In 2001, The Kentucky Cycle was performed in its entirety at the Breaks Interstate Park in Appalachia. What follows is a brief memoir by two of the participants.

The Kentucky Cycle Homecoming

By

Timothy Williams
With invaluable contributions from Michael Marinaccio

  The rain began to fall around the time my good friend Mike Marinaccio and I passed through a deserted mining town in Pike County Kentucky. On our way to the Breaks Interstate Park, which sits on the border of Kentucky and Virginia, to perform in a production of The Kentucky Cycle we beheld the devastation of an otherwise beautiful landscape now drenched in the cold June rain shower. The topless mountains to our right were stripped, the trees felled, and the images so powerfully evoked in Robert Schenkkan’s epic were materializing right before our eyes. We paused for dinner at the Rusty Fork in Elkhorn City, knowing full well we would be late for rehearsal, but famished beyond the point of caring. Sweet tea, fried chicken, and canned beans had never tasted so good, and shortly after our respite we continued up the mountains into the Cumberland Plateau. Once inside the Park we could see a small group of people huddled together under a picnic canopy taking shelter from the pelting rain. This ragtag group consisted mostly of young individuals reading through the script, nearly plodding along with what seemed like a great deal of effort. At an appropriate stopping place one of the young men glanced up from his script, smiled feebly, and said, “thank God the real actors are here.” Mike and I glanced at each other, and the look in his eyes had never been so clear. “What have we gotten ourselves into,” they asked, and I exhaled a tired and bemused sigh of agreement.

  This particular production sprang from the mind of Stephanie Richards, a Kentucky native attending Chicago’s Roosevelt University. It was her intent to mount The Kentucky Cycle exactly where the play based its dramatic action, and to bring theater to a community where most of the residents had never seen a live play. As the thesis of Richard’s master’s degree in directing, the nine-play cycle was going to be a joint effort of local community actors, former high school students taught by Stephanie in Orlando, and professional actors. The play was to be performed on the outdoor amphitheater stage of Breaks Interstate Park, located just outside of Elkhorn City, Richard’s hometown. The production would be embraced by many members of the community, both in Kentucky and Virginia, who donated money and time to ensure the project would be a success. There would also be opposition, however, in particular from the Breaks Park Commission that had approved the play for performance on their stage, but objected to the language and violence depicted in the piece. Several newspaper articles were written before the play started rehearsing that stated the production might not get off the ground if Richards didn’t comply with the Commission’s demands for a less offensive version of Schenkkan’s work. In an editorial written in a local newspaper by Katrina Suzanne Thacker, of Pikeville, Kentucky, she declares that, “I cannot understand why the members of the Breaks Commission oppose something that will promote more awareness of the history of our people. Maybe some are afraid they will see themselves in this play.” Richards eventually obtained permission from Schenkkan himself to change some of the offensive language. The Commission was happy, for now, and the production began its arduous path to public performance.
 
  I had been officially hired as a professional actor to perform the roles of Michael and Joshua Rowen, and Mike was hired to portray Young Patrick Rowen and Scotty Rowen. Both of us had performed in a rather successful two-part version of the play in college eight years earlier, so our enthusiasm for the project was unmarred at this point. Four other professional actors had been brought up to Appalachia from Orlando, Florida to take part in the ambitious production, Brook Hanneman, Katrina Ploof, Sam Hazel, and Ray Hatch. Upon arrival, however, it became apparent that we were the only professionals involved, besides Richards, our stage manager, and the technical director, who was acting as both set and lighting designer. Initially, Mike and I were perplexed at the decision to use so many community theater actors in a play that could be considered daunting to even the most wealthy of regional theaters. That perplexity was soon replaced with horror when we realized that most of the cast had never even stepped foot on a stage. Most of the males volunteering to be in the play were football players on the Pikeville College football team. There was no crew to speak of, only volunteers who were also rehearsing their multiple roles. Not only did our company have to contend with the elements of working outdoors in the summer heat and humidity, fighting off vicious mosquitoes, staging six hours of a nine play epic, costuming nearly thirty people, and constructing a set with no crew, but we also had to teach more than half the cast how to act. Our production was not just another play being mounted in some regional theater’s regular season; this was going to be a test of will power, patience, self-control, team spirit, and character. The next step, and one I am ashamed to say came slow to me, but fitted the adaptability of Mike perfectly, was in accepting the new responsibilities that were added daily to our roles of being actors. The set had to be constructed on days off, and it was painfully clear that in the limited time available the young members of the cast who doubled as impromptu carpenters were not going to have everything finished by opening night without the help of everyone involved. Props and costume pieces had to be gathered from various towns in Kentucky and Virginia. Cast members were hastily coached in acting and vocal technique. Mike, Katrina, and I directed some scenes while Stephanie continued to block the rest of the show. We eventually shouldered our new tasks with focused resolve, and to the best our abilities contributed admirably to the process by making the most of a situation that challenged even the strongest optimists among us. Some of those challenges, however, nearly destroyed all of our efforts over the next few weeks.

