I had the privilege to be called down to Ferrum College and the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre in the summer of 2002. I had just gotten back from writing a commissioned musical for the Salt Lake Olympics that did quite well there, and was just setting back in to life in Nova Scotia when I got a call from Rex. He asked me to come down and be the dramaturg for a week or so to\u00a0 help him get his new script on its feet.<\/p>\n
Well, I went and loved it! This article appeared sometime later. It was an interview with Tina Hanlon and Rex, the founder of BRDT at Ferrum and a close friend. — C. Michael Perry<\/em><\/p>\n By Tina L. Hanlon<\/em>, associate professor of English at Ferrum College and the Hollins University Summer Graduate Program in Children\u2019s Literature. She is a co-editor of Crosscurrents of Children\u2019s Literature: An Anthology of Texts and Criticism (2006) and director of the website AppLit.<\/p>\n Originally appeared in Virginia Libraries (Vol. 54, No. 3-4), a quarterly journal published by the Virginia Library Association).<\/p>\n Most people probably think of theatres and libraries as being worlds apart, but Ferrum College\u2019s Sale Theatre and Stanley Library are next door to each other. Thanks to recent renovations on campus, only a few steps will take you from the library\u2019s back door into the theatre, across an attractive patio that theatre-goers enjoy during summer plays. Many of those plays have been written by R. Rex Stephenson<\/strong><\/a> since he founded the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre in 1978. Even during years when getting inside the library required more steps, there was plenty of traffic between the two buildings. Drama majors writing and performing their own senior plays over the years had no excuses for shirking on their research or writing skills, with librarians and tutors next door in the library. Among many dramatic requests for library resources, the most unusual one was probably a trash can borrowed once for a prop. Librarian George Loveland had fun putting a bar code on it, checking it out, and later sending an overdue notice to get the trash can back from the theatre. Faculty members, librarians, visiting actors, and local children who come together to perform in summer plays pop into the library to read a magazine, use the Internet, or do a little background research during short breaks from arduous labor in the theatre. And Stephenson\u2019s remarkable career as a playwright, director, and actor often takes him to libraries and archives for research and performances.<\/p>\n Soon after he came to Ferrum to teach drama in 1973, Stephenson began adapting Appalachian Jack Tales, traditional folktales about the magical adventures of a country boy named Jack. In his seventies in the late 1970s, the renowned storyteller and folklore collector Richard Chase visited Ferrum as a consultant for Stephenson\u2019s Jack Tale Players. Chase\u2019s books The Jack Tales and Grandfather Tales have made mountain folktales from Virginia and North Carolina popular throughout North America since the 1940s. \u201cWicked John and the Devil,\u201d about a mean blacksmith who tricks the devil, is a tale that Chase told orally to Stephenson so that he could dramatize it without permissions expenses, and it is still a perennial favorite with the Jack Tale Players. Since 1999 Stephenson has also adapted tales with female heroes, such as \u201cAshpet,\u201d \u201cCatskins,\u201d and my favorite, \u201cMutsmag,\u201d about a spunky girl who defeats a giant and a witch. Stephenson\u2019s own roles in \u201cMutsmag\u201d range from playing a door and a giant\u2019s ugly daughter to a one-eyed robber and the king of Virginia.<\/p>\n In December 2005 the Jack Tale Players gave their thirtieth anniversary performance at Callaway Elementary School, in the same auditorium as their first public show in 1975. They have performed more than 3,000 times in 35 states and England, at schools, veterans\u2019 hospitals, parks, churches, conferences, and community centers. One public performance last summer kicked off a library summer reading program, \u201cTales, Legends, and Lore,\u201d at the Spencer-Penn Center in Spencer, Virginia.<\/p>\n In 2007 the Southeastern Theatre Conference honored Stephenson with one of the most prestigious awards in the field of child drama, the Sara Spencer Award. Nellie McCaslin, who remained a mentor after supervising his doctoral work at New York University in the 1980s, dedicated the eighth edition of her creative drama textbook to Stephenson in 2005 just before her death ended a distinguished career as a dramatist, scholar, and professor. She called Stephenson\u2019s summer plays for families \u201ca unique and highly successful example of intergenerational theatre,\u201d praising the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre for the professional and social benefits of productions in which local and professional actors, young interns, teenagers, and children work together, drawing in parents, tourists, and others to enjoy the plays. [1] This collaboration is also led by Executive Director Jody D. Brown<\/strong><\/a>, a retired English professor and excellent actress. Emily Rose Tucker<\/strong><\/a>, who started as a summer college intern, is musical director, composer, and often a lead performer in BRDT plays.