Story 4 - 6/29/2018
The acclaimed outdoor drama “Horn in the West” recently opened its 67th season in Boone, North Carolina. A summertime tradition, the play has drawn theatergoers from around the state and beyond since it first opened in 1952.
Produced by the Southern Appalachian Historical Society, the drama bills itself as the “nation’s oldest Revolutionary War drama.” It was written by Kermit Hunter, a playwright known primarily for writing outdoor historical dramas. Some of Hunter’s other well known works include “Unto These Hills: A Drama of the Cherokee,” which tells the story of the removal of the Cherokee Indians from North Carolina to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears, and “Honey in the Rock,” a Civil War drama set in West Virginia. Hunter was commissioned by the Historical Society to write a play about the history of the early settlers in western North Carolina their fight for independence. Naturally, Hunter chose the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone as one of the drama’s major characters.
“While Hunter wrote the play, members of the Historical Society travelled up and down the coast, seeing all these other outdoor dramas, as they were very popular at the time,” said Carson Sailor, executive director of the Southern Appalachian Historical Society. “Of course you had “The Lost Colony” out on Roanoke Island, which was and still is a big one, but you also had these smaller local pageants scattered across the region. And members of the Society would go and see what worked and what didn’t and what they might like to include and so on.”
Set over a decade, “Horn in the West” tells the story of Dr. Geoffrey Stuart, a British loyalist, who is forced to flee the lower colony due to the actions of his son during the Battle of Alamance. Led into the mountain country by frontiersman Daniel Boone, Stuart must come to terms with his own loyalties, which are divided between his country and his son. The play climaxes with the Battle of King’s Mountain.
Over the first several years of the production Hunter continued to doctor the script, finally reaching what many felt was a perfect script in 1962.
“The script included many elements people still enjoy today,” Sailor said, “like the comedic interactions between our Widow Howard and Reverend Sims, the fire dance, and some classic heroism from Daniel Boone.”
This year, the drama is returning to the 1962 script, with a new director at the helm.
Britt Corry is a Professor of Theater at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. He is directing Horn in the West for it’s 67th season.
“When you’re working in an outdoor setting you want to encourage your actors to act bigger than life,” Corry said. “A background in classical Greek acting would help, given the amphitheater style staging.”
Corry has never before been involved with “Horn in the West,” and his only involvement with outdoor theater was attending a production of “Unto These Hills” while in college.
“We’re really excited about having Corry on board,” Sailor said. “Here’s a person with no history with the show, so he can take his own ideas for the production and use them without being influenced by other directors from earlier years of the production. So this year we’ll have a play packed with nostalgia from the things everyone has always loved about the show, mixed in with new ideas that people haven’t seen before.”
“Horn in the West” runs every Tuesday through Sunday, from June 22 through Aug. 11.