HART’s Season of Blockbusters in Waynesville

The Haywood Arts Regional Theater will kick off it’s 28th season in Waynesville with the Thomas Wolfe classic Look Homeward Angel.

Adapted for the stage by Ketti Frings, the Pulitzer Prize winning drama is set in the fictional town of Altamont, but few will have trouble recognizing Asheville. In the 1920’s when Wolfe’s first novel debuted it was a thinly veiled autobiography that shocked his hometown.

Look Homeward Angeltells the story of the Gant family, living in the fictional Altamont, and the Dixieland Boarding House, operated by a domineering matriarch who used her children as free labor. A “parade of pimps, prostitutes and ne’er-do-wells” populated the rambling barn of a house, wrote Wolfe.

Young Eugene and his brother Ben joke about going to the dark side of town for a little “jellyroll,” a term that was scandalous at the time. People in Asheville recognized themselves among the book’s two hundred plus characters, and young Tom Wolfe, despite his literary success, was an outcast. The writer would not come back to Asheville for eight long years. He would title his final novel You Can’t Go Home Again.

In the book young Eugene would go off to study at Chapel Hill, just as Wolfe had done a few years before. The father in the story, W.O. is a stone carver who has spent his life trying unsuccessfully to reproduce a statue of an angel he has in his shop which was created by someone else. The actual angel is now in a graveyard in Hendersonville and is a place of pilgrimage for fans of the novel. My Old Kentucky Home is currently the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in Asheville.

HART’s production is being directed by Steve Lloyd and Tom Dewees, who also played Ben in an earlier, thinner day. The cast includes Mark Highsmith as Eugene, Tommy Cooley as Ben, Andrea Cody as Eliza and Roger Magendie as W.O. with Shonda Davis, Tim Stoeckel, John Winfield, Bryan Nicholls, Charlie Marth, Christy Bishop, Jennifer Sanner, Erica Davis, Holly Ann Harmon, Terry Nienhuis, Hugh Burford and Teresa Breakey filling out the rest of the ensemble.

Following “Look Homeward Angel” HART will present “The Marvelous Wonderettes” debuting May 25 for a three week run. The show is set at a 1958 high school prom and features music of that period in the first act and jumps to the tenth reunion for act two, with the music of the late 60’s. The show is being directed by Mark Jones, who wowed audiences two seasons back as Buddy Holly. Jones promises an equally good time with the Wonderettes, who are played by Tierney Cody, Tabitha Judy, Morgan St. Clair, and Kelli Brown Mullinix.

July will bring La Cage Aux Folles, a big splashy musical based on The Bird Cage, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, composer of Hello Dolly and Mame. In August HART will present the Neil Simon comedy Lost in Yonkers, in October the Tony Award winning musical romance Light in the Piazza, and the season will end with the Pulitzer Prize winning August Osage County.

For information about season tickets, auditions, and volunteer opportunities visit www.harttheatre.com.

HART’s production of Look Homeward Angel will have performances April 27, 28, May 3, 4, 5 at 7:30 p.m., and April 29 and May 6 at 3 p.m. Tickets: $20 for adults; $18 for seniors; student/teachers $8. Special $6 discount tickets for Students and Teachers for Thursday and Sunday only. Box Office Hours: Monday-Saturday 1-5 p.m.

Call (828) 456-6322 for reservations. Tickets available at www.harttheatre.com. Performing Arts Center at the Shelton House, 250 Pigeon St., Waynesville, NC.