“That Book Woman” opens Tuesday at the Pioneer Playhouse – The Advocate-Messenger

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Cal, played by Warner Wiles (right), resents his sister Lark, played by Aaliyah Love (centre), who teaches her two younger siblings to read. Photo by Fiona Morgan

The Book Lady, played by Mari Blake (right), presents Lark, played by Aaliyah Love (left), with a new book after making a long journey to the family home. Photo by Fiona Morgan

Granny, played by Rita Hight (left), wonders if a book brought to her family by the packhorse librarian is suitable for children. Photo by Fiona Morgan

Cal, played by Warner Wiles (right), scares his younger siblings with the story of “Old Bloody Tom”. Photo by Fiona Morgan

Cal tries to scare his sister Lark with a story about “Old Bloody Tom” during rehearsals for “That Book Woman.” Photo by Fiona Morgan

Reia Frey as Dollie (left) and Oliver Wiles as Nate (right) dance around in a scene during rehearsals for “That Book Woman.” Photo by Fiona Morgan

The “chaos kids” run around their grandma and make her angry. Photo: Fiona Morgan

Heather Henson holds her book, “That Book Woman,” and stands next to a painted horse that was donated to the Pioneer Playhouse in honor of the new play honoring the packhorse librarians. The horse was painted by local artist Brandon Long. Photo by Fiona Morgan

The book’s wife Julia, played by Mari Blake (left), talks to the family man John, played by Lewis Wright. Photo by Fiona Morgan

The photo that inspired Heather Henson to write That Book Woman. Henson wanted to know why a woman on horseback would deliver a magazine or book to a mountain man. (Photo used with permission of the KY Department of Libraries and Archies.)

The Pack Horse Library program was established as part of President Roosevelt’s WPA to bring books to remote regions where there were few schools and no libraries. In this photo from KDLA, the Book Women of Hindman, Kentucky, line up before beginning their route.

Reia Frey as Dollie (left) shushes her brother Cal when he interrupts their study session. Photo by Fiona Morgan

The Chaos Kids run around the set during rehearsals for That Book Woman. Photo by Fiona Morgan

Cal (left) talks to his father John, played by Lewis Wright. Photo by Fiona Morgan

Reia Frey as Dollie (right) and Oliver Wiles as Nate dance in a scene during rehearsals for “That Book Woman”. Photo by Fiona Morgan

The Pioneer Playhouse’s 75th anniversary season continues with the world premiere of “That Book Woman,” opening Tuesday, July 2 and running through July 20.

That Book Woman is an original play based on the bestselling children’s book by Heather Henson. It has been adapted for the stage by Holly Hepp-Galván, who has worked on stage adaptations for the theater in the past.

The story honors a piece of Kentucky history about packhorse librarians who brought books to families in rural Appalachia in the 1930s. The librarians were part of the U.S. government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), which gave government jobs to the unemployed during the Great Depression. The librarians were mostly women and faced many dangers on their horseback rides in the mountains.

Heather Henson, executive director of the Pioneer Playhouse, which her father, Eben Henson, founded in 1950, was fascinated by this piece of Kentucky history. Her book, “That Book Woman,” tells the story of a boy named Cal and his family living on a farm high in the mountains during the Great Depression.

In Heather’s book, Cal is proud of all the work he can do on the farm to help his father, but is ashamed of not being able to read. His sister Lark loves books, which annoys Cal because he doesn’t see the value of books.

When the book woman comes to their house, Cal thinks the woman should bring something more useful. But he eventually takes a liking to the book woman and thinks she is brave for riding in dangerous weather.

“She comes back in the rain, the fog, the cold and the snow, and he kind of starts to respect her,” Heather explained.

The book has been published in many languages ​​around the world and Heather said it continues to be a bestseller here.

Playwright Holly Hepp-Galván fell in love with Heather’s book and the story of the packhorse librarians and wanted to turn the book into a play. She is part of the Kentucky Voices program, created by the Pioneer Playhouse, which teaches playwriting in prisons.

Normally, the Pioneer Playhouse would perform an original Kentucky Voices play almost every year, but there hasn’t been one since before Covid. The original plays usually honor parts of Kentucky’s history.

Hepp-Galván has previously written plays for Kentucky Voices, including based on the books “Guarded” and “Granted” by local author Angela Correll.

Hepp-Galván said she expanded the world of Heather’s book, adding storylines and characters. While the book is intended for children, the play delves deeper into the issues of the time and will appeal to all ages.

“Heather was totally on board with expanding the world of her book. The focus of the book is family, and I wanted there to be a town and for you to see the larger world where a packhorse librarian went through everything and overcame it all,” Hepp-Galván said.

