Will political theater "RFK in Eastern KY" find an audience in area today?

[DeepModem Mom]

New York Times:


Associated Press
Robert F. Kennedy talking with schoolchildren in eastern Kentucky on Feb. 14, 1968.

It's 1968 in Kentucky: Two Days of Political Theater in the Original Settings
By JAMES DAO

Published: September 1, 2004

WHITESBURG, Ky. - When John Malpede, a performance artist from Los Angeles, asked a small-town Kentucky lawyer named Jack Faust to play the lead role in his latest project, "RFK in EKY," Mr. Faust was flattered but perplexed....Mr. Faust was struggling to understand "RFK in EKY," Mr. Malpede's attempt to recreate Kennedy's two-day War on Poverty tour of eastern Kentucky in February 1968, just a month before he declared his candidacy for president and four months before he was assassinated....

***

From its beginnings three years ago, Mr. Malpede, whose work often focuses on the poor, wanted to encourage local people to think about their socioeconomic conditions, and ways they could improve them. Recreating Mr. Kennedy's trip, which many people remember fondly, seemed an ideal way to stimulate that kind of discussion, Mr. Malpede said....

***

One intriguing question is just who will be in the audience. Mr. Malpede says he expects several dozen people, including some former Kennedy aides, to fly into Kentucky to see the production. There will also be crowds of students at the college and high school where scenes will be re-enacted.

But will people come off the street to hear Kennedy's speech at the Floyd County courthouse in Prestonsburg? And will anyone actually drive to the ridgetop where performers will tour an active strip mine?

Mr. Malpede does not really know, since he is not selling tickets. (All the events are free.)...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/01/arts/01rfk.html

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

1. Prestonsburg, huh ?...wel, they can stay at Jenny Wiley SRP...

..was Kennedy in Prestonsburg?

But the byline of the story is Whitesburg? Do those Appalshop folks have something to do with this?

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Yep, Appalshop; from the article --

(Malpede) "is producing the project with his wife, Henriette Brouwers, in conjunction with Appalshop, an arts and media organization here in Whitesburg, a town of 1,600 in the heart of the eastern Kentucky coal country. It will be staged from Sept. 8 to 11 at locations from Vortex to Prestonsburg. A schedule events is available on the group's Web site, www.appalshop.org."

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Not clear if he was in Prestonburg -- more about the visit --

"Mr. Kennedy, then a Democratic senator from New York and chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over employment and poverty programs, had come to eastern Kentucky to study how President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty was faring.

But in his two field hearings, in Vortex and Neon, witnesses veered off into an array of regional problems, from environmental degradation to unsafe working conditions to inadequate schools. Between hearings, Kennedy stopped at a one-room schoolhouse, spoke to college students, visited a strip mine and chatted with clumps of people on street corners."