The Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre at Ferrum College will open the new year with a production of You Caught Me Dancing. Directed by Rex Stephenson, the play written by Bernard Sabath stars Emily Blankenship-Tucker as Katy Leary, who was a servant and companion in Mark Twain’s home for thirty years. Performances are in the Rex Stephenson Theatre January 24 and 25 at 7 p.m. and January 26 at 2 p.m., with dinner available before each show.
Set six months after Mark Twain’s death in 1910, the play depicts Katy Leary closing the family home. She tells an unseen friend humorous and heart-warming stories about her years with Twain (whose real name was Samuel Clemens), his wife, and their daughters, as she considers how to make a new life for herself. Stephenson said that this play will “showcase Emily Blankenship-Tucker’s talents and her ability to play different characters,” since she creates 14 different individuals to recount Leary’s interactions with the Clemens family and friends.
Dramatic Publishing’s description says the script “challenges every bit of comedic and dramatic skill [an actress] possesses.” Blankenship-Tucker, program coordinator for music and theatre at Ferrum College, said that “it is great fun to be working on this show under Rex’s direction after watching Rex portray Mark Twain in his own show for so many years.”
Stephenson, who founded the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre in 1979, played this role about 150 times since the 1980s, in shows he developed based on Twain’s writings about his life and his long career as America’s most popular humorist, lecturer, and author. Stephenson said it’s interesting to “look at Mark Twain from a different angle” through this play.
Katy Leary was a young seamstress in an Irish family when she moved from Elmira to Hartford, New York to work for Mrs. Clemens and her family. Mary Lawton, who knew the Clemens family, interviewed Leary at length later in her life. Twain and his daughter Clara had observed that an account of the family’s life in Leary’s voice would be of great value. In 1925 Lawton published a book based on her interviews, The Memories of Katy Leary, for Thirty Years His Faithful and Devoted Servant. Sabath’s script You Caught Me Dancing was published in 1987.
TJ Baker ‘24, who works as an intern at the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre, is stage manager for this production. College students will participate as crew members and provide some music along with Blankenship-Tucker in the play.
Tickets for the production Jan. 24-26 ($10 for adults) are available at https://www.ferrum.edu/theatre-showings/. Additional reservations for meals in Franklin Hall, next door to the theatre in Schoolfield Hall, must be ordered in advance for Jan. 25 and 26; on Jan. 24 the college dining hall’s Fish Fry Friday (all-you-can-eat buffet) is available without reservations before the show. For additional information, email [email protected] or call the box office at (540) 365-4355 and leave a message. Both Schoolfield Hall and Franklin Hall are handicapped accessible.
