Spoon River Anthology was published in 1915 by Edgar Lee Masters. This production shattered the myth of small-town America. In his thinly veiled fictional town of Spoon River, Masters found the honest, hardworking, chaste, and churchgoing live amidst corrupt bankers, abusive husbands, unfulfilled wives, sexual deviants, and failed dreamers. Freed by the shackles of life, the un-living who “sleep beneath these weeds” confess their deepest secrets, disappointments, frustrations, joys, and warnings to the living in the form of brutally honest epitaphs.
This adaptation to stage added many well known folk songs to make the stories even more interesting. What you hear will be a gallery of many different types of people that serve to universalize the people of Spoon River. Don’t be surprised if you see some one you know or grew up with in these characters. It was truly a book written before its time.