The play is set in 1937 during the Great Depression. Cal’s family lives on a farm in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky when a man named Aaron Thompson, played by Kevin Reams, wants to build a mine on their property that will bring jobs to the region. Cal’s father John, played by Lewis Wright, tries to fight Thompson’s land grab but sees little hope until a librarian, played by Mari Blake, offers to help him with the books she brings.

Cal is played by 12-year-old Warner Wiles. He behaves a bit like a bully towards his siblings, who all love reading books and learning.

“I really like to hate people and books, love them, and then later embrace books and all people,” Warner said.

Cal’s sister Lark is played by 12-year-old Aaliyah Love. She loves reading and teaching her younger siblings Nate, played by Oliver Wiles (8), and Dollie, played by Reia Frey (7).

In some scenes, the kids run around and make their grandma very excited. Reia and Oliver said it was fun to be a “chaos child.”

“Because I’m a little kid, I’m allowed to be crazy and it’s fun to cause real chaos on stage,” said Oliver.

The young actors have performed in local plays at West T. Hill Community Theater and Opening Act Performing Arts. Reia, Oliver and Aaliyah all go to school together, and Warner and Oliver are siblings in real life.

The children are all very excited about their roles and hope to continue acting as adults.

Heather estimates that the Pioneer Playhouse hasn’t had children perform in plays for about 15 years. Heather says the children are very professional and talented.

“We were just overwhelmed by all the talent in Danville because West T. Hill and Opening Act do so much, so they really prepare kids for theater from a young age,” Heather said.

She said the children had memorized all their lines from day one and were always prepared.

“They ask really intelligent questions about the time period, the material, the accent… They started asking about accents and wanting to get the dialect right; that’s pretty unusual for 12-year-olds,” Heather said.

The book’s woman, called Julia in the play, is played by Mari Blake, a new actress to the theater who traveled to Danville from New York City for the play. Blake said she liked that her character was an adventurer and subverted gender norms of the time.

“She’s such a strong woman, which is something I always look for in a character; it’s a really cool part of the story that I didn’t know about,” Blake said.

Jennifer Goff, head of the theatre department at Centre College, is the director and has directed several plays at the Pioneer Playhouse. She has experience working with playwrights to develop scripts.

“It was really great working with Holly and having her in the room throughout the whole process and we were able to fix any problems immediately,” Goff said. “It’s challenging; sometimes it’s really hard to get what the production demands on the page to the stage.”

Hepp-Galván added characters and also changed some characters from the book, for example by making the father of the family a widower and the grandmother helping with the housework.

She added the character Digger, a moonshiner who loves books and quoting famous writers.

“He is not like the caricatures of moonshiners that you can imagine. We definitely did not want to make a caricature of these people, they are all real people,” said Hepp-Galván.

Hepp-Galván worked with Heather to research what other historical events they could incorporate into the play.

“I really wanted to capture Heather’s book, and most of the lines from the book are in the play. But then I wanted to expand the world and look at other events that were happening there, like land grabs and how difficult it was to be a librarian on a packhorse,” Hepp-Galván said.

“Back then, in the 1930s, there was a lot of land grabbing, and I had to do a lot of research on these things.”

She briefly discusses the difficulties the packhorse librarians faced and how the WPA program worked.

The librarians only received money for their salaries, not for the horses or books. In small towns, people built makeshift libraries and received donations of books from people all over the country.

The librarians also had to hire horses and pay for their food. They rode up to 20 miles a day in all weathers and up steep mountains, exposed to the dangers of the wilderness, such as snakes, vicious dogs and bears, and the risk of their horse stumbling and being left alone in the forest.

In addition to the storyline about Aaron Thompson wanting to build a coal mine and uproot several families, there is another storyline about how appropriate the books the librarians brought were.

“Many of these rural residents were very conservative and distrustful of strangers, especially strangers from a government program. They were distrustful of government employees and did not want to accept handouts,” Hepp-Galván explained.

Another subplot is that of a possible romance between John and the Book Lady, but the main story is still about Cal learning to find joy in books.

“This was a story that needed to be told on stage,” Hepp-Galván said. “It was exciting to research and see some of the original scrapbooks and materials that the Packhorse Librarians have brought to nearly 100,000 people. It was also personally fulfilling because my father was born in a coal camp in Eastern Kentucky, and writing this play allowed me to bring to life some of the stories my grandmother told me about that time.”

In honor of the play, the Pioneer Playhouse received a donated life-sized horse statue. Local artist Brandon Long painted the statue with historical photos of packhorse librarians. The statue is on display outside the Pioneer Playhouse box office and will remain there until the end of performances.

The play is performed every evening from Tuesday to Saturday from 8.30 p.m., with an optional dinner at 7.30 p.m.