Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre debuts new musical about local history, “1940”
The 2025 season of Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre will close with an all-new musical from the team who brought you “The (W)right Sister,” “America’s Artist: The Norman Rockwell Story,” and “From the Mountaintop: The Edgar Tufts Story.” In collaboration with the musical duo John Thomas and Tommy Oaks, Director Janet Barton Speer debuts “1940” on the Hayes Auditorium stage this July.
Set in the titular year right here in the High Country, “1940” follows local storytellers and musicians as they gather at Mast General Store in Valle Crucis to spin yarns and sing songs. When a storm sweeps through their mountains causing major flooding and landslides, Mast General Store becomes a hub of community support and strength.
The storm featured in the show is based on the real flood of 1940, which caused devastation across the High Country. While audience members will surely draw similarities between the 1940 flood depicted in the musical and the recent devastation from Hurricane Helene, Speer emphasized that the most important similarities between these tragedies are the strength of those effected and the ways the community comes together to support one another in difficult times.
“I was tweaking it around Helene, so I was able, I think, to add some authenticity to it because we lived it. What people do when they’re wiped out of their provisions, and how they roll up their sleeves and go to work,” she said. “It’s quite a story. We saw the same resilience, the same community, and it proves that we can bounce back from it.”
The story, which Speer describes as a hopeful and funny slice-of-life tale about this region’s history, is told largely through song and the perspectives of the Hicks family, a group of renowned storytellers who lived on Beech Mountain. Ray Hicks, known for his engrossing telling of the Jack Tales, and Stanley Hicks, a folk artist known for his craft in instrument building—particularly banjos and Appalachian dulcimers— are both characters in the show. Placing these characters at Mast General Store was a way for Speer to tie these two aspects of Appalachian history together.
Music was an important way for both these characters, and the real people they represent, to tell stories, celebrate, cope, and mourn. As such, developing the music for “1940” was an essential aspect of the show’s development. The show features an original soundtrack of mountain music written by Thomas and Oaks. Professional musicians will play the songs live on banjo, fiddle, standing bass, guitar, and mandolin. Speer, Thomas, and Oaks have taken special care to create a show and a soundtrack that is appropriate to the setting, even going so far as to use a banjo made by Stanley Hicks himself.
With “1940” Speer hopes that she has created a show that will carry on the storytelling and music-making traditions that have been integral parts of Appalachian culture for generations and emphasize the importance of maintaining connections with our collective past. A line from Ray Hicks’ final monologue sums up the show’s message: “Telling stories is how you live a little longer, way up into the future, years, and years, and years after you’re gone.”
There will be three matinee performances of “1940” at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 20; Wednesday, July 23; and Thursday, July 24. There will also be three evening performances of the show on Friday, July 18; Saturday, July 19; and Tuesday, July 22. Tickets for all performances are on sale now.
Learn more about the 2025 season of Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre
