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| ‘Belle of Amherst’
April 23 |
ASU
News Bureau |
ASU News Bureau
Susan King stars in “The
Belle of Amherst,” a play about 19th-century poet Emily
Dickinson, April 23-24 in Appalachian’s Valborg Theatre.
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The Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre
production of “The Belle of Amherst,” a one-woman play
by William Luce about 19th-century New England poet Emily Dickinson,
will be presented April 23 and 24 at 8 p.m. in Valborg Theatre.
This production of “The Belle of Amherst,” starring Susan
King and directed by C. Robert Jones, opened at the Southern Appalachian
Repertory Theatre in Mars Hill on March 7, 1978, and has toured
the Southeast extensively in the past quarter century. The Appalachian
performances are part of a 25th anniversary return engagement of
the play, which commences this month with benefit performances for
the department of theatre arts at Mars Hill College, King’s
alma mater. All the primary production participants have been reunited
in these performances: King, Jones, tour manager Kenneth Wilson,
costume designer Sara Stewart and property mistress Diana McWilliams.
The original set pieces have been preserved with few exceptions.
The original costume was replaced in 1994 with a successor, also
built by Stewart. |
In “The
Belle of Amherst,” audiences meet a shy, funny woman who was
a co-conspirator with children (often lowering baskets of gingerbread
to them from her upstairs window), who loved animals, nature and
words, and who lived her solitary life in a rich and deliberate
way.
Dickinson was one of the world’s masters
of the short lyric poem. The subjects of her poems, expressed in
intimate, domestic figures of speech, include love, death and nature,
and exhibit four primary influences: the King James Bible, the hymns
of Isaac Watts, Shakespeare’s works and the poetry of Ralph
Waldo Emerson. She wrote nearly 1,800 poems, several hundred of
which are among the finest ever written by an American poet. She
gave 24 of the poems titles, and only seven were published during
her lifetime.
Presented by the Equity Office, the play is a benefit for the Visiting
Writers Series and is funded in part by the Women’s Studies
Program, the Office of Cultural Affairs, the department of theatre
and dance, Blue Ridge Mountain Belts and Gideon Ridge Inn.
Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for students and may be purchased
in advance by contacting the box office at 262-3063. Advance reservations
are strongly recommended. |
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