Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260164
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FERRUM LENGTH: Medium
You just knew it was going to happen.
All those shenanigans in the Franklin County town of Boones Mill were bound to start somebody's creative juices flowing.
Rex Stephenson, playwright and artistic director of the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre at Ferrum College, was sitting in his basement earlier this year with his friend John "Stretch" Beach.
Another installment in the real-life Boones Mill soap opera was being reported on the television news.
Recalls Stephenson: "I looked over and John said to me: 'This could write itself.'"
So, Stephenson and Beach - a government teacher at Auburn High School in Montgomery County - tacked up a stack of newspaper accounts across the basement walls and started writing a script at the only time the two could get together - late at night.
"We laughed as we went along," Beach said, laughing.
"Whenever we reached a sticking point, we'd just go to the newspapers and, bingo, something would just hop out at us," Stephenson said. "We'd go wake up our wives at about 1 a.m. and say, 'Honey, do you think this is funny?'"
Out of the basement came a melodrama called "Glen Myth and the Legend of Boones Hill," which recently played to its second sold-out audience in a tent on the Ferrum College campus.
It's a hoot.
Boones Hill has Myth, the town's police officer, who drives a souped-up Camaro police car, chases Yankee speeders, and doesn't always see eye-to-eye with the town's mayor, who goes by the last name of Psylmer.
In Boones Mill, town policeman Lynn Frith drives a fully equipped Camaro Z-28 police car and can usually be found running radar on either end of the town limits on U.S. 220.
And Frith has had his disagreements with the town's mayor, Steve Palmer. Palmer attempted to suspend Frith from his job for a week recently because he was only ticketing speeders going 59 mph or more within the town's 45-mph speed zone. Frith earlier had threatened to investigate the mayor for an incident surrounding the repair of a citizen's water line at the town's expense.
Because the world turns at breakneck speed in Boones Mill, Stephenson has been updating the script to keep up with current events.
The play pokes fun by using similar story lines and characters whose names bear an uncanny resemblance to those of local news makers.
There's Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Halfgood (Cliff Hapgood), Sheriff Overdone (Sheriff W.Q. Overton), Councilwoman Virginia Rose Apparel (Virginia Carroll) and upstanding town citizen Homer Homer Homer (Boone District Supervisor Homer Murray).
The newsmakers were invited to come see the play.
Frith attended the first performance June 16.
"People were looking over at me to see how I was going to react," he said. "I thought it was great. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life."
Frith even sent a letter to the cast, inviting members to take a ride with him in the Z-28.
"It's important to find the humor in life," he said.
Jon Cohn, who plays Glen Myth, said he knew Frith was in the audience.
"I was kind of worried about it, because we're pretty hard on [Glen Myth] at times."
Cohn, 21, of Fairfax, is a senior drama major at Ferrum. He said he didn't talk to Frith as part of his preparation for the role, but he'd seen the Camaro in Boones Mill and was well aware of the stories behind it.
"Besides," Cohn said, "the character isn't really [Lynn Frith]. I had more of a Barney Fife-type in mind."
The play's plot: So-called movie maker Steven Spellbooger arrives in Boones Hill and announces his next film will be about the town. But Spellbooger has a devious plan that he hopes to spring on those attending Boones Hill's annual Apple Bobbing festival.
Intertwined is the stormy relationship of Psylmer and Myth - "Why am I so antagonistic toward this man?," both characters ask themselves periodically during the play.
In the end, the characters let the audience decide whether the feuding should go on.
Guess what?
It's feuding 2, no feuding, 0.
"But the people who actually live in Boones Mill always vote for it to stop," Stephenson said.
Because the scheduled final performance of the play on June 30 is sold out, another date has been set for July 2, Stephenson said.
The July 2 performance will be held in Ferrum's auditorium.
For tickets, call 703-365-4335.
by CNB