admin, Author at The Lost Colony

Gregory Schneider, journalist that covers Virginia from the Richmond bureau, recently visited Waterside Theatre and interviewed Chuck Still, Executive Director, as well as our Native American cast members. Read Gary’s full The Lost Colony Washington Post Article:

ROANOKE ISLAND, N.C. — The outdoor stage grew dark. Humid night air closed in, cicadas buzzing, the waters of the Albemarle Sound lapping in the background. Native American drumming and singing swirled out of the shadows, then fell silent.

A spotlight illuminated Kat Littleturtle.

“Every place on Earth,” she began, “has a story to tell.”

And as it has for most summer nights since 1937, the musical drama “The Lost Colony” spun out the story of an English settlement that disappeared. from this very shore about 436 years ago. The production’s churchy songs and costumed pageantry once inspired a national craze for outdoor stage spectacles celebrating a romanticized view of history. But the telling is a bit different now.

Instead of being narrated by its original “historian” character — sometimes dressed as a park ranger — “The Lost Colony” is guided by Littleturtle, a Native American storyteller. Where the Indian characters that colonists confronted once spoke gibberish and pidgin English, they now sing authentic tribal songs and speak Algonquian.

Most profoundly, those Native American characters are finally being played by Native American actors, instead of White actors coated in reddish spray tan.

Kat Littleturtle, of North Carolina’s Tuscarora tribe, sits backstage in makeup before a performance as the storyteller. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

The changes are part of the Roanoke Island Historical Association’s ongoing three-year effort to refresh the 86-year-old play. Some updates are aimed at today’s video game sensibilities, such as quicker pacing and high-tech light projections. But others are an attempt to rebalance the story itself, giving value to more than one point of view.

In this era when teaching history has become politically charged, any tinkering with tradition is risky. Many of the new elements have stirred anger among generations of Outer Banks residents and vacationers who grew up with the old version, which won a special Tony award in 2013 and in which the beloved actor Andy Griffith got his start.

“Totally ruined this family classic,” one reviewer wrote on Tripadvisor, after the initial changes were implemented. “Be Woke somewhere else but not here.”

For opening night in 2021, the first time that all Native actors played Native characters, management hired sheriff’s deputies to guard cast members’ lodging in case of threats. Nothing materialized, but debate has raged since about whether the modernized production strays too far from Pulitzer-winning playwright Paul Green’s original vision.

No group has been more vocal than the play’s alumni, many of whom are organizing an online “‘conversation’ about the future of the Lost Colony production” and battling management for access to financial information, worried the changes are causing damage.

Georgann Eubanks, executive director of the Paul Green Foundation, said she thinks Green would see honor in the effort to bring his work up to date.

“I think the parts he wrote for the Native people, or at least the way they were portrayed there with the red face and the stereotypes that were present back then, he would probably want to be changing that by now,” Eubanks said.

“The Lost Colony” performers practice swordplay backstage. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

A reckoning was overdue, Littleturtle, 77, said before going onstage for a recent evening’s performance. “Our ancestors were the ones that were here,” she said. Over the centuries, her people were killed, driven out, discriminated against and largely forgotten.

Around her, a dozen other Native cast members, most from the Lumbee tribe in southeastern North Carolina, relaxed at picnic tables on the water’s edge ahead of their curtain call. In three short years, they have embraced their new roles in the mythology of the Lost Colony.

“When they sing on that stage,” Littleturtle said, pausing to blink back tears, “and dance, it is the ancestors in them. So,” she paused again. “It is very powerful.”

A mystery of colonial history

The story this place has to tell was always complicated. Roanoke Island contains one of the great mysteries of America’s origins, and no popular play about it could ever be quite as strange as the truth.

Sir Walter Raleigh tried to establish the first English colony in the New World here beginning in 1585, 22 years before Jamestown. Tucked between the mainland and beaches of the Outer Banks, Roanoke Island had been home to Native people for centuries. By the time Raleigh’s expedition of more than 100 men and women landed in 1587, English scouts had wrecked relations with many of the local tribes and killed the powerful King Wingina.

The settlers decided they needed reinforcements. Their governor, John White — who was an artist, not an explorer — turned around and sailed right back to England, leaving his pregnant daughter behind. She soon gave birth to the first English baby born in the New World, Virginia Dare.

