May 24, 2007 issue
Moses Cone: The Denim King Premieres May 30
Story by Ron Fitzwater
Moses Cone is identified as much with Blowing Rock as the natural wonder from which the town gets its name. His is an immigrant’s rags to riches story, and the legacy he left to the land and people he fell in love with echoes down the valleys from Flat Top mountain where Cone Manor stands today.
Cone’s life is celebrated in playwright Janet Barton Speer’s musical Moses Cone: The Denim King that the Blowing Rock Stage Company will present Wednesday, May 30, to Saturday, June 16, at the Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing Rock.
The story begins in the late 1800s, when Moses and Caesar Cone leave Baltimore, Md., for North Carolina. At the time, North Carolina was an untapped industrial and agricultural area, and the brothers discovered the need for a durable fabric for the blue-collar people of the High Country—a need Moses was all too capable of filling.
Speer, division chair for performing arts at Lees-McRae College and director of the college’s summer theater program, could not be happier with the progression of her play. “It started off when Doctor Medford of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation asked me to write a play about Moses Cone. As a musical kind of person, I called up my friend and composer John Thomas Oaks and we went to work on it.”
Research was the key to telling the story. “I have to give credit to the book where I got most of my information, A Mansion in the Mountains by Phillip Noblitt.
I approached the writing of the story of Moses with a history of musical theater, and what I tried to do was pull out key moments in his life and highlight them,” Speer said.
“I’m having fun with this process,” Speer continued. “As a playwright and choreographer, I get to work under someone else [as opposed to her normal duties as a director], and I really like that. It has been a different process for me.” Speer praised the Blowing Rock Stage Company. “We have worked so compatibly on this project. I am here working every day and the company is a delight to work with.”
The musical ends just before the point that some local residents may remember. “Most of the folks that remember the Cones personally remember Bertha, and her taking over stewardship of the home and lands is our stopping point. They will also remember the Cone sisters who spent much of their adult lives building one of the most extensive art collections in the world. This show is the setup of all that,” Speer explained. She said it would be impossible to tell the whole story of the Cone family in one show. “There would need to be probably three huge stories: Moses and Bertha, Bertha taking over after Moses’ death, and of course the sisters.”
One of the major themes in Speer’s work is the Cone’s community building. Although Jewish, the Cones built Protestant churches, recognizing the importance of faith in the community. They also built schools and contributed to the growing community because they thought that treating their workers well was the best way to operate. “What threw them was when the unions moved in. They just could not understand why their workers would want to unionize after they had taken care of them so well,” Speer said.
Moses Cone
Moses Cone was a serious-minded man, “very no-nonsense,” according to Speer. So who could step into those shoes? Enter Jim Ballard.
Ballard looks at his portrayal of Cone as “challenging” in that the play takes him from playing Moses at 18 until his death at 51. “It is a challenge to play the many stages of his life and the sickness that took his life in a two-hour show,” Ballard said.
Ballard said he used unusual influences to develop Cone’s personality. Because Cone was known as a taskmaster and organized manager, “I draw on my experiences as a U.S. Marine and the drill instructors I had in basic training at Paris Island, South Carolina. Also, I played Captain von Trapp in a production of The Sound of Music, and even though there is a slight time difference, von Trapp and Cone have a similar persona.”
Ballard discovered that even though Cone was a serious man, he worried that his style was seen as dictatorial. “He asked Bertha if she thought this was so, and she told him that if he was a dictator, he was a benevolent one. That is what the whole second act is about,” Ballard said.
On a personal note, Ballard said his main draw for accepting this role, and roles in the next two BRSC productions, was to come back to North Carolina and perform where his family, who lives in Charlotte, “could see me, because I work all over the country.”
From the Director
Blowing Rock Stage Company Producing Artistic Director Ken Kay is, to say the least, excited about the production. “This is an important project for us, and it being our inaugural show for the season makes it that much more so,” he said.
“I didn’t know a thing about the Cones when I first got here. I’m a transplanted Florida boy, so there was a learning process,” Kay continued. He was introduced to the idea of The Denim King through a meeting with Medford. “He told me he had commissioned a play about Cone. I knew Janet Speer, and after learning that she was writing it, I immediately became interested. I believe it’s the kind of thing that we have an obligation to do as a regional professional theater, creating work that celebrates the culture of the neighborhood in which you reside. That is a big part of what we are supposed to be doing as a professional theater.”
One of the major questions, after Kay’s initial reaction of “let’s do it,” was to look at the story in terms of a musical. “Moses Cone, a musical? Does that make sense?” he asked. “Well, they have done musicals about Evita and Jesus, and musicals can do things that can help tell a story and propel a plot line that is so superior to the spoken word sometimes, so I bought into the idea.”
Kay feels that one of the most important results to come out of the production as a renewed interest in the Cone legacy, what it means to Blowing Rock, “and the ability to share that legacy with visitors to the area,” he said.
“We have a large cast, the largest cast we have ever had in our history, but it’s a big story. Audiences like to get a bang for their money and when they hear 30 voices singing in harmony, I think they will get it.”
Kay said the production will be the Stage Company’s best yet. A lot of scene changes will give “spectacle and scope” to the production that only professional theater can provide.
“Mrs. Kay plays Bertha. We have been married for almost 18 years and have done close to 50 productions together, and I make no apology of using her as often as possible. She is absolutely a terrific actress. Jim Ballard auditioned for me in Florida when I went there for seasonal auditions. He has a terrific voice and demeanor, and he and Kim work wonderfully together. He also has the challenge of aging through the play and he has the acting chops to do that effectively,” Kay said.
“I wanted to do a play that would involve every major arts group in Watauga County and Avery as well. I have representatives from Lees-McRae, ASU School of Music, ASU Drama and Dance department. I have actors from the Blue Ridge Community Theater, plus other local actors who have worked with the Rocket Players program and of course our BRSC regulars. All these groups have come together and are working as we speak. It truly is a great thing to be a part of and we are having a terrific time.
“This show will take people back in time. For some it will be educational, and hopefully for everyone it will be entertaining. The people who have lived here all their lives will be reintroduced to their heritage. For those not native to the area, it will be an introduction to these very important people. The Cones still have an impact in the area; they came from the era of robber barons, and they shaped a lot of what Blowing Rock is today. It will be a pleasant evening of theater that will help, I hope, rekindle local pride in the Cone legacy.”
Tickets for Moses Cone: The Denim King are $30 for adults and $14 for students. Evening show times are 8:00 p.m. with 2:00 matinees on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Purchase tickets at the Hayes Center or order them by telephone at 828-295-9627 or online at www.brcac.org/tickets.php.
Want To Go?
Dates: Wednesday, May 30, to Saturday, June 16
Time: 8:00 p.m. with 2:00 matinees on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays
Location: Hayes Performing Arts Center
Cost: $30 adults / $14 students
Denim and Cider Celebration June 2
Next week, the musical drama Moses Cone: The Denim King will debut in its world premiere in Blowing Rock. To celebrate the world premiere, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation is collaborating with the Blowing Rock Historical Society, the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum and Appalachian State University to host one gala performance—Denim and Cider—on Saturday, June 2, beginning at 6:30.
Tickets are $40 per person, and the evening's festivities will include a reception catered by Café Portofino in Boone, music by jazz guitarist Andy Page from ASU, hard cider from Foggy Ridge Cider in Meadows of Dan, Va. and a performance of the play. Purchase tickets for the gala evening through the foundation’s office at 336-721-0260.
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