Welcome to the Blog for UNC Asheville's Production of Thousand Kites

This blog will be a place where anyone involved in the production of the University of North Carolina at Asheville's production of Donna Porterfield's powerful play Thousand Kites will write about their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences leading up top the November 14 2007 opening.

Thousand Kites is a pay about the effects of the American prison system on inmates, guards, their families, and their communities. The play compiles the actual words and writings of people connected in some way to the Wallens Ridge Supermax Prison in Big Stone Gap, VA. It is performed along with a showing of the documentary Up the Ridge, which was created by Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY -- a brilliant grassroots organization devoted to creating films, CDs, radio shows, and theatre about the coal mining communities of Appalachia. Appalshop created a radio show called Holler 2 the Hood, which allowed the families of inmates incarcerated in Wallens Ridge to call and have greetings broadcast over the radio to the inmates. From that radio show came many of the words and letters that comprise the text of Thousand Kites.

In the spring of 1997, I took students from my Theatre of the Oppressed class to visit Appalshop. While we were there, we had the great fortune of meeting Amelia Kirby, one of the producers of Up the Ridge (along with Nick Szuberla). She screened Up the Ridge for us, and everyone was blown away. At the time, she indicated that Roadside Theatre, the theatrical wing of Appalshop, was creating a play to accompany the documentary. We later met Donna Porterfield and Dudley Cocke, two of the leaders of Roadside, who told us more about the Thousand Kites project. By the time we left late that night, we were truly excited about the project.

This August, I attended the AlternateROOTS conference outside of Asheville, and I was thrilled to see that Amelia Kirby would be there doing a session on the Thousand Kites project. When I got there, she was handing out copies of the completed script! Well, even though I was scheduled to do a different production in November, I immediately decided that the opportunity to participate in this project was too good to pass up. I pitched the idea to my colleagues in the Drama Department who, God bless 'em, were a little stunned at the sudden change of direction but gave the project the green light.

Since then, we have created a webpage where those involved with the project can gather their research. I have also organized two reading circles comprised of cast members, faculty, staff, and community members to read Alan Elsner's excellent book, Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prison. One member of the reading circle, Patti Digh, wrote about reading the book on her blog 37 Days, and as a result, she received an email from Mr. Elsner thanking her for mentioning the book. A series of emails resulted in an incredibly generous offer by Mr Elsner to come to campus for the first two performances of Thousand Kites and speak about his book and the issues surrounding the prison system. Playwright Donna Porterfield will also be attending the opening performance, which we be the world premiere of a fully-staged production of the play. And there is a possibility that Amelia Kirby and/or Nick Szuberla will attend as well.

We began rehearsals Wednesday, October 1oth and are starting slowly while we wait for the Drama Dept's production of Jungalbook to complete it's run at Diana Wortham Theatre November 17 - 19.

It is my hope that everyone involved will be inspired to contribute something to this blog. If you read this and are interested, please feel free to comment on anything we write. If you wish to communicate privately, my email is swalters@unca.edu.

Scott Walters
Assoc. Professor
UNC Asheville Drama Dept.