It took White three years to get back to the colony. When he arrived, the island was deserted. The letters C-R-O and Croatoan were scratched into a tree and a palisade post, suggesting the colonists had taken refuge with the Croatoan Indians to the south. But White didn’t go looking, and their fate remains a mystery.

A playbill of “The Lost Colony” from 1937. (Paul Green and Selden Samuel) (Library of Congress)

By the Jim Crow era of the early 20th century, Virginia Dare had become a national symbol of White womanhood disappearing into a savage land. The Roanoke Colony Memorial Association commissioned Green, a North Carolina native, to develop an outdoor play honoring Dare for her 350th birthday in 1937.

Green was known as socially liberal; he had won a Pulitzer for a sympathetic play about a Black man and later wrote a script about Lumbee Indians. But “The Lost Colony” was a product of the era, celebrating the arrival of the colonists and the birth of Dare as almost holy events. The Indians primarily served as foils for the English-centered plot.

Recent discoveries suggest the real relationships were considerably more nuanced. While the English settlement has never been located, archaeologists found a tiny coil of copper wire earlier this year at the remains of a first-contact-era Indian village just up the shore from the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, where “The Lost Colony” is performed. The Native people had no copper; this would have been a gift or item of trade from the English, said Eric Klingelhofer, vice president of research for the First Colony Foundation, who has overseen excavations.

A scene from “The Lost Colony” in 2017, when it still cast White actors, coated in reddish spray tan, as Native Americans. (Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress)

That suggestion of coexistence goes along with other recent findings on the mainland, where Elizabethan relics near another Indian village raise the possibility that English refugees from the colony were allowed to live and farm in harmony — a hint, possibly, of what happened to those who were “lost.”

“It shows that instead of hostility, it was the exact opposite. It was collegiality; it was cooperation, really, at least by that tribe of the Chowanoke Indians,” Klingelhofer said. “It shows what existed for a while, as opposed to the later stories of conflict.”

Racial reckoning and recasting

Over the years, complaints occasionally erupted about the depiction of Native Americans in “The Lost Colony.” In 2019, when neighboring Virginia’s leaders made headlines with a blackface scandal, threats of protests arose against the play’s “redface” practices.

The following year, the nurder of George Floyd by Minnesota police sparked demonstrations nationwide over issues of social injustice. In much of the South, that meant reconsidering Confederate statutes; in Manteo, N.C., attention focused on the living monument of “The Lost Colony.”

A Change.org petition quickly drew hundreds of signatures demanding action. When the pandemic shut down production of the play for the year, the historical association decided to act. Playwright David Thompson, who was nominated for a Tony this year for “New York, New York,” reworked parts of Green’s script. New director Jeff Whiting overhauled the production. And a Native American, Kaya Littleturtle, whose grandmother now plays the storyteller role, came in as cultural coordinator.

Chuck Still, executive director of the Roanoke Island Historical Association, stands on the “Lost Colony” stage. The first updated version “didn’t really work particularly well, and people didn’t like it,” he said. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

The first result, in 2021, was chaotic. “The play was a mess. There’s no other way to say it,” said Kip Tabb, a local writer who has extensively chronicled and reviewed the play’s changes.

The new technology was balky, and the initial effort to include Native Americans was awkward, modern drum lines clashing with the historical pageantry, Tabb said.

“It didn’t really work particularly well, and people didn’t like it,” said Chuck Still, who was hired as executive director last year to help restore order. “And some of the locals didn’t like the Native American cast. [They said], you know, ‘The Lost Colony has gotten all woke on us.’”

Still said he ignored the racial comments. “When somebody starts a conversation like that, you’re not going to be able to reason with them about anything,” he said.

Kaya Littleturtle worked to build trust in the Native community to recruit performers, including his grandmother, a well-known tribal storyteller. He grew up near Pembroke, N.C., among the Lumbee people, and has deep connections to the circuit of powwows around the state and beyond. While most of the White actors affect English accents, the Indian players use their natural voices — and most have a distinct Carolina lilt.

Featuring Native American viewpoints in such an iconic work has been “a huge moment for Native people. It’s very meaningful,” Littleturtle said. The aim is not to denigrate the memory of the English settlers, he said, but to elevate the Native side of the story so that both are respected.

