Trail of the Lonesome Pine Outdoor Drama
My son Brandon and his wife Misty were in from North Carolina this weekend and we all went down to Big Stone Gap to see the local outdoor drama "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" .It was first staged in 1964 and is the longest continually running Outdoor Drama in Virginia. It is based on a story by "John Fox Jr." . It's a fictional story based on real characters and characters that were a combination of two or more real characters. The heroine "June Tolliver" was based on the aurhors wife and a young girl Elizabeth Morris (pictured below) who lived in Big Stone Gap.
Right beside the Drama is the "June Tolliver House" .
The next picture is for madcapmum.
Labels: Brandon, John Fox Jr., June Tolliver House, Misty, Trail of the Lonesome Pine Drama
posted by H. Stallard @ 8:04 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Wow, there's a LOT of handwork in that quilt! Lovely.
I like the other photos too. Is that your son and his wife?
Yes, they're the ones who tried to pet the shark a few weeks back. I added another picture of Brandon on stage in the drama. They had men from the audience play the part of the juriors in the trial scene.
I thought you would enjoy the quilt. They are going to raffle it off in December with the procedes going to the drama and June Tolliver House. EVERYONE involved in the drama and the June Toliver House are volunteers.
The dude in the black hat and vest in the first picture is a former Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney.
And I would just like to point out that the Trail of the Lonesome Pine is the YANKEE telling of what happened where the heros are the yankees of course, and the locals are ignorant hillbillies, all except for June Tolliver who they will save by taking her away.
Just so happens that my great-grandmother told me the real story, see, since she hid the Red Fox before the yankees murdered him (through the court system no less). He was hated because he was telling the local ignorant hillbillies to not sell their mineral rights to the yankees who settled Big Stone Gap.
Although, make no mistake, I enjoy taking in the outdoor drama every decade or so! But don't miss the other side of the tale with Appalshop's The Second Hanging of Red Fox.
and you should post some photos of the quilts they sell at Purely Appalachian!
"the Trail of the Lonesome Pine is the YANKEE telling of what happened"
Yeah, I saw that right off this time...I hadn't realized it the other times I had seen the drama. We were talking afterwards and I said something to the effect that Dave Toliver (Hillbilly Bad Guy who tries to kill the Yankee hero) in one of his scenes with June where he was trying to get her to see that the yankee was trying to change them and was making fun of them and their ways...anyway to me he was the one in the right about that but the rest of my family just couldn't see it. In a way the Drama is perpetuating the very myth about the ignorant hillbillies.
oh, I'd say definitely. BSG, along with Abingdon and Jonesborough, are yankee enclaves, the owners, the interlopers, and to get to the real folk, you have to go back in the coal camps, and to places like Coeburn.
Still, nothing against the drama, or the places for that matter. Just know what you are dealing with and don't pretend that that is the true hillbilly way (grin).
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