The outdoor drama, also known as the symphonic outdoor drama or symphonic drama, is a kind of historical play, often featuring music and dance, staged in outdoor amphitheaters in the location it depicts.
It is most like the historical pageants performed in Europe in the Middle Ages. The best known example of a religious pageant in this style is the Oberammergau Passion Play, performed in Oberammergau, Germany since 1643. Many spectacular outdoor stage events became popular in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These pageants were not narrative dramas in the traditional sense, but they showed a series of scenes in which historical events followed one another.
The Ramona Outdoor Play, commonly known as The Ramona Pageant, is America's longest-running outdoor drama, first performed on April 13, 1923, in Hemet, California. The play is based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel "Ramona," which was written to expose the mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California.
People in eastern North Carolina sought to share the story of the Roanoke Colony by staging a pageant, which debuted in 1937 as The Lost Colony . Southern playwright and Lost Colony author Paul Green and musician Lamar Stringfield provided the book and music for the production, which was originally only intended to run for one season.
- "By 'people's theatre', I mean theatre in which plays are written, acted and produced for and by the people for their enjoyment and enrichment and not for any special monetary profit."
Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Green wrote those words about The Lost Colony in 1938, a year after its debut. By then, America's first outdoor symphonic drama was a critical and popular success, proof that "people's theatre" could work. By the 1950s, North Carolina led the nation in outdoor dramas, with other notable productions including Unto These Hills at Cherokee and Horn in the West at Boone among others.
The Lost Colony was presented with a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre in 2013, recognizing the enduring appeal of the form.
References
- Davis, Carlyle Channing; Alderson, William A. (1914). "Chapter V: Where Ramona Was Written". The True Story of "Ramona". Dodge Publishing Co. Archived from the original on August 6, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-19.
- "Marker H-94: Lamar Stringfield 1917-1959"North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
- Green, cited in “History: The Production,” “The Lost Colony,”http://www.thelostcolony.org/production.html (accessed June 22, 2007); no source given.
- Hunter, Kermit (1953). "THE OUTDOOR HISTORICAL DRAMA". The North Carolina Historical Review. 30 (2). North Carolina Office of Archives and History: 218–222. ISSN 0029-2494. JSTOR 23516190. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
- Anker, Erica. "Tony Honor: The Lost Colony". tonyawards.com. Archived from the original on 5 January 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.