Some of the play’s alumni bristled at the Native performers’ lack of formal theater training. “It was commendable, but these folks weren’t actors, so there was a fairly steep learning curve,” said Dennis McGinnis, 71, who was involved in the production for 17 seasons, including as stage manager in 2021.

Mariah McDonald touches up the wig for the character of Eleanor Dare ahead of a recent performance. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

Their presence, though, has made many White actors reconsider their own experiences playing Native roles.

“I wasn’t thinking of it as painting it on as you would in blackface. I was taking it as a very serious character,” said Gail Hutchison, 62, who remembers using a makeup called “Texas dirt” to darken her skin for Indian roles. She has been involved with the play in various capacities since 1981. “Certainly people are much more enlightened now and more aware of how their actions affect other folks,” she said.

“It was doing redface — period, end of story,” McGinnis said, expressing regret over his single year playing an Indian. “It certainly enhances the story, having the appropriate people play the appropriate roles.”

A script Native actors are ‘proud of’

But changes to the play go beyond the actors. Littleturtle helped refresh the production itself. A major battle scene has been reconceived as a clash of large animal puppets fashioned from tree branches. Part of the intent, Littleturtle said, was to avoid the spectacle, night after night, of King Wingina’s head being cut off and tossed around the stage.

“We’re not opposed to showing violence against our people and by our people,” he said. “But what we don’t want is the violence to be romanticized just for the sake of shock and awe. We want to make sure those depictions of violence mean something, so people understand why it happened and that we should never, ever make this mistake against one another again.”

Native American performers take the stage during the opening minutes of “The Lost Colony,” on Roanoke Island, N.C., in late July. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

Another difference, added this year, involves the characters of Wanchese and Manteo, two Native men pivotal in the colony’s history. Both had been taken to England in earlier expeditions. Wanchese, of the Roanoke tribe, returned angry and distrustful, certain the English were going to exploit his people. Manteo cast his lot with the English at the colony, convinced that they could become allies and help his Croatoan tribe grow stronger.

This year, Kaya Littleturtle approached the actor portraying Manteo, 21-year-old Nakya Leviner, and asked whether he felt comfortable with the character, who could be viewed as selling out his people. “He said he felt like there should be something to highlight his viewpoint more,” Littleturtle said.

They spoke with Whiting, the director. Now, at a climactic moment as Manteo and Wanchese prepare to clash in battle, Manteo cries out about his inner turmoil: “I didn’t want any of this!”

“I’m really proud of that line,” Littleturtle said. He sees it “touching upon elements that we’re still living today, conversations about traditionalism and assimilation and how far we’re willing to compromise.”

Nakya Leviner of the Lumbee tribe backstage before a performance on July 24. Leviner portrays the character Manteo and helped choreograph some of the Native American dances in the show. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

Some of the changes continue to rankle traditionalists, but on a recent Monday night, a near-capacity crowd applauded the show enthusiastically. Tabb, the local reviewer, said many of the earlier problems with technology and staging are much improved this year. And the association says turnout is good. After being shut down for the 2020 season because of covid, the trouble-plagued 2021 season boasted the highest revenue and attendance in nearly a decade, according to the historical association.

Still, the executive director, said attendance is slightly down from 2021 but holding steady — though nothing like the peak of the 1990s, when vacationers had fewer entertainment choices and attendance was double current levels.

Catherine Ammons of North Carolina’s Coharie tribe, part of the ensemble in “The Lost Colony.” (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)

For the Native American cast members, the success of the play is measured in something other than numbers. They see a new level of recognition and acceptance. Three nights a week — Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays — the Native cast members attract a crowd for a pre-show of dancing and singing. Last year, organizers invited the Indian performers tomarch in the town of Manteo’s annual Christmas parade. This December, they’ll be there again.

“The biggest thing is, we’re onstage telling our story as Native American people,” Leviner said, during a recent backstage interview with his castmates.

“And we’re still here, and we’re real people, and we’re not made up,” added Catherine Ammons, 65.

