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OLD HICKORY is a story about a man
with a little problem –two really –a fearsome
ex-wife who won’t leave him alone and a knife . . .
and he’s been having these thoughts. Set today in
the mountains of West Virginia, Old Hickory is a
‘hillbilly gothic’ comedy about one man’s journey to
his moment of decision, with his trusty knife (and
the guidance of a mountain shaman named Catfish).
Ric Siler plays five characters in this engrossing story that
explores family, the choices we make and the
extremes we go to when we see no other way out, all
with a healthy dollop of Appalachian culture, wisdom
and humor.
The rhythms and ways of Appalachian life seems to spring naturally
and evocatively to life in this funny, suspenseful
and touching study of people trying to live together
. . . or not.
Old Hickory was recently performed to great acclaim at the
One Man Talking Festival in New York City, after
development at the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit
and a well received reading in March of this year in
the Voices from the Fringe series.
Ric is a native of Kentucky and was raised in West Virginia.
   
Ric Siler in Old
Hickory |
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About Author Rick Siler
Ric’s
plays include
Where the Rain Never Falls,
broadcast in January on WBAI with two readings at
Abingdon Theatre Company and a reading as part of
the TRU Voices Series, all in NYC.
Damage Control, read as part of the
TRU Voices Series in New York and at Burning Coal
Theatre in Raleigh, NC.
At Death’s Door (2010) and That
Lonesome Valley, both semi-finalists in the
Playwrights First contest at the National Arts Club
in New York.
Last Request was a semi-finalist in
Theatrefest’s regional playwriting competition.
Other full length plays include, among others, two
plays in a three-play cycle about Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman: Words of Fire and
The Nature of the Beast.
Ric’s one acts have been performed at The Gallery
Players, The Pulse Ensemble and the
Samuel French Festival in New York, as well as
at the Theatre Artists Workshop in Norwalk,
CT, the Depot Theatre in Garrison, NY, and
Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack, NY.
As an actor Ric has performed most recently in
Old Hickory in the One Man Standing
Festival in New York, and in his plays Where
the Rain Never Falls on WBAI
and Thirty Odd Years in NYC and at TAW
in Norwalk. Ric has appeared with Ellen Burstyn in
The Trip to Bountiful, was directed by
Edward Albee in Albee’s Counting the
Ways, and appeared in John Sayles’
Matewan. He has appeared in NYC in
productions of Clifford Odet’s Rocket to the
Moon, Robert Anderson’s The Days
Between, and many others.
Over the years Ric has been affiliated with many
developmental groups. Currently he is active in the
Hudson Valley Professional Playwrights Unit, in
which he has been a member for over ten years, and
Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit, in which he just
finished his second year, and without whom this
production would not be happening. |
