Beston
A reading of a play by
John Dennis Anderson
“Beston” – a staged reading by Helltown Players Trustee John Dennis Anderson about the life of author/naturalist Henry Beston, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Kate Beston Barnes – will be presented on Friday, July 25 at Wellfleet Preservation Hall.
Tickets are available at wellfleetpreservation hall.org.
John Dennis Anderson compiled and arranged the script from various sources that include Henry Beston's 1928 book The Outermost House, a vivid account of a year in a dune shack in Eastham, as well as other works by Beston and his wife and daughter, also accomplished writers. Elizabeth Coatsworth was a prolific poet and prize-winning author of children’s books, and their daughter Kate Beston Barnes was the first poet laureate of Maine.
Anderson will play Henry Beston, Karen McPherson will play Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Laura Scribner will play Kate Beston Barnes. The reading grew out of a living history performance as Beston that Anderson presented in Ohio in 2018. A revised version of that performance won the Blue Institute’s Words on Water Playwriting Award in 2021. Anderson then adapted it for the Truro Playwriting Collective where it was first read by himself, McPherson, and Scribner in February of this year.
The play explores the marriage of Henry and Elizabeth, which flourished despite their wildly different writing methods and temperaments, and Kate captured the tensions in the family in her poetry. Anderson describes Beston as a collage for performance of the words of these eloquent writers.
Details:
“Beston” by John Dennis Anderson
A Staged Reading About the Life of Author/Naturalist Henry Beston”
Wellfleet Preservation Hall
335 Main St, Wellfleet, MA 02667
Friday, July 25, 7:00 pm-8:00pm
Tickets: $10.00 / General Admission
Box Office: (508) 349-1800
John Dennis Anderson as Henry Beston
Laura Scribner as Kate Beston Barnes
Karen McPherson as Elizabeth Coatsworth