Ammons is from the Coharie tribe, near Raleigh. Her family tradition holds that she is descended from the Croatoans and that there might be English in her bloodline as well. She feels for both sides, she said: the Native people facing the end of their way of life, and the settlers stranded in a time of drought with no idea whether help would arrive.

“It’s very hard not to get emotional,” she said. “I mean, we walk in two worlds. The Native Americans, we walk in two worlds.”

FIFTY YEARS OF THE LOST COLONY TRADITIONS-THE RACHITA FAMILY

The Rachita family has been vacationing on the Outer Banks and attending The Lost Colony production for more than fifty years! Alex and Judy Rachita began bringing their sons David and Michael to the Outer Banks when they were young boys.

Originally from Ohio, the family has become more spread out, living in Texas, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina, and enjoy getting together for their annual Outer Banks family vacations.

Michael and David have continued the tradition that began with their parents, of coming to see The Lost Colony, with their children; Alexis, Justin, Joshua, Sarah, Eric, Thomas, and Chad. And now, another generation has begun, with the birth of David and Laura’s first grandchild, who had her first Outer Banks visit this year.

OUTER BANKS MEMORIES MADE

The annual visits to The Lost Colony most certainly created wonderful memories for the Rachita Family. When David Rachita was in the third grade, during a history lesson, he shared with his teacher and classmates a brochure from his trip to The Lost Colony. Coincidentally, his daughter Alexis did her second-grade wax museum project as Eleanor Dare, with her baby doll Virginia Dare, named for Eleanor’s first child and the first English child born in the New World.

Mr. Rachita’s fondest memories of past The Lost Colony performances include when the cast & crew used to greet ticket holders as they entered Waterside Theatre, and also David and Michael’s enthusiasm during the fight scenes! The Rachita’s also recall visiting the local Methodist church during one of their Outer Banks visits and getting to meet Andy Griffith!

THE LOST COLONY 86TH SEASON FEEDBACK

On July 23rd, 2023, The Rachita Family visited Waterside Theatre to attend The Lost Colony and gave us their feedback on this year’s performance.

“The animal puppets were an excellent addition to the story telling and we all appreciated the impact of new video and audio effects of the updated drama. The modern effects really brought the outdoor theater alive.”-Michael Rachita.

Justin thought the special effects were awesome and many family members were glad to see the Final March at the end of the performance has not changed at all.

“That is such an emotional moment that always brings us to tears.” -Mrs. Rachita

According to Michael, speaking of his Mother, AKA The Rachita Matriarch, the Final March “gets her every time.”

We cannot thank The Rachita’s enough for sharing with us their experience through the years of attending The Lost Colony.

Fifty Years of The Lost Colony Traditions-The Rachita Family

The 86th Season of The Lost Colony runs through August 26th, 2023.
Purchase your tickets.

Virginia Dare Night August 18th

The Roanoke Island Historical Association (RIHA)is proud to announce the annual Virginia Dare Night on Friday, August 18th, 2023. Virginia Dare Night commemorates the 436^th anniversary of the birth of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World to colonist Eleanor Dare. The Lost Colony continues its long-celebrated tradition of using real babies during the August 18^th performance. Being a “Virginia Dare Baby” is a coveted role in the community that many local citizens have had the opportunity of being a part of. For Virginia Dare Night only, the prop baby swaddled in blankets, is replaced with these special guests. Virginia Dare Night is generously sponsored by First National Bank.

The 2023 Virginia Dare babies that will make their debut on Friday, August 18^th are: Mason Gray, daughter of Ellery Sigler & William Gray, Francesca Rosalie Estrada, daughter of Luis & Amanda Estrada, Harper Lee Ambrose, daughter of Ben & Savanah Ambrose, and Corbin Powell, son of Whitney Holt & John Powell.

There will be an awards ceremony starting at 8:20, which will begin with the presentation of the 2023 Virginia Dare babies and their families. The Lost Colony performance will begin shortly after the awards ceremony concludes. Reserve Your Tickets Here.

North Carolina’s First Lady, Kristin Cooper, visited The Lost Colony on Tuesday, August 1st, 2023 and was featured in a cameo appearance in the production that evening. The Roanoke Island Historical Association hosted a pre-performance reception for Mrs. Cooper where she spoke about the production and the opportunity to be part of the 86 year old performance.
“It was such an honor to be included in last night’s production of The Lost Colony. The cast and crew are phenomenal, and I encourage everyone to see this historic play. Truly, this production is a North Carolina treasure.”-Kristin Cooper.

