Local actress Susan King plays Emily Dickinson
in one-woman show
Special to The Mountain Times
The Belle of Amherst, a one-character play by William Luce about
19th century New England poet Emily Dickinson, will be presented
May 17 at 7:30 p.m. and May 18 at 2:30 p.m. at the Southern Appalachian
Repertory Theatre in Mars Hill, NC. Susan King, currently the
coordinator of education and outreach for the Office of Equity,
Diversity and Compliance at Appalachian State University, will
reprise the role she has performed for thirty years.
Susan King as Miss Woodbridge
in the one-woman show The Belle of Amherst, a terrific
look at the life of 19th century poet Emily Dickinson.
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Actress Susan King brings
American poet Emily Dickinson to life in the one-woman
show The Belle of Amherst. |
This production of The Belle of Amherst, directed by C. Robert
Jones, opened at the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre on
March 7, 1978, and has toured the Southeast extensively during
the intervening three decades. Susan then was 23 years old; she
is now 53 – exactly the age of Dickinson in the play. The
original set furnishings by Diana McWilliams have been preserved
with few exceptions. The original costume was replaced in 1994
with a successor; both were built for King by Sara Stewart.
Emily Dickinson was one of the world’s masters of the short
lyric poem. To the few people who really knew her she was a fascinating
woman who rarely “crossed [her] father’s ground, to
any house, or town,” always wore white, never married, and
was known amongst the Amherst townsfolk as “Squire Edward
Dickinson’s half-cracked daughter.” We meet in The Belle
of Amherst 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. Emily Dickinson wrote
nearly 1800 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.
Susan King earned a degree in theatre performance from Mars Hill
College in 1976 and went to work in the field as an artist in
residence for the North Carolina Arts Council soon after. She
was a co-founder and the artistic director of Tapestry Theatre
Company in Wilmington, N.C. from 1988-1998, which came to be recognized
during that decade as the most culturally diverse professional
theatre in the state. Susan came to work at Appalachian in September
of 1998.
The play will be presented in historic Owen Theatre on the
Mars Hill College campus. Tickets are $25. Reservations are
recommended and can be made by calling (828) 689-1239.
The Poet
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born December 10, 1830 to Squire
Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson of Amherst, Massachusetts.
There were in the family an older brother, Austin, and a younger
sister, Lavinia. Emily was educated at Amherst Academy and spent
a year (1847-1848) at nearby Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.
She is remembered from her school days as clever, charming,
and outstanding among her peers in literary composition. Denied
most of the comforts and satisfactions that sustain humanity,
particularly love, marriage, and a secure religious faith, Emily
lived intensely, finding in her books, her garden, and friends
with whom she corresponded the possibilities of rich experience
and fulfillment.
To the few people who really knew her, she was a fascinating
woman who rarely “crossed [her] father’s ground, to
any house, or town,” always wore white, never married,
and was known amongst the Amherst townsfolk as “Squire
Edward Dickinson’s half-cracked daughter.”
Playwright Luce has woven together dramatically workable poems,
letters, lines and phrases of Dickinson’s in a conversational
style that is both humorous and deeply moving. We meet in The
Belle of Amherst 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.
Emily 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.
Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 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.
The Actress
Susan King earned a degree in theatre performance from Mars
Hill College in 1976 and went to work in the field as an artist-in
residence for the North Carolina Arts Council soon after. She
was a co-founder and the artistic director of Tapestry Theatre
Company in Wilmington, N.C. from 1988-1998. This small, professional
company came to be recognized in its day as the most culturally
diverse theatre in the state. Prior to this, she helped to establish
the Licklog Players, a year-round community theatre in Hayesville
N.C., which last year celebrated its 25th anniversary.
Roles of significance in her career are Marlene Chambers in
My Sweet Charlie, Harriet Stanley in The Man Who Came to Dinner,
Mary in On the Verge, and Sadie Burke in All the King’s
Men. In her 22-year career, Miss King directed and performed
in professional, regional, educational, and community theatre.
She retains an unshakeable faith that the theatre can inspire,
galvanize, redeem and heal. Susan is currently employed as the
coordinator of education and outreach for the Office of Equity,
Diversity and Compliance at Appalachian.
The Director
C. Robert Jones is no stranger to the one-person show. In addition
to The Belle of Amherst, he also directed Susan King in the
premiere of Broadway playwright Bernard Sabath’s You Caught
Me Dancing. He wrote and directed the premieres of the one character
plays, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts (about Stephen Foster
and starring Robert King), Bert Williams, Broadway Star (starring
Kristofer Geddie), and Senator Sam (About Senator Sam Ervin
and starring Joe Inscoe.)
Jones is professor emeritus of theatre arts at Mars Hill College,
where he founded the musical theatre degree program and chaired
the department. As a playwright, he was an honoree for the David
B. Marshall Musical Theatre Award from the University of Michigan
for his musical, Rivals. His play, Chiaroscuro (later Nocturne
for a Southern Lady) was winner of Theatre Memphis’ national
play search and enjoyed a three-month run at the Barter Theatre
in 2001. His comedy, Taking a Chance on Love, was the ScriptWorks
winner at the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART)
in 2006 and premiered there that year with a follow-up production
last summer at the Flat Rock Playhouse. His most recent musical,
Treasures, won the 2007 Paul Green Award from the North Carolina
Society of Historians.
The Playwright
William Luce first became acquainted with Emily Dickinson’s
poetry as a sophomore English student. Years later, through
a gift of Emily’s collected letters, he became increasingly
aware of her way of balancing richness and spareness, ecstasy
and despair. It was Luce’s hope, upon undertaking the writing
of The Belle of Amherst, to depict the humanity and reasonableness
of Emily Dickinson’s life.
Luce’s creative effort, preceded by two years of intensive
methodical research into her poems and letters, culminated in
the decision that a one-person play was uniquely suited to the
telling of Emily’s story, as she was seclusive and an individualist
of the highest order. Mr. Luce is also the playwright of The
Last Flapper, Lucifer’s Child, and Lillian, other one-woman
plays fashioned after the lives of Zelda Fitzgerald, Isak Dinesen,
and Lillian Hellman.
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