Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

February 28, 2008 issue

Horn in the West Hires New Artistic Director

Story by Sam Calhoun

Julie Richardson never got her closing night at Horn in the West.

After working at the outdoor drama for many years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richardson’s closing night came in 1983, but rain cancelled the performance and she can remember sobbing backstage, believing that she would never return to work on the show.

But never say never. Richardson, a Boone native, has returned home after working at various outdoor dramas and theaters across the nation and is now the new artistic director for Horn in the West. The outdoor drama is preparing for its 57th annual season that begins on June 20 and continues until August 16.

Horn in the West is not new to Richardson. Both her parents worked at Horn in the West in the 1970s and Richardson can remember watching the show—when it was still called Echoes of the Blue Ridge—as a little girl perched on the hillside facing the stage.

After graduating from Watauga High School, Richardson enrolled in ASU studying theater communications and got her first taste of the thespian life. It was 1979, and Richardson took an interest in Horn in the West, helping out with the light design, scenic design and organizing the shop. Soon after, the Horn in the West crew recognized her talent and hired her as production manager.

From 1979 to 1983, Richardson spilt her time between working as Horn’s production manager in the summer and working as the stage manager for the Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tenn. during the fall, winter and spring. Her goal, though, was to become an equity stage manager and that quest led her away from Horn in the West in 1983.

After missing her closing night at the Horn due to rain, Richardson took a job as a lighting designer with a traveling company of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Richardson spent four years working in Alabama.

In Alabama, Richardson met her ex-husband and the couple moved to Atlanta to work at the Alliance Theater. From there, Richardson moved on to St. Petersburg, Fla. where she worked as a stage manager for two years.

“Basically, I’ve been on the road since 1979,” said Richardson.

Richardson recently came back to the High Country to work with the Blowing Rock Stage Company—an equity company that allows Richardson to keep her union insurance. While in Blowing Rock some time ago, Ed Pilkington—a close friend of Richardson’s who originally helped her get a job at the Horn—told Richardson about the job opening at Horn in the West and encouraged her to apply.

“Ed [Pilkington] is my mentor in this,” said Richardson, who also thanked the Blowing Rock Stage Company for allowing her to split her time, enabling her to keep her insurance. 

After figuring out how to split her time between the Blowing Rock Stage Company and Horn in the West, Richardson accepted the offer and has been hard at work ever since.

Richardson has plans to use one of the Horn in the West scripts from the 1970s—one that includes more scenes with Native Americans and provides more character and relationship development—to reinvigorate the show. She is also calling on old friends of the Horn to come back to the show, sans payment, and help bring it back to life. For instance, one of the old set designers for Horn in the West now builds sets for Saturday Night Live and has agreed to come back to help, and an old Horn actor is coming back to assistant direct for free.

“They’re doing it out of a love for the Horn and what it taught them when they were young,” said Richardson. 

Richardson is also making an appeal to community members and past employees for help with the production. In addition to physically volunteering, Richardson is looking for anything that will help offset the overhead of putting on such a show, such as donated fabric, clothes, old guns, clothing detergent or laundry services. 

“We can use everyone’s support to get Horn on the map again,” said Richardson. “People need to remember that [Horn in the West] was one of the draws that brought people to Boone in the first place. I want to invite people to come out and learn our own history again.”

Richardson said that the core trio of actors in the outdoor drama—Wes Martin as Daniel Boone, Jenny Cole Reed as Mrs. Morris and Darrell King as Reverend Isaiah Sims—will return for their roles this summer, but the other roles will be filled through open auditions. One of those auditions occurred on February 23, but the second session of open auditions is scheduled for Saturday, March 15, at the Institute for Outdoor Drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.