The Lost Colony

Amer ica’s ol d est myst er y get s a new look, a new life an d a new vision

By ga ry P e a rce • P hotogr a Phs By Joshua st e a DM a n

Adrive that takes 30 minutes to an hour from the Outer Banks takes you back 434 years.

Back to America’s beginnings. Back to the earliest English settlers. Back to America’s oldest myster y: The L ost Colony.

You start the drive on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. You leave behind the beaches, the bars, the shops, the restaurants, the crowds and the traf fic.

Cross over the causeway to Roanoke Island. Pass through the town of Manteo. Turn of f the main road into the dark woods along the sound. Park and walk through the trees. It’s evening, nearly sunset. In the quiet, you hear only the wind and the water.

You’re standing where, in 1587, a band of English colonists abandoned a tenuous settlement they’d established less than a year before. They set of f in search of a new home. And they disappeared.

You sit in an open-air theater where, on summer nights since 1937, the colonists’ stor y — and the myster y of their fate — have been brought to life by The Lost Colony, America’s oldest outdoor symphonic drama.

L ast summer, COV ID cancelled the production for the first time since World War II.

This summer, The Lost Colony is back — with new energ y, new casting, new production techniques, a new script and musical score, and a new look at what might have happened when two cultures, English and Native American, came into contact and conflict.

This will be the 84th summer the drama is performed in Waterside Theatre, at the northern edge of Roanoke Island in Dare Count y. The theater is part of the Fort R aleigh National Historic Site, which preser ves the location of Roanoke Colony. The colony was the first English settlement in the New World and the birthplace of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America.

The play itself is a historic dramatization. It began as a federally f unded Depression-era project. The theater was built by the Civilian Conser vation Corps.

The Lost Colony was intended to be a one-year production. Then President Frank lin D. Roosevelt attended the show with a good deal of media fanfare on August 18, 1937 — the 350th anniversar y of Virginia Dare’s birth and a little more than a month af ter the July 4th premiere.

Af ter FDR’s visit, the crowds came. The show was so popular that organizers decided to stage it ever y summer. They’ve been doing it for 83 years. World War II forced a four-year cancellation.

L ast season’s cancellation in the pandemic was a financial blow to the Roanoke Island Historical Association, which produces the drama. The year-round staf f had to be greatly reduced.

But Kevin Bradley, the association’s board chair, says, “The year of f turned out to be a blessing. We had the time to reimagine the production, recharge our batteries and refresh how we tell this stor y.”

A new director/choreographer was recruited: Jef f W hiting, whose Broadway credits include Bullets Over Broadway (6 Tony Nominations), Big Fish, The Scottsboro Boys (12 Tony Nominations), Hair (Tony winner for Best Revival) and Wicked 5th Anniversary.

The New York Times called W hiting a “director with a joyous touch.”

W hiting says his goal is “to honor the histor y of what occurred here on Roanoke Island, and to honor the legacy of this important theatrical work. As the wind rolls of f Roanoke Sound, it whispers the tale. It’s my job as director to listen to that breeze and bring to life what happened here so many years ago.”

W hiting has reduced the lengthy original script, written by North Carolina play wright Paul Green, allowing the scenes and stor y to move faster and providing more time for theatrical stor ytelling.

Additional theatrical devices will support the stor ytelling, including

large-scale puppets, a militar y-st yle drum corps and a new symphonic score. The show will also feature traditional dances from both Native American and English historical cultures.

But Paul Green’s imprint remains.

Green was a Har nett Count y far m boy who became a professor at the Universit y of Nor th Carolina at Chapel Hill and a P ulitzer Pr izewinning play wr ight. Green was the father of “symphonic drama.” He saw it as the people’s theater, a way of telling A mer icans about their past.

Green had a deep concern about race relations. His vision of The Lost Colony reflects what can happen when dif ferent cultures and races come together.

In t he past, t he product ion didn’t a lways use Indigenous actors to por t r ay t he Nat ive A mer ic an roles in t he play. Seek ing aut hent icit y, t he associat ion reached out to Cha ir man Har vey Godw in Jr. of t he L umbee Tr ibe of Nor t h Carolina. He now ser ves on t he board of directors.

With the tribe’s help, Native Americans were recruited as actors and dancers. Auditions were held in Robeson Count y, in the Lumbee tribal territor y.

“We are appreciative of the Historical Association’s desire for accurate and historical representation,” Godwin says. “With North Carolina’s American Indian population numbering more than 100,000, it enriches the production to see and hear their voices on stage.”

Kaya Littleturtle, the Lumbee Tribe Cultural Enrichment Coordinator agrees, adding that the new choreography, regalia, language accuracy and orchestration help to insert “more of an authentic and cultural American Indian perspective into the play.”

But the real test is whether the new production will bring back audiences, says John Ancona, general manager: “We want to give our audience an exceptional evening’s experience in an outdoor setting — an experience you can’t get many places. We want to inspire interest in a part of histor y that remains a myster y today.”

Ancona hopes that visitors will leave the theater intrigued by the stor y. Perhaps they’ll dip into the ongoing, unending research and archeological exploration that still seek clues about The L ost Colony.

W here did they go? W hat happened to them? Did they drown at sea? Were they killed by natives, or by Spanish raiders? Or did they quietly go live with a friendly tribe?

We don’t k now. But we do k now the colonists dreamed of f reedom. T hey dared a dangerous ocean voyage. T hey sought a new life in a new land.

Take the drive back to their world. Walk where they walked. See and feel what they saw and felt.

Hear their stor y. Listen to the wind, the water and the trees. Feel the myster y of The Lost Colony.

The L ost Colony’s 2021 season launched May 28 and continues through August 21. For tickets and more information: thelostcolony.org PS

Gary Pearce is a member of the board of directors of the Roanoke Island Historical Association. He and his wife, Gwyn, divide their time between Raleigh and Nags Head.