'Spoon River Anthology' the play uses 60 of the epitaphs from 'Spoon River Anthology' the book as the foundation for monologues and original songs. In my direction, I've been trying to emphasize those parts where the characters are giving a plea to the living, saying 'Look at your life. We've been talking a lot about that as a cast. 'This is a bunch of dead people talking about life and living a fulfilled life and what it's like to have regrets. 'I think it's very exciting how Masters set it in the graveyard and yet it is the about life,' Netterlund said.

Nellie Clark, a victim of child rape, speaks of how her husband deserted her when he learned she wasn't a virgin. Abner Peet bemoans how after his death a grog-keeper bought the box in which he had kept his sermons, and then burnt them all. Charles Bliss, who tells how she stayed in a rotten marriage for the sake of her children, and George Gray, who wasted his life for fear of taking a chance. 'And people recognized their relatives and themselves and were very upset that he would use those stories and tell them.'Įdgar Lee Master's characters speak from the grave, voicing the secrets they guarded during their days on earth. 'He based the characters on people he knew, some loosely and some very closely,' Netterlund said. One of the most popular poems in the anthology, 'Lucinda Matlock,' was a tribute to his beloved grandmother, Lucinda Masters. Masters based his poems on people from his hometown of Petersburg, Ill., and nearby Lewistown, Ill., said Larissa Netterlund, who is directing 'Spoon River Anthology' at UND. The book is the basis for a similarly named dramatic play that will run at 7:30 p.m.

That's basically what happened in 1915 when Edgar Lee Masters published 'Spoon River Anthology,' more than 200 short poems about people from all walks of life who had lived and died in a fictional small town called Spoon River. Imagine if a book were published with stories about people and their sordid secrets, from shady business dealings, adultery, alcoholism and depression to crimes like rape and child abuse.Īnd then imagine if the stories were thinly disguised accounts of the lives of well-known, well-regarded people in your hometown.

George gray spoon river anthology