RICKMAN'S STORE AND THEATER THAN CAN BE DONE ANYWHERE!

Folks, what you are looking at is the interior of Rickman's Store, which is a century-old country store in Macon County, N. C. that has been preserved by the Tennessee Conservancy. Everything in the store is much as it was almost a century ago when the local residents bought everything from clothes, food, hardware and candy here. Last Saturday, it was the site of the play, "Prince of Dark Corners." Rickman's Store managers simply carried in chairs, covered the windows and left Steve Brady and his able assistants (his son and daughter) to work their magic. By turn, Rickman's Store became a jail cell in Asheville and the front porch of Lewis Redmond's home in 1906. I am an advocate for this kind of grassroots theater. I guess it is theater reduced to its simplest form: an empty space and a character-driven story of an Appalachian outlaw. (Please click on the photo!)

THE OUTLAW, REDMOND, RAIDS FRANKLIN

"THE PRINCE OF DARK CORNERS" WILL BE IN FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA ON OCTOBER 17TH AT THE TARTAN HALL LOCATED AT 26 CHURCH STREET. CURTAIN IS AT 7:00. TICKETS ARE $8.00.

"PRINCE OF DARK CORNERS" IS A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE AND THE "HERO" OF THIS DRAMATIC WORK IS MAJOR LEWIS REDMOND, WHO WAS ONCE CONSIDERED THE MOST NOTORIOUS OUTLAW IN THE UNITED STATES. REDMOND DEVELOPED A MOONSHINE OPERATION THAT SPREAD FROM OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA AND NORTH GEORGIA. THE TWO SCENES OF THE PLAY ARE: A JAIL CELL IN ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA (1881), AND REDMOND'S HOME NEAR SENECA, SOUTH CAROLINA (1906). VIEWED AS A "MOUNTAIN DEGENERATE" BY THE NORTHERN PRESS, REDMOND BECAME A HERO TO BELEAGUERED MOUNTAIN FARMERS WHO WERE UNABLE TO PAY THE EXORBITANT LAND TAXES ON THEIR PROPERTY UNTIL REDMOND PROVIDED THEM WITH A WAY TO PAY THEM - MOONSHINE. THIS PLAY HAS BECOME A PBS FILM AND IS NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD.