THE BELLE OF AMHERST by William Luce is currently on tour with Belleherst Productions. This outstanding theatre piece, know as a tour d‘force for the solo actress, enjoyed a very successful run on Broadway with Julie Harris. Kathleen Ann Thompson has toured the production in the U.S. at the Lyceum Theatre in San Diego, the La Jolla Museum for Contemporary Art in La Jolla, California, The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre in San Diego while in Europe she has appeared at Brook Place in Surrey, U.K, Theatre 44 in Munich and The Rover Rep in Hamburg, Germany just to mention a few of Ms. Thompson’s very appreciative audiences
One play — two radically different performances.
Belleherst Productions presents William Luce’s celebrated play The Belle of Amherst in contrasting genres on alternating evenings. One version is drama, the other dance, offering viewers a unique and evocative encounter with the mysterious, ever elusive American poet Emily Dickinson from two very different perspectives. I must tell you about the “character of Amherst”. It is a lady whom the people call the ‘myth’. She is the sister of Mr. Dickinson (brother Austin) and seems to be the climax of all the family oddity. She has not been outside of her home in fifteen years, except once to see a new church by moonlight… She dresses wholly in white, and her mind is said to be perfectly wonderful. Mable Todd 1881
Luce’s play, renowned for its run on Broadway with Julie Harris, is witty, entertaining and profoundly moving. Narrative and poetry are fixed together like needlepoint, revealing a compelling picture: anecdotal stories, details ofDickinson’s eccentric life and her poetry – the poetry which so defines the myth status attributed to her.
