North Carolina’s Tradition of Outdoor Drama - North Carolina Performing Arts

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North Carolina's Tradition Of Outdoor Drama

Outdoor drama is a melding of literature and landscape. North Carolina – with its scenic beauty, history, and love of storytelling – is its birthplace. Ten outdoor dramas take to the North Carolina stage every summer. Most are historical in nature, depicting actual events near the site where history happened.

Pulitzer Prize winner and North Carolina native Paul Green gave birth to outdoor drama when he wrote The Lost Colony in 1937, the nation’s oldest and longest-running outdoor drama. A few famous actors such as Andy Griffith and Chris Elliot have gotten their starts in The Lost Colony, and every now and then there will be a surprising guest star, such as when Lynn Redgrave played Queen Elizabeth I in a handful of shows in 2006.

Cinematic in scale and production quality, outdoor dramas are staged in huge amphitheaters with mountains, rolling hills and beaches as backdrops. They feature music and dance, huge casts of extras, special effects like pyrotechnics, beautiful costumes, battles, and even horse-drawn wagon trains.

So find a front row seat and get ready to meet the players of outdoor drama in North Carolina.

Unto These Hills, Cherokee
From the arrival in the Appalachian Mountains of Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto in 1540, to the removal of the Cherokee Indians to Oklahoma along the tragic “trail of tears,” this drama paints a vivid portrait of the Eastern Band of Cherokee and their brave leaders, Junaluska, Tsali and Sequoyah, who fought for survival.

The Montford Players, Asheville
The Montford Players stage several outdoor Shakespearean productions every summer. For more than thirty years, the Players have made it their mission to make the Bard of Avon accessible to everyone through their performance style, as well as by offering their shows free of charge.

Horn in the West, Boone
Set in the southern Appalachian mountain region of North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, the drama follows frontiersman Daniel Boone and his band of mountain settlers as they struggle against the British militia.

From This Day Forward, Valdese
Told through music, dance and drama, From This Day Forward is the story of the Waldenses, a religious sect that arose in southeast France in the late 1100s, centering on their struggle to survive persecution in their homeland, and their eventual arrival in North Carolina in 1893 to establish a colony at Valdese.

Tom Dooley: A Wilkes County Legend, Wilkesboro
The murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dooley over a century ago in what is now known as Ferguson, NC, was one of the nation's first highly publicized crimes of passion. Dooley was hanged for the crime, but many questions were left unanswered. This drama fills the gaps for serious Tom Dooley fans. Scenes are tied together with authentic acoustic bluegrass music from the foothills.

Pathway to Freedom, Snow Camp
Pathway to Freedom is the story of how anti-slavery North Carolinians and freed African Americans helped hundreds of escaped slaves flee to the North prior to the Civil War, via the underground railroad.

Sword of Peace, Snow Camp
The Sword of Peace dramatizes the conflict faced by members of the North Carolina Society of Friends during the Revolutionary War, when, as peaceful Quakers, they were forced to defend their basic tenet of nonviolence.

Amistad Saga: Reflections, Raleigh
A mutiny aboard a slave ship that marked the beginning of the end of slavery in the United States is brought to life through powerful speeches, song, and dance. Amistad dramatizes the plight of the ship’s captives, from their removal out of their native land to a revolt at sea, and their battle for freedom.

The Lost Colony, Manteo
Performed in the Waterside Theatre, this symphonic drama depicts the valiant struggle of 117 men, women and children attempting to settle in the New World in 1587. They disappeared without a trace, and for over 400 years, this has been one of history’s greatest mysteries. Many famous actors such as Andy Griffith got their start in this drama. This year’s performance marks a triumph for the Lost Colony; despite the burning of their costume shop last year, the drama will not miss this season.

First for Freedom, Halifax
This drama celebrates events that led up to the signing of the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776, the first formal declaration of independence from Great Britain by an American Colony.