| Jack
Tales
Jack
Tales, as dramatized by R. Rex Stephenson, are stories
of the Blue Ridge Mountains that particularly appeal to fun-loving
audiences of all ages because of their fast-paced action,
energetic actors, innovative staging, and foot-stomping music.
Which
of us doesn’t have an unkind brother, unreasonable boss,
or fiendish neighbor who makes our lives difficult? Who isn’t
curious about the outside world? What youth doesn’t
want prosperity? Jack, the Appalachian folk hero, faces such
problems and has these longings. R. Rex Stephenson has been
dramatizing stories from this folk cycle since 1975 and combining
the timeless Jack Tales with lively music to create performances
for youth and adults.
The
Jack Tales can play indoors or outside, in church fellowship
halls, school auditoriums, or on stages. Stephenson can adapt
a performance for festivals, church services, educational
situations, as well as typical performance conditions.
Click
here for more information about the Jack Tales.
An
Evening with Mark Twain
An
Evening with Mark Twain features Mark Twain as a lecturer
in a recreation of Twain’s 1908 lecture tour, recounting
his life including his boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, his
experiences as a prospector in California, his time on the
Mississippi as a riverboat pilot, his skirmishes as an author
and playwright, and his encounters as a world traveler.
Twain
is never predictable in the topics he chooses to discuss with
any particular group and may turn his particular humorous
observations on subjects ranging from golf, to retirement,
religion, the French, newspaper reporters, and doctors. He
shares not only his humorous observations about society but
also reveals his abiding love for his wife, Olivia, about
whom he observed, “Wherever she was, there was Eden.”
R. Rex
Stephenson plays Twain throughout the evening and often includes
cameo appearances from other performers in the performance.
Stephenson the artistic director of the Blue Ridge Dinner
Theatre and professor of theatre arts at Ferrum College has
been creating the character of Mark Twain for over thirty
years.
An
Evening with Mark Twain is a happy look at one of the
great creative geniuses of American culture and the wit that
marked the best of 19th C writing. The performance plays best
to teenagers and adult audiences and can work in most performance
situations.
Anne
Recalls William Shakespeare
Set on
April 28, 1616, three days after Shakespeare’s death,
Anne Recalls William Shakespeare features Anne Hathaway,
Shakespeare’s wife, as she reflects on Shakespeare’s
career and speculates on his reputation. The play reveals
the human concerns of a wife who loved her husband, the practical
nature of a woman who has managerial responsibility for significant
property, and the individual reactions of a proud woman impatient
with the petty views of her nosy neighbors.
Jody D.
Brown, who portrays Anne, wrote the script drawing extensively
from Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Brown, who is well-known
to Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre audiences, has significant experience
in teaching, performing, lecturing, and writing about Shakespeare’s
works, influence, and life. Stephenson joins her in this touring
production as an invented servant from the Shakespeare household
and as the voice of Shakespeare.
The production
plays best to older teenagers and adults. Because it uses
authentic Elizabethan costumes, the performers need a changing
area in addition to the performance requirements.
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