<\/p>\n Many characters that Stephenson brings to life from the pages of folklore archives, historical documents, and classic literature find themselves back on library shelves in his published plays. His folktales appear in six published scripts and several textbooks and journals. Eighteen other published plays are based on historical events, from Galileo\u2019s scientific discoveries to a trial that freed a woman from slavery in Franklin County, as well as Bible stories and literature by Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, and Mark Twain. Stephenson has also portrayed the American master of fiction and social satire for many years in An Evening with Mark Twain. [2] One of the first times Stephenson asked me to serve as a script consultant, for The Jungle Book, he ignored my protestations that I was not a Kipling expert, so I went off to the library to read more about Kipling. Subsequent research has taken me to Dickens\u2019 homes in southeastern England and to the OED to figure out whether words such as \u201cDad\u201d and \u201cteenager\u201d were anachronistic in nineteenth century dialogue. When I found myself on local television with Stephenson and McCaslin in 2000, the interviewer was amazed to hear how many variations of \u201cSnow White\u201d we had studied. Thus I learned firsthand that these plays involve varied types of research and offer interesting possibilities for educational projects. I prepared study guides for several of Stephenson\u2019s plays published by Pat Whitton Forrest at New Plays for Children in Charlottesville, who likes to integrate teaching materials with the scripts she publishes. I enjoyed digging deeper into the playwright\u2019s views on drama and research for this interview. SEE A CHRISTMAS CAROL<\/strong><\/a> or THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH<\/strong><\/a> or JUNGLE BOOK<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n VL<\/strong> Were libraries important to you when you were young in rural Indiana, before you became a playwright in Virginia?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> Because I was a commuter at college, when I had free time, I went to the library; and the more I was there, the more I discovered things. My biggest discovery during my freshman year was the reference room. I found answers to every question I have ever had in there. As a matter of fact, the reference librarian got to know me by my first name. I didn\u2019t make very good grades my freshman year, but I learned a lot. VL<\/strong> I know you started dramatizing Appalachian folktales in 1975 after your daughter Janice brought home a copy of Richard Chase\u2019s The Jack Tales from school. I\u2019ve heard that many other storytellers and writers were inspired by hearing a librarian or teacher read these same folktales during their childhood. Do you encounter many people who know the folktales from books?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> It is amazing the number of people that will come up to me after a show and say, \u201cMy third grade teacher read us these stories when I was in elementary school.\u201d I remember once we were playing at a festival in Newport News and a lady showed me her copy of The Jack Tales. She had asked for it for Christmas because the copy in the library was always checked out. I\u2019m also astonished at the number of people I\u2019ve met that had heard Richard Chase tell stories. And all that have talked to me speak of their encounter with Chase almost reverently. [3] I can say honestly that Chase was the finest storyteller I ever heard.<\/p>\n VL<\/strong> How important has research been since you began writing your own plays?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> When I first started dramatizing the Jack Tales, our library got me all kinds of books on interlibrary loan on folktales and Appalachian history. Back then, Appalachian Studies wasn\u2019t \u201cin.\u201d I was over there every other week bugging them. They were good about getting every book or article I was looking for. Luckily for me later, I met Richard Chase, Cratis Williams, and members of the Hicks family of North Carolina storytellers. This combination of hearing the stories and listening to the background of the tales plus the scholarly research included in books by Chase and Williams gave me an appreciation I try to capture when I dramatize a folktale. When I went to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, that\u2019s when I discovered the work of earlier Appalachian storytellers and collectors, such as Jane Gentry and Isobel Gordon Carter. Raymond Sloan was another excellent collector of folktales and folk songs in Franklin County. He told me stories, explained how the Virginia Writers\u2019 Project worked when he collected for the WPA, and gave me names of people to interview. VL<\/strong> And the same James Taylor Adams Collection is now archived in Ferrum\u2019s Blue Ridge Institute. The links between the oral tradition, archives, and books are fascinating. I\u2019ve read that librarians spread the art of telling traditional folktales to children around America and Britain in the early twentieth century. In Chase\u2019s books and many other collections by storytellers, the authors encourage readers to tell the tales out loud in their own way after reading them. In your story theatre performances with the Jack Tale Players, I\u2019ve heard you encourage audiences to read the tales in books by Richard Chase or the Grimm Brothers. How do you view the relationship between your adaptations and stories in books?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> At every show we try to do a little plug for reading. After we tell the audience about the books, librarians sometimes say, \u201cWe don\u2019t have it but we\u2019ll get it before you come back next time.\u201d I just want kids to discover reading and Mr. Chase\u2019s books. Once I had a rare invitation to say a few words to the audience when I attended a production of my adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court. I used this opportunity to encourage them all to read Twain\u2019s version. To me, an adaptation of a classic story should just be the springboard that encourages children to go back to the original source.