  Fed on a constant diet of baloney sandwiches and Kool-Aid, canned vegetables, and white bread generously provided by Stephanie’s mother, the company’s energy, nonetheless, began to fade. Feeding that many people over a six week rehearsal period was a challenge, and one that under budget constraints began to fit the mold of Eastern Kentucky dietary habits: overfed and under nourished. Tempers and egos began to flare as anxiety over the success of the project climbed to a peak. The local actors began feeling the strain when responsibilities from their daily lives escalated while more of their time was being demanded of them for rehearsals. Rod Boyd was a drama teacher in Virginia with another life to contend with outside of the enormous amount of hours he dedicated to the production. Basil Clark was in the same situation as a professor at Pikeville College. Mike Marinaccio noted that Rick, who was playing two rather large roles and had never performed onstage until now, was not only trying to run his own ATV business, but was also battling a near nervous breakdown from self doubt and insecurity over his performance. Gospel sings in the Park were being staged every Saturday at the amphitheater which cut into precious rehearsal and set-building time, and on one disastrous occasion the crew entered the performance space to find that Park employees had dismantled the entire raked platform we constructed to jut out from the concrete stage, and thoughtlessly cast it aside to make room for bluegrass musicians. Apparently the Commission’s generosity was rapidly waning. My own personal hardships were compounded by an automobile accident, in which no one was seriously hurt, but in which my car was totaled and out of commission for seven of the nine weeks I spent in the Appalachian Mountains. A back injury during rehearsals for the Courtship of Morning Star left me physically broken and mentally strained for three weeks of rehearsals, and my confidence in the production was crippled to the point of despair. Mike and I had been fighting and were barely talking to each other at this point. That same despair escalated to disillusionment in Mike who had taken on far too many tasks outside the role of actor, and was now performing in seven of the nine plays of the cycle.

  Mike’s exhaustion and despondency erupted in the middle of a typically hard put rehearsal when he responded to the stress by simply taking his leave. Without much ado he merely walked off the stage and informed me that he was exiting not only the Park, he was abandoning Kentucky itself. Enough was enough for Mike, and it was up to me to drive him to Louisville where he would board the first plane bound for Florida. I fully supported Mike and his decision. I even offered to forego the flight and retrieve my car to drive with him back to Orlando. That car ride down the mountain, however, turned out to be a momentous turning point in our harrowed experience. The goal of driving to the airport was replaced by stopping for a milkshake, an apt metaphor for cooling off and reassessing our situation. We talked for the first time in days about why we were in these hills. We discussed the importance of following through with what we had begun. We reminded ourselves that we were professionals. Most importantly, and most profoundly, we knew we could never abandon the cast or the friendships we had forged in these scarred mountains of Eastern Kentucky. Why would we leave in the middle of so much work being done by eager people, young and old, who were overcoming obstacles that towered over our petty headaches? How could we abandon Rick when he was fighting like mad to shine on that stage? How dare us leave fourteen year old Jasmine Osburne who was shaping up to be an incredible Young Mary Ann, and whose parents would bring fried chicken and sweet tea to the hungry company without being asked. Who were we to dismiss the efforts of football players who were willing to miss summer practice in order to drive over an hour to rehearsals? What example were we setting for the non-paid high school students who were sleeping three hours a night, constructing sets, and learning lines? The local people were working harder than any professional I had ever encountered, and they were doing it because they had faith in this play. The Kentucky Cycle was telling the story of their history, and it was reliving the struggles of their families and friends, people they knew and loved. They were invested far beyond any cast with whom I had ever had the pleasure of working. We did not go to the airport that day. We did not go home to Florida. We stayed in Kentucky, and we opened that play to an enormous, eager crowd of Virginia and Kentucky residents hungry for our storytelling.

  Over the course of our run, hundreds of people came to the amphitheater to see both parts of the Kentucky Cycle. Many people came to the six-hour play more than once. Marlow Tackett, a local musician and bar owner who supported our company with advertising and other needed resources attended at least two performances with friends and family. After a performance I conversed with a gentleman who fought in Vietnam and was addicted to the pills he fed himself daily to stave off neck and back pain that was a direct result of mining coal when he returned home from the war. He watched the play that evening, and it moved him deeply. Several miners and their families attended the production and were swept away by memories of union strikes that occurred in the eighties, and recalled to Stephanie Richards how scabs were threatened at gun point when coming to work. Most of the audiences had never witnessed live theater before, and their responses were visceral, audible, and feverish. There were times on stage that I had the impression that this must have been what it was like when actors performed Shakespeare to Elizabethan audiences four hundred years ago. Gasps could be heard when a character died or performed some unspeakable act, and several audience members were moved to declarations of “amen” as if seated at a church revival. My wife traveled to Kentucky to see a Sunday performance, which began at two in the afternoon and concluded at ten o’clock in the evening after the audience and cast were given a dinner break. A harsh theater critic, she wept through the entire piece and marveled at how the amateur actors tackled their performances with strength and conviction while a rapt audience devoured every word. The power of The Kentucky Cycle’s story overcame any of our production’s flaws or the shortcomings of our resources and planning, and the emotional and physically draining experience was translated on stage in every one of the actors’ performances. The highest accolades received by cast and crew came during intermission one evening when four residents of Dickenson County, Virginia stepped up on stage and gave each member of the cast a rose, and presented the Artists Collaborative Theatre with the Key to the County for its production of the Kentucky Cycle. The four locals consisted of a woman in her nineties, her daughter and granddaughter, and the granddaughter’s teenage son. They represented four generations of Appalachian residents, and their gesture reminded me of the milkshake conversation with Mike and definitively answered our question of why we were in these hills.

  During the sweltering summer of 2001 the “Grand Canyon of the East” was host to a remarkable piece of literature that celebrated a community’s heritage and paid homage to the very trees under whose sheltering canopy the play was performed. Never before had a theatrical experience so moved me as an artist, and I have never since been witness to the awesome affect a single play can have on those who participate in its conception and on the individuals who watch and listen in the audience. With the power of a tremendous script, the dedication of a strong and spiritual community, and the persistent drive of an eclectic cast and crew, theatre far exceeded even its most noble aspirations by feeding a community starved of the entertainment and emotional catharsis that our production had to offer. Despite the difficulties of overcoming personal fears, performing an epic script with amateurs, battling the harsh elements of nature, succumbing to passionate outbursts of ego and pain, and fighting temptations to give up on the project all together, we all succeeded at opening people’s hearts and minds with Robert Schenkkan’s gift of story telling. The legacy of the production lives on in the ACT organization that educates residents of Eastern Kentucky about theatre arts and gives them an opportunity to participate in the creation and execution of live theatre. Mirroring the proud, strong hearts of the people of Kentucky, chronicled in their history and evident in their culture, beauty rose up out of chaos and pain on the stage of Breaks Interstate Park. The Kentucky Cycle had come home to Appalachia.