DESTINATION WALTER History lives vividly through a longtime Outer Banks production
Lost& Found by JASON FRYE
“I
knew I’d be back to direct,” says Ira David Wood III, the esteemed stage and screen actor perhaps best-known, at least around Raleigh, for his 40-plus-year role as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, which he also directs. On a recent afternoon, however, he’s talking about The Lost Colony, the first and longest-running outdoor drama in the nation. This month, Wood will take his annual leave of the city to return to his coastal post in Manteo, North Carolina – another season directing The Lost Colony. There, he’s building a vivid creative legacy that honors both history and his local theatre roots. Every summer since 1937 – except for a brief hiatus brought on by the threat of German U-boats during World War II – The Lost Colony has presented audiences with the story of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony, an attempt by British explorers to establish a permanent settlement on the Outer Banks. In 1587, 115 colonists took possession of an abandoned military fort on the north end of Roanoke Island, established farms, and began a life here. War with the Spanish kept resupply from reaching the colony, but finally, in 1590, British ships arrived only to find the settlement deserted. There was no trace of the colonists; no bodies, no signs of a battle, just dismantled homes and fortifications and the word CROATOAN carved into a fence post. They were gone, the
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