\u201cThe Family Willis and Friend\u201d a work by Chuck Knauf, will be presented as a reading by four local Tioga County performers at the Tioga County Historical Society on Saturday, Oct. 10 at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
The Family Willis consists of Nathaniel Parker Willis, a famous author, poet and journalist in the mid-eighteenth century, and siblings to N. P. Willis, Sara Willis, who became famous in her own right as an author, journalist with the non de plume of Fanny Fern, and their younger brother, Richard Storrs Willis, musician, composer and journal editor. The friend is Harriet Jacobs, former slave from North Carolina, who was a close associate of the Willis family and nurse to N. P. Willis\u2019s children over the years.<\/p>\n
In this presentation, the performers will narrate each of their own life stories, in part, and interchange play-like dialogue, which at times becomes heated between N. P. and Sara\/Fanny. In real life they become estranged; the cause to be portrayed in the program.<\/p>\n
The author, Chuck Knauf, started out writing a work about N. P. Willis, who lived by the Owego Creek from 1837-1842, and wrote \u201cLetters from under a Bridge\u201d while living there. The \u201cbridge\u201d today is known as the Talcott Street Bridge.<\/p>\n
Willis purchased a 200-acre estate from Owego resident George Pumpelly, a former Yale Eli friend of N. P. Willis named his estate Glenmary after his English bride, Mary. Upon delving into N. P. Willis\u2019 sojourn in Owego, Chuck discovered the fascinating lives of N. P.\u2019s siblings, Sara and Richard, and that of Jacobs, and decided to weave their stories into the work he has started solely on Nathaniel.<\/p>\n
Reading the part of Nathaniel Parker Willis will be Ed Nizalowski, well-known Newark Valley historian, who once portrayed Nathaniel Parker Willis as a docent at the \u201cWalk Thru Time\u201d at Hiawatha Island. Reading the parts of Sara\/Fanny, Richard, and Harriet will be, respectively, Cathy Yetter, Frank Mischke and Brenda-Cave James.<\/p>\n
Works written by Chuck that have been performed in Owego are \u201cPrincess\u201d (1991), a musical about the tragedy Sa Sa Nah, the Mohawk Indian whose grave is mounted by a prominent monument in Evergreen Cemetery, \u201cRiver Island Bound,\u201d a musical based on the history of Hiawatha Island, performed by the Ti-Ahwaga Players in 1998, and \u201cSeasons in the Glen,\u201d a children\u2019s opera performed at TCHS in 2001 as opera for young people at schools and other venues in the region, for its 2011-2012 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe Family Willis and Friend\u201d a work by Chuck Knauf, will be presented as a reading by four local Tioga County performers at the Tioga…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-living"],"yoast_head":"\n