Pioneer Playhouse of Danville continues its 77th season under the stars with a special Kentucky Voices original play celebrating small town life in Kentucky at the turn of the century in honor of America’s 250th Anniversary.
The Iron Baby Angel (June 30-July 18) was adapted for the stage by Robby Henson, artistic director of the historic theatre his father, Eben C. Henson, founded in 1949. The book, published in 1954 by Henry Holt and Company, was written by Centre College alumnus Charles R. McDowell, who spent time in Danville as a youngster.
“I had been sitting alone in a Quonset hut on Saipan at the end of World War II, reading Cannery Row by Steinbeck,” McDowell told a Danville High School student in a 1967 letter, “when I thought of writing about the noble loafers of the old days in Danville.”
The Iron Baby Angel (book and play) is set in 1909, and centers around a young boy named Harold Hines, Jr., who arrives alone by train one summer day in Danville from the big city of Chicago. He is meant to spend the summer with his grandmother while his parents welcome a new baby. The grandmother is often busy reading books, and so the boy roams the streets of the small town, having lively adventures and meeting many of the “noble loafers” McDowell created from real-life citizens of Danville’s past.
One of those real-life citizens is John the Baptist, an old eccentric who sold fruit and vegetables near the horse-drinking fountain that used to stand in front of the courthouse.
“John the Baptist was actually our great, great grandfather,” says Heather Henson, sister to Robby and managing director of Pioneer Playhouse. “His name was John Canter, and his daughter, Hattie, married into the Henson family, and actually started the Henson hotel.”
“I didn’t know much about John the Baptist until I began adapting the book,” says Robby. “But a cousin found his obituary, and then I found his gravestone in Bellevue Cemetery. It felt like I was connecting to a piece of the past.”
Another connection to Danville’s past: Either-One Richardson, a respected Black barber, who is buried in the Hilldale Cemetery in Duncan Hill. Either-One famously got his name when his father asked the midwife who delivered him which name she preferred of the two the family had chosen. When she replied, “either one,” the name stuck.
“Either-One Richardson and Henry Nichols helped me a lot in trying to remember things as they really were,” McDowell recalled in the 1967 letter, explaining how he returned to Danville in the 1950’s to research the past and chat with residents.
“I like that he was a real character,” says Andrew Phillips, the actor who portrays Either-One in the play. “He was a Black man trying to make a living and raise a family in a small southern town where he encountered racism daily. He is complicated, and human, and he operates in a segregated system, which he has to explain to the young protagonist from Chicago.”
“The book was published in 1954, but is set in 1909,” says Robby Henson. “Much like the classics, To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn, there are words used in the story that are not appropriate today. But the words, and the prejudices, that existed are part of our history – Danville’s history, our country’s history. And we wanted to portray that, though of course, we are sensitive to our subject, and do not use offensive language in the play.”
“As I was writing the play,” Robby continues, “it was clear to me that the more enlightened view of the author is apparent through his portrayal of the child protagonist who forms a bond with the Black characters, and who questions the racism demonstrated by several Danville characters. I feel that the book, while certainly a product of its time, ultimately shows that Danville was, and still is, a place where people of all races and all walks of life come together, a place where ‘rare friendships grow like moss on a shaded wall,’ which is a major theme of the story.”
The Iron Baby Angel will kick off several events planned by the Boyle County America 250 Celebration Committee during the first week of July, including a free concert with country music star Eddie Montgomery, at Millennium Park on Friday, July 3; a parade on Main Street on July 4; and city and county July 4th fireworks that night. Pioneer Playhouse will participate in the parade, but will be closed the evening of July 4th in honor of the holiday.
The Iron Baby Angel will run June 30-July 18, Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm. A new dinner menu of Grilled Chicken or Beef Shish Kebab, Rice, Fresh Vegetable, Salad, and homemade dessert, will be served only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 7:00 pm.