"The Belle of Amherst," William Luce's legendary one-woman play about our country's greatest poet, Emily Dickinson, comes to the New England Youth Theatre for one weekend only, October 2nd through the 5th.
Directed by Peter Gould, and starring NEYT veteran Shannon Ward, "Belle" is deep, funny, quirky, passionate, and riveting good theater.
Playwright Luce constructed the fascinating drama from Dickinson's poems, letters, and secret diaries. We see a personality and a poetry mostly mis-taught and misunderstood in high school. Dickinson, says director Gould, was "modern, madcap, bold, nosey, monstrously inept socially, imaginative, sarcastic, sadomasochistic, and brilliant, and it all comes out in this play."
"The Belle of Amherst" has been in constant repertory around the U.S. since its Broadway debut in 1976. Now, in 2008, "Belle" is a perfect companion to the Brattleboro Literary Festival on the same weekend: young actress Shannon Ward, assisted by Luce and Gould, reveals the consciousness and biography of the truly remarkable woman who hid out in her house and came out totally in her poetry, unpublished in her own lifetime.
Directed by Peter Gould, and starring NEYT veteran Shannon Ward, "Belle" is deep, funny, quirky, passionate, and riveting good theater.
Playwright Luce constructed the fascinating drama from Dickinson's poems, letters, and secret diaries. We see a personality and a poetry mostly mis-taught and misunderstood in high school. Dickinson, says director Gould, was "modern, madcap, bold, nosey, monstrously inept socially, imaginative, sarcastic, sadomasochistic, and brilliant, and it all comes out in this play."
"The Belle of Amherst" has been in constant repertory around the U.S. since its Broadway debut in 1976. Now, in 2008, "Belle" is a perfect companion to the Brattleboro Literary Festival on the same weekend: young actress Shannon Ward, assisted by Luce and Gould, reveals the consciousness and biography of the truly remarkable woman who hid out in her house and came out totally in her poetry, unpublished in her own lifetime.