<\/p>\n VL<\/strong> Tell me about your summer performances at the Franklin County Library. I\u2019ve seen the meeting room there packed with enthusiastic audiences of all ages at Jack Tale shows.<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> We used to perform at the Rocky Mount Community and Hospitality Center in the old train station, too, or the courthouse, but since the new library opened a few years ago, we have performed there. The meeting room is not an ideal space for a performance, but to do a show surrounded by books\u2014it is a great environment. Getting to know and working with a good children\u2019s librarian is important. Franklin County has one of the best in Joyce Tuckloff. One of the good things about performing at the library is that children and parents come to the shows together, or children and grandparents, unlike our shows in the schools.<\/p>\n VL<\/strong> I agree with what you\u2019ve said about the joys of libraries and books. But librarians also make valuable electronic resources available to us these days. When my website AppLit was created during a workshop sponsored by our library and the Appalachian College Association in 2000, you ran over to the library several times bringing me material for AppLit\u2019s first bibliographies and study guides. How has the Internet contributed to your work as a dramatist?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> There are things on the Internet that would not get wide distribution if it were not for sites like AppLit. The example that comes to mind is the story Raymond Sloan told me, \u201cJack and His Lump of Silver.\u201d I had published his story in a small journal, and I doubt if many people read it there. However, when it went on AppLit, I know a number of people read the story. For example, my sister-in-law, Sharon Stephenson, heard a storyteller in Indiana tell \u201cJack and His Lump of Silver.\u201d She said, \u201cMy brother-in-law tells the same story.\u201d And the storyteller said, \u201cYes, I got it on a website from a little college in Virginia.\u201d Whenever we do kids\u2019 shows, we like to provide teachers with background information. Now we just recommend the website, and not only do teachers use it, but we\u2019ve also discovered their students go to it.<\/p>\n VL<\/strong> Writing your adaptations of classic literature requires getting to know the books very well. Sometimes you even include the author as a character in the frame story of a play. What kinds of research are involved in writing these plays?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> Most of the classics I have dramatized came out of my youth. They were the books I read and reread as a child, like Treasure Island, or books like Alice in Wonderland that I read to my girls. Then, because I love them so much, to try to stay objective a little bit, I\u2019ll usually go over to Stanley Library and spend an afternoon with criticism and biography so I can see what other people have said about the story, or just sometimes to try to get in the author\u2019s head, to find out why he wrote this story. I try to tell the same story the author told. VL<\/strong> How do you research your plays based on historical events?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> In most of the history plays I\u2019ve written, I\u2019ve had historians that provided a lot of guidance for me. Historians by their very nature always send you to the primary sources. What constantly amazes me is how many primary sources you can find in a library. When I was writing a play about Cecil Sharp, the English folklorist who collected folk songs in the South and came through Franklin County in 1918, I think I spent three days in London doing research at the Cecil Sharp House (home of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and the English Folk Dance and Song Society). After that, the play wrote itself. (MY TRAVELS WITH CECIL<\/strong><\/a>) VL<\/strong> Your family plays have been supported by the Nellie McCaslin Endowment each summer since your mentor at New York University died in 2005. Tell me about the special relationship between Nellie McCaslin and Ferrum College.<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> Dr. McCaslin was always a strong proponent of inter-generational theatre\u2014in other words, blending performers of a variety of ages into one production\u2014so it was not really difficult for me to talk her into becoming one of our actresses in some summer plays. She was, I think, eighty-four when she did her first play for me in 1999. The youngest member of that cast was seven, so it was truly cast in a manner that she had long advocated. VL<\/strong> I admire the way you capture the language and rhythms of the original text when you adapt classic works of literature. Book lovers often criticize dramatic adaptations or films because they don\u2019t include everything in the book. How do you handle this problem when adapting a novel?<\/p>\n RRS<\/strong> Little Women: A Musical is the play we are working on now and it\u2019s been the most difficult adaptation I\u2019ve done since Alice in Wonderland (1995). I think this is true because everything in Louisa May Alcott\u2019s book is so interrelated; everything depends on something else and the characters\u2019 relationships are so complex\u2014yet they seem so very, very simple. Deciding what to put into the play to capture the spirit of the book in an hour and a half is challenging. In addition, there is her use of language; it is very honest and yet it is emotional and detailed and creates pictures. When I read the book, I had these images in my head of how it would look on the stage. I also asked readers of the novel which parts they most remembered. For most playwrights, their job is to create a character; in an adaptation you have to capture a character. Alcott\u2019s words are also melodic and we used some of them in the songs. Some things just can\u2019t be said any better than her exact words. For example, there\u2019s no better way to write about Beth\u2019s long illness than to describe it as a tide going out. Shakespeare couldn\u2019t have done better. What\u2019s always in the back of my head, especially during this play, is that on opening night, Louisa May Alcott has a seat right next to mine. Notes <\/p>\n \u00a9 2006 by Tina Hanlon and R. Rex Stephenson<\/p>\n Used by permission.<\/p>\nCapturing Characters on Stage for the College and Community: An Interview with Playwright Rex Stephenson<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nI like a library. I like the smells of a library. I like the feeling of being in a place where they have everything I want. There\u2019s something about a book\u2014you hold it and you look at the words and you read it out loud. Then you go to the bibliography and you get to find more books. Sometimes when I\u2019m in a library I just pull out a book at random and read a couple of paragraphs to see if the author is an ordinary writer or a wordsmith. I worry that kids today don\u2019t appreciate a library. It\u2019s gotten to be a generational thing. When my daughter Juliet thinks of doing research she goes to the Internet. But libraries are important for kids; they are safe, and generally filled with people who enjoy reading and helping people find what they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
\nAnother fortuitous thing that happened was just pure dumb luck. I was tracing back some of Chase\u2019s informants and I went to Wise County in search of Dicey Adams, who had told Chase a number of Jack Tales. She was the widow of James Taylor Adams, who had headed the Virginia Writers\u2019 Project in southwestern Virginia. When I talked to Dicey, she told me that everything they had on folklore had been given to a local library. At the library, I found the \u201clost\u201d folklore collection that had not been published when the Virginia Writers\u2019 Project closed in 1942. It was thousands of pages packed away in boxes, with all the WPA collectors\u2019 original stories from southwestern Virginia. Most of the folktales that I have dramatized came from this collection.<\/p>\n
\nMy research on Robert Louis Stevenson led to the frame story about him and his stepson in my play Treasure Island. I discovered that he wrote the book chapter by chapter as a gift for his stepson when he didn\u2019t have money for anything else. It seemed like a logical frame, more appealing to modern children because the relationship was through a divorce and remarriage. They got along so well that they make good role models for families today.<\/p>\n
\nMy most recent endeavor, When the Lights Go on Again, is a musical revue about World War II. I not only wanted it to encompass the music of the era, but I also wanted the story line to be about something. Now, I grew up in a time when people talked about the war a lot. Most of my relatives had been in the service or had worked in defense plants, and I remember always listening to their stories. And oftentimes the name Ernie Pyle came up. One day in my high school library I ran across a copy of his book Brave Men. I\u2019ve been an Ernie Pyle fan ever since. I think part of the reason that I almost memorized some of Pyle\u2019s newspaper articles was so that I could be included in the conversations with my relatives about the war. It was just logical for me to go back and include excerpts from his wartime articles in my musical revue.<\/p>\n
\nWe were very fortunate at Ferrum that Dr. McCaslin left her personal library to Stanley Library. She had all the primary books from the early history of children\u2019s theatre and creative drama plus so many modern reference works and plays. Because Dr. McCaslin\u2019s tenure at NYU was so long, whenever one of her students would publish something, they would automatically send her a copy. If you add into that the fact that she probably knew personally most practitioners of creative drama in the United States and England, and they would also send her books, it was indeed quite an impressive and unique collection.<\/p>\n
\nJo March\u2019s last line at the end of Stephenson\u2019s Little Women illustrates the continuing relationship between his plays and the books he adapts. Telling the audience a little about her future, Jo says, \u201cIf you want to find out more about what happens next in my life, you can read Little Men.\u201d LITTLE WOMEN A MUSICAL<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n1.<\/strong> Nellie McCaslin, \u201cThe Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre: A Recipe for Success,\u201d Stage of the Art, Winter 2002, http:\/\/www.ferrum.edu\/news\/ArchivePreMay02\/brdtstageart.htm; Nellie McCaslin, Creative Drama in the Classroom and Beyond, 8th ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005).
\n2.<\/strong> Tina L. Hanlon, comp., \u201cDramas and Tales by R. Rex Stephenson,\u201d AppLit: Resources for Readers and Teachers of Appalachian Literature for Children and Young Adults, Ferrum College, http:\/\/www.ferrum.edu\/applit\/bibs\/bibrex.htm. Provides details about publications.
\n3.<\/strong> Sandy Shuckett, \u201cRegarding Richard Chase: Two Memorable Meetings,\u201d California Libraries, August 2004, http:\/\/www.cla-net.org\/events\/newsletter\/aug04_RichardChase.php. Coincidentally, while this article was being written, an email from California author Kerry Madden brought us a copy of librarian Sandy Shuckett\u2019s article about meeting Chase.<\/p>\n