A Bardstown Legend Turns 65 With a New Season of “The Stephen Foster Story”
In the summer of 1959, a dazzling musical production focusing on one year in the life of songwriter Stephen Collins Foster debuted in an outdoor amphitheater on the grounds of My Old Kentucky Home State Park.
When it returns this June for its 65th season, Kentucky’s favorite outdoor musical will still be going strong.
Johnny Warren, executive director of the Stephen Foster Drama Association, says there are many reasons why “The Stephen Foster Story” still resonates with people after seven decades.
“The first is obviously the winning combination of Stephen Foster’s music and a script written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green,” says Warren, who notes that the play “also gives audiences a picture not just of Foster, the most prolific songwriter of his time and the first in America to earn a living by publishing his songs, but a look at the turbulent conditions in the country during the 1850s.”
Helping to bring this extravagant musical to life is a talented cast of 49 – 50 if you count Cooper, the beagle pup who is a bona fide scene-stealer in the role of Old Dog Tray (the shaggy subject of an 1853 song by Foster).
In addition to the cast, there are another 20 people backstage making the magic happen. If you don’t think there is some magic involved, consider that each cast member (with the exception of Cooper) has at least three costume changes, and that four gigantic sets – ranging from a tavern to a paddlewheeler steamboat – must seamlessly appear and disappear.
“Our sets aren’t automated like those you see in a Broadway show; we have to manually push them on and off,” says Warren.
The musical features 20 of the more than 200 songs Foster wrote during his short life (he died at the age of 37), and Warren says they change from year to year.
This year’s production will feature both well-known favorites – “Oh, Susanna,” “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair,” “Old Folks at Home,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and of course, “My Old Kentucky Home,” as well as some of Foster’s lesser known tunes, such as “Merry Little Birds,” “May the Red Rose Live Always,” and “There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea.”
If you’re wondering where Foster got the inspiration for his songs, Warren says he was inspired by the people around him, whether they were family members or those enslaved at Federal Hill, the plantation which was immortalized in the commonwealth anthem, “My Old Kentucky Home.”
For that reason, many of the cast portray real people – from Jane McDowell, Stephen’s wife, and Judge John Rowan, owner of Federal Hill, to philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and German music teacher Henry Kleber who taught Stephen.
One character has only been in the production since 2021, and that came about, says Warren, from their desire “to explore the full black experience during the time period.”
Martin Delany, a free person of color, was one of the first black men to be admitted to Harvard Medical School and became the first black man to rise to the rank of Major in the U.S. Army.
The addition of the multi-layered Delany is another example of why “The Stephen Foster Story” has been able to avoid backlash during contentious times.
“Our company has always embraced the fact that we’re an ongoing part of a cultural conversation, and as such, we listen to everyone’s voice,” says Warren.
“Delany represents the many facets of people of color who had previously been portrayed either as enslaved in the South or working in menial jobs in the North,” he adds.
As seriously as they take their production as a vehicle for bringing people together, Warren says there’s a lighter side to staging the show as well. He allows as how being outdoors in the woods can result in some unexpected and unscripted moments.
“We’ll have the occasional racoon make a cameo appearance on the stage, or there will be a scream that doesn’t come from one of the actors, but from an audience member who has suddenly discovered a harmless garter snake under a seat,” he says.
Then there was the occasion when a motorcoach came careening down the hill from the parking lot, stopping just short of colliding with the stage. Thankfully, no one was injured or even muffed a line.
“It’s live theater; anything can happen,” says Warren.
He should know, having been a cast member before taking on the mantle of artistic director.
“For a couple of seasons, I played Dudley Morton, Stephen’s romantic nemesis, with both men vying for the affections of Jane McDowell,” says Warren.
He didn’t get the girl in the play, but he did get her in real life, as Warren succeeded in persuading actress Jennifer Gerding, aka Jane, to be his wife. Their 12-year-old son Cooper plays young Andrew Carnegie in the current production.
When asked if any Stephen Foster Story alums had made it to the big time, Warren notes how the late actor Moses Gunn went from Bardstown to Broadway where he played Othello and was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in “The Poison Tree.”
Other notables include five-time Tony nominee and two-time winner Christian Borle; Chris Wood, who had roles in television’s “Supergirl” and “The Vampire Diaries”, and current assistant artistic director Bronson Norris Murphy, who introduced the role of the Phantom of the Opera in the first North American production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Love Never Dies.”
Not a shabby lineup of stars who took on the personas of Stephen Foster and his contemporaries before conquering Broadway and Tinseltown. So, if you’re looking for a summer experience that weaves history, American lore, pageantry and plenty of musical entertainment into one colorful tapestry, Warren says you’ll do no better than the “Stephen Foster Story.”
“Witnessing 50 cast members in beautiful costumes singing at you in full voice under the stars and surrounded by a canopy of trees is simply breathtaking,” he says.
The “Stephen Foster Story” will continue through August, playing three nights a week, alternating with “The Little Mermaid.”
For more information on the musical production and other attractions, go to VisitBardstown.com