All photos provided by Cindy McEnery Photography.
Learn more about North Carolina’s First Lady.

Monday nights at The Lost Colony are for the kids! Sponsored by Kitty Hawk Kites, kids 12 and under are free every Monday!

Monday Nights Are A Blast!

Join us every for toy and kite demonstrations by the Kitty Hawk Kites team! All kids 12 and under are free. Use code: Kitty Hawk Kites Kid when booking online!

Meet The Cast on Mondays

Also on Monday nights at The Lost Colony, stay after the show and get autographs and photos with members of the cast!

Reserve your tickets for Monday Night Kids Night at The Lost Colony.

Roanoke Island, NC – The First Lady of North Carolina, Kristin Cooper, will visit The Lost Colony August 1 and 2 – and make a cameo appearance in the show.

During her visit, Mrs. Cooper, wife of Governor Roy Cooper, will tour the Roanoke Island Historical Association archives. She will view what the First Colony Foundation believes is the site of the Native village where Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1584 expedition made first contact with the Algonquin tribes.

The First Lady, who has a background in theater, will make her guest appearance during the August 1 performance of The Lost Colony. The cast and crew are looking forward to her joining them on stage.

“Roy and I have long been avid supporters of the arts, so I am thrilled to have the opportunity to join the talented cast and crew of The Lost Colony on stage. As someone with a background in theater, it’s a special honor for me to be a part of this historic production.” – Kristin Cooper, First Lady of NC

The Lost Colony is performed on the Outer Banks from June 2^nd-August 26^th 2023 at 8:30pm, Monday through Saturday.

Reserve your tickets to all performances of The Lost Colony at www.thelostcolony.org or by calling the Box Office at 252-473-6000 12-5pm. The Lost Colony is sponsored by PNC Bank.

Spectrum News 1 North Carolina recently visited Waterside Theatre and The Lost Colony. Lauren Howard interviewed Ethan Oxendine and Joey Cassella and they discussed enhancements to this year’s performance as well as the important new cultural elements of the production.

View the full news story on Spectrum News 1 North Carolina here.

The 86th Season of The Lost Colony runs June 2-August 26, 2023 at 8:30pm. The Native American Pre-Show is Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm. Buy your The Lost Colony Tickets.

Are you utilizing Zoom for your virtual meetings in this stay/work at home time? Make your background more fun with our Lost Colony virtual backgrounds! Download now and show your support for The Lost Colony!

Simply, click on the image, right click and save image. Then upload to Zoom for your Virtual Background. Enjoy!

The Lost Colony Cancels 83^rd Season in Response to COVID-19 Virus Concerns

The Roanoke Island Historical Association’s (RIHA) Board of Directors has cancelled its 83^rd season of Paul Green’s The Lost Colony which is performed nightly each summer at Waterside Theatre on Roanoke Island. This is the first cancelled season since World War II in 1944 and comes as a result of the ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 virus. RIHA did not want to risk the safety of its ticket buyers, cast, crew, staff and volunteers. The RIHA Board of Directors stayed in close contact with county and state officials and determined this was the best course of action for everyone involved.

“Several times throughout our storied history, the community has rallied around The Lost Colony. Whether it was to help repair storm damage as a result of hurricanes or devastation caused by fire – every time the local community has stepped up and helped the Colony recover. We feel this is the appropriate time for The Lost Colony to take a step back and to return the favor and rally around the community that has done so much for us”, said RIHA Board Chair Kevin Bradley. “These are difficult times and that creates an environment where difficult decisions are required. And this certainly was a difficult decision for our Board of Directors to make – but I believe the correct one in light of what our community is facing”.

The Lost Colony outdoor drama is the “grandfather” of all outdoor dramas and is produced by the Roanoke Island Historical Association, a non-profit whose mission is to celebrate the history of the first English colonies on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and to honor the founders of The Lost Colony symphonic drama through drama, education, and literature.

All tickets purchased for this season’s performances will be eligible for a full refund or can be applied to 2021 performances when the show re-opens to the public.

