli Pentimall Bookler

Directed by Justin Caiazzo

A staged reading production about the SS Californian.

Presented at the Second Baptist Church of Germantown

In 1912 the British steamship the SS Californian set out from London to cross the Atlantic Ocean toward Boston. In the midst of their journey they encountered a loose ice field and stopped for the night, thinking it would be a quiet evening. But then in the not so far distance, the crew saw eight distress rockets fire from a ship within ten miles from them. The crew tried to rouse Captain Stanley Lord from sleep to heed the call, but he refused to believe there was imminent danger. Even after the crew watched the lights of the ship flicker and then go black, Captain Lord refused to engage. It was in the early moments of dawn when the wireless operator started his shift that they realized they were the ship that watched Titanic sink.