Eudora Welty has been called one of the greatest Southern writers of the twentieth century.  Her short story, “The Petrified Man,” is a tale of small town characters.  The narrative drips with acid descriptions balanced by black comedy.  The dark humor of the piece exposes the blind self-involvement of ordinary people.

This Readers Theatre adaptation of “The Petrified Man” strives to embody Welty’s biting juxtaposition of the mundane and the grotesque. The director incorporates Brechtian staging techniques to encourage the audience to maintain a critical distance on the characters and achieve a simultaneous awareness of both the pathos and the social satire with which Welty infuses this tale of a Southern beauty parlor that is next door to a traveling freak show.

I’m afraid that not much more than the above short program proposal and a handful of pictures remains of our 2006 production of “The Petrified Man.”  The show traveled to the Southern States Communication Association convention. I do remember that ideas for presenting the show were rather high concept.  For example – Billy Boy – the annoying child in the story – was portrayed by a giant blue ball that the performers bounced around the stage.  I prepared a series of circus-style posters that I wanted to project behind the performers throughout the performance. However, I couldn’t secure a projector and had to settle for displaying little posters on a music stand…Very disappointing.  Another incident that almost derailed the show was that only weeks before the convention -- the actress who was to play the chatty beautician, Leota, dropped out.  However, a student from one of my classes volunteered to take over this challenging part.  Thus began my long and very, very, very happy association with Andrea Baldwin, who stole the show and made a gloriously memorable debut into the world of Performance Studies.