A man and his horse, a country to protect, history’s most notorious pirate, and don’t forget the Nazis. This year, Western Carolina University’s radio show has it all.
Director Peter Savage(Far left) Writer and Producer Don Connelly (Middle) and actress Holly Records (Far right) practice for the performance. Photo by: Julia Hudgins
WCU will be broadcasting a performance of “Blackbeard’s Ghost and The Queen Anne’s Revenge” in the Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday March 17.
This broadcast will mark the eighth performance and collaboration in between not only different departments and colleges at WCU but also with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra as well.
The radio show was researched, written and produced by the communication department head, Don Connelly. The music was composed by the musical director and WCU’s school of music professor, Bruce Frazier, and the performance is directed by stage and screen visiting assistant professor, Peter Savage.
“Blackbeard’s Ghost” is not simply a story about the famous pirate, it also ties in a young man’s story who is in the coast guard protecting the coast of North Carolina against Nazi spies and U-boats with the help of his horse. So how is the pirate Blackbeard connected to the story? Well according to Connelly it is a mystery that the audience will have to discover on Thursday.
Connelly and Frazier spent almost a year researching and writing both the story and the music for the performance.
“We call it academic based entertainment for a reason, there is a lot of research. All of the places in the drama are real of the people are real…and I had to do research on this stand point,” Connelly said.
The show, like the ones that came before it, pays homage to the golden age of radio.
“The way we present it on stage is how it would be done and how it was done in 1938 when the networks would take a show out to a major theater. That was not at all unusual. They do it in New York and they did it in LA. We used to do it in the Pantages theater in LA which seated 3.000 people…The actors were all dressed, the men all wore tuxedos, the ladies in evening gowns,” Connelly explained.
Tickets are $10 and all of the money raised goes towards creating scholarships for WCU’s students.
