With over 90 events scheduled for the Palustris Festival, you can find many events for every taste.
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RSS(Vocus) March 17, 2010
Theater and film play a significant role in the community-wide Palustris Festival, a four-day celebration of the performing, visual and literary arts in Moore County, NC scheduled for March 25th through the 28th. All of the theater and film events evoke times gone by, with the exception of a screening from the National Film Festival for Talented Youth.
Presented by The Rooster’s Wife at the Poplar Knight Spot in Aberdeen on Saturday afternoon between 2 and 4, the showing will include films from the largest youth film festival in the country. Refreshments will be served and the cost to attend the screening is $5, with children under 12 admitted at no charge. Go to http://www.PalustrisFestival.com for more information.
Running the entire length of the festival is the critically acclaimed film, Blood Done Sign My Name. Recently released, this film tells the story of a civil-rights struggle and a killing of a black man in Oxford, North Carolina and was summed up by one reviewer, who commented, “If you know how to look, history doesn’t take place too fast to be seen.”
At the Friday night showing of the film at the Sunrise Theater, special guests include Vernon Tyson, the author’s father, a pastor of one of the town’s churches during the incident, who will speak before the movie is shown. Felton Capel, who integrated the Sunrise Theater by sitting in the front row instead of in the “colored only” balcony, will make remarks as well.
For this showing, the event will begin at 7 pm, and all seats are reserved at the usual admission price. The other showings are on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings at 7:30 and a matinee at 2:30 on Sunday. The film is rated PG-13 and tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for children.
Brought back by popular demand and fittingly in time for the Palustris Festival is A Thousand Things Time Will Never Let Us Say: The Correspondence of James A. and Katharine Boyd and Friends. Compiled by author/historian/English professor Stephen Smith and directed by Marsha Warren, the reading play is being presented at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and
Humanities on Friday night at 7 pm. The work brings to life the Boyds’ literary guests of the tumultuous 1930’s through letters between James and Katharine Boyd and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Paul Green and Sherwood Anderson. A reception will follow the reading. The cost for the evening is $20 and space is limited.
A festive bit of drama will be played out in front of the Southern Pines Train Depot on Saturday morning at 10 am, when Ray Owen, on behalf of the Moore County Historical Association, produces and directs a theatrical reenactment of Greeting the Train with the Sound of Southern Pines Memory. Based on two historical greetings that helped found Southern Pines, the outdoor drama re-creates the choir known as the Singing Society that welcomed incoming trains, and takes note of the correspondence between potential northern settlers and local Scottish families.
The presentation bears witness to the power of that early culture, with roots reaching back for generations. The event is co-sponsored by the Moore County Historical Association and the Town of Southern Pines, with many other civic groups and organizations also lending their support.
On Sunday, March 28 at 1 pm, the Rooster’s Wife presents a staged reading of the 2009 Winner of the Roanoke Chowan Award for Poetry by Pat Riviere-Seel. The work, titled The Serial Killer’s Daughter, is the account of the life of Velma Barfield, convicted and executed murderer, from the point of view of her daughter. The reading will take place at the Poplar Knight Spot in Aberdeen, and the cost is $10.
Rounding out the selection of theater and film selections during the Palustris Festival on Sunday afternoon at 3:30 is a performance of a riveting one-woman play. The Oldest Living Confederate Widow: Her Confession was adapted for the stage by actress Jane Holding, who plays the title role, and Allan Gurganus from his best-selling novel, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. A remarkable woman reveals her secrets one by one, in this harrowing and hilarious comedy about wars, both Civil and domestic.
The play is directed by Katja Hill and produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. It will be presented at the Old Bethesda Church in Aberdeen, by the Moore County Historical Association, and the cost is $15.
The choice is yours, so start now to plan out your schedule for the Palustris Festival Weekend. You can get help by going to the Festival’s website at http://www.palustrisfestival.com.
You can find a listing of all the events, including information about their dates, times and locations, as well as how to get tickets for the various events. General information is also available by calling 800 346-5362.
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