Contact The Lost Colony office at 252-473-2127 or visit our website at www.www.thelostcolony.org.

FAQ

Q: What factors were considered in making the decision to cancel the 2020 production of The Lost Colony?

A: We monitored every local, state and federal agency for 45 days. We also spoke to past Board Chairs, former Board members, alumni, staff, and local businesses. We monitored other outdoor theaters as well. We have also been monitoring regional economies and saw that from the states where our sales come from – over 80% were under Shelter-In-Place or Stay At Home orders. This is not only a local decision, but one that considered the economic impact on our regional ticket buyers. There was overwhelming data and feedback pointing us in this direction.

Q: Why not delay the opening of the season so that at least a partial season could be produced?

A: Because there was no definitive indication that social restrictions will be lifted before June 1, the earliest we would be able to get the show up was 25-27 days after we received the go-ahead to do so. This would put us into late June or early July in terms of an opening and the economics begin to fall apart at this point. Reports are also circulating about colleges and universities adjusting start times, and since a large percentage of our cast is comprised of college students, we could be faced with a loss of our cast earlier than usual. We studied various timelines and scenarios and once we passed through certain tollgates relative to dates, it became more and more clear that a delayed opening was not going to be possible.

Q: Will The Lost Colony be able to survive a season without the production and resulting revenue?

A: This is an important question. The answer is yes but we will need to make major adjustments in order to survive. Like all businesses, we will need to make difficult decisions, but we have a plan that will allow us to be ready for the 2021 season.

Q: What happens for ticket buyers who purchased tickets for the 2020 production?

A: There will be two paths forward for ticket buyers. They can either get a full refund for tickets purchased for 2020 or we will honor their tickets for the 2021 season. More details will follow soon, but these are the two paths moving forward.

Q: Will the Roanoke Island Historical Association do any kind of production this summer if things clear out by July 1 or later?

A: It is possible that we will offer some kind of stage production for our local community. We are looking at several options and will communicate as we make decisions. We believe art feeds the soul and if we can help heal the community with a production, we will do our best to accommodate.

Q: What about The Lost Colony Culinary and Wine Festival scheduled for late September.

A: We feel we have more time to monitor the situation and make a decision later this summer. Our plans are to move forward unless we see data later this summer that would make the event unworkable.

Q: Are there plans to move forward with The Lost Colony in 2021?

A: Absolutely! We will leverage this down time to become stronger and better resourced as we move forward. Our goal will be to have the finest show ever staged at Waterside Theatre when the season opens next May.

The Tony Award-winning designer, also The Lost Colony’s Production Designer, reveals his sketches and plans to make the musical as fashionable as the Princess of Wales herself.

Read the full article in Playbill about William Ivey Long’s beautful costumes.

The Roanoke Island Historical Association wants to recognize Target and all Target Circle guests who participated in Target’s recent giving program and chose to reward us in support of The Lost Colony. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We are very grateful for the $438.56 received from Target today! And we are grateful to each and everyone of you who took the time to cast a vote for The Lost Colony production with your purchase rewards.

We also want to recognize The GoodCoin Foundation who facilitated in the Target Circle guest-directed giving program and helped spread the word about charitable giving. We are very appreciative of all that they do to support non-profits and corporate giving.

Always exciting, and a proud moment, to see a Lost Colony Alumna dancing on the TODAY Show on NBC. The turquoise monster, Rosita, is Bethany Johnson, a former choir member in The Lost Colony 2016-2018!

The love and laughs from “Sesame Street” are now coming to the stage in “Sesame Street Live! Let’s Party!” Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster, Rosita and a few of their neighbors stop by Studio 1A with the show’s host, Juanita Dilia Olivo, for a fun performance!

Watch clip here from the TODAY Show.

Manteo, NC- The Roanoke Island Historical Association (RIHA) has announced the dates for the local Outer Banks auditions for the 2020 season of The Lost Colony. Associate Producer for The Lost Colony, Lance Culpepper, has organized the auditions and will be joined by Ira David Wood III (director), McCrae Hardy (music director), Pam Atha (choreographer), and Robert Midgette (fight director).

Auditions are slated for Saturday, February 15, 2020, at Manteo High School, 829 Wingina Ave, Manteo, NC. Registration opens at 8:40 AM and auditions will begin at 9:00 AM. Everyone attending the auditions is requested to bring a recent photograph and resume. Additional information will be collected at the time of registration. All ages are encouraged to attend, auditions for those under the age of 18 begin at 9:00 AM.

Electronic/video auditions are also accepted. For full details and audition information, visit: https://www.thelostcolony.org/about-us/auditions-employment/

Lost Colony Alumni, Jake Johnson and Gabe Donohue (second from left and far right, respectively)

A couple of dapper Lost Colony Alumni, Jake Johnson and Gabe Donohue recently graced the stage in Greenville, NC at the North Carolina Academy of Dance Arts’s 2019 performance of The Nutcracker.

Roanoke Island Historical Association would like to announce the appreciation of a job well done by some very special Board of Director members that will be rotating off at the end of 2019.

CHRISTOPHER L. SEAWELL [26 years] served RIHA as General Counsel for 17 years–1990-2007. Thereafter, he served as RIHA Chair for 3 years–2008-2010–during which time, in 2007, the Costume Shop, and most of the show’s costumes, burned. Chris successfully led the organization through a major fundraising campaign, coordinating with the NPS, NC Department of Cultural Resources and Dare County Tourist Bureau to secure funding for the construction of a new Costume Shop, and the redesign and construction of the production’s costumes. This was the first re-design of the costumes since 1937.

Chris served as Vice-Chair for one year in 2015; and as a non-officer director in 2011, Vice-Chair in 2014 – 2015, and again as a non-officer during 2017-2019, resulting in a total service to RIHA of 26 years. His committee participation highlights include By-Laws and Endowment. His wife, Kathy has supported RIHA functions through her expertise in hospitality functions and volunteer recruitment. Chris Seawell’s guiding principle has always been to keep the local Dare County people supportive of RIHA.

WILLIAM MASSEY [13 years] served as director for 4 years, when RIHA was under the chairmanship of Tom White (1996-97), John Hughes (1998) and Ellen Newbold (1999). He served as director for 7 years, 2011-2017, when RIHA was under the chairmanship variously of Paul Tine (2011), Steve King (2012- part of 2017), and Bea Basnight (part of 2017). Bill served as RIHA Chair for 2 years, 2018-2019–guiding the board through new legislative waters; an administrative and board assessment conducted by professional consultants; and the development of a strong foundation for a strategic plan and a capital campaign.

Bill Massey’s expertise lies in Advancement (development & marketing), strategic planning, finance, fundraising and management. During his 13-year tenure he has shared his talents with RIHA–from developing long range plans, working with government agencies, creating silent auctions, structuring advancement plans, taking perfect notes and making sure that hospitality and professional courtesy dominate every activity sponsored by RIHA. His committee work includes, legislative, Festival Park, advancement, endowment, marketing and keeping a weather eye on the artistic production of the show.

It was Massey’s suggestion that the show’s historian be a park ranger which was well received by our modern audiences. Massey spent many evenings tirelessly greeting The Lost Colony audiences as they arrived for the performance welcoming them and conversing with them.

Pictured left to right: Bill Massey, Bea Basnight and Chris Seawell

BEA BASNIGHT [9 years] served as Secretary for five years, 2011-2015; Vice-Chair for 1 and 2/3rds years (2016-part of 2017); and chair for about 1/3 of a year (2017); and director for 2 years, 2018-2019. Bea was nominated to the Board after she and friends had been members of a fundraising/development committee for RIHA, where she championed very successful Annual GALA netting a considerable amount of money for RIHA. Her committee work while serving on the Board is defined by chairing the nominating committee for 9 years; serving on the education committee with its support of the annual School Matinee, developing the summer youth camps and bringing the pilot of Mystery of the Lost Colony to Dare County schools (she is chair of the Dare County School Board–a political post); and continuing her work on fundraisers–now focused on the Wine Festival where she will continue to serve.

Bea’s many years as a school teacher trained her to get a specific task done in 55 minutes. Ergo, when she was chair, her board meetings were expertly timed, key topics were punctuated, and everyone remained on topic during discussions.

Roanoke Island Historical Association is fortunate and honored for their time, passionate efforts and the successes put forth by these dedicated individuals to the organization.

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