| Celebrate the life and work of one of the South’s greatest writers in this once-in-a-lifetime theatrical event. Return to a small town in eastern North Carolina and the Avery family that captivated audiences in Triad Stage’s second season. In honor of Reynolds Price, we present the entire New Music trilogy in a special two-part extended run—Part I: August Snow and Night Dance and Part II: Better Days. See the two parts separately or see them together during weekend marathon performances on February 25, February 26, March 10 or March 11. |
New Music
Part II: Better Days
A Family Trilogy
by Reynolds Price
directed by Preston Lane
February 21 – March 18, 2012
Come home.
Thirty years after the events in Night Dance, friends and visitors gather to comfort Neal and Taw after the death of Neal’s mother, Roma. Their son, on leave from Vietnam, seeks a destiny beyond his family’s roots. When Roma’s will reveals a startling surprise, conflicting desires threaten to leave everyone in a state of uncertainty, and they must find enormous courage to meet the future in a swiftly changing world.
"You haven't seen anything remotely like New Music anywhere this season... [It] breaks ground, celebrates a master of Southern literature and, perhaps even more important in the long run, redefines modern regional theatre."
–Lynn Jessup, CVNC
"Price's vigorous, vivid writing takes us on quite a journey and this production proves something I've known from long experience: The night skies aren't empty above small towns. Neither are the people who live in them. New Music provides a nuanced, vibrant reminder."
–Byron Woods, Indy Week
The New Music trilogy is presented in collaboration with Greensboro Public Library's "One City, One Author" program.
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*New Music, Part II: Better Days is presented as a special event and is not included in 2011-2012 Season Pass packages. However, Season Passholders have the exclusive opportunity to order advance Flex Tickets to Better Days at the reduced rate of $15 each with their Season Pass purchase or renewal.
About Reynolds Price
Howard C. Jones's Better Days ground plan
Bill Brewer's Better Days costume designs
New Music Dramaturgy
Reynolds Price (1933-2011)
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Reynolds Price was born in the town of Macon, North Carolina on February 1, 1933. He spent much of his childhood moving around the North Carolina Piedmont as his family struggled financially. Price attended Duke University as an undergraduate and graduated summa cum laude in 1955. Upon graduation he traveled to England as a Rhodes Scholar to study the works of John Milton at Oxford University. This trip proved to be a transformative time in his life, as he forged lifelong friendships and was able to see the world beyond the North Carolina state borders. However, his heart was never far from home and he returned to Duke, where he taught as a James B. Duke Professor of English for more than 50 years. During that time he received the University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service, the university’s highest honor, and the Distinguished Alumni Award. A professorship in creative writing was established in his name in 2008.
In 1962, Price published his first novel A Long and Happy Life. Set in his native eastern North Carolina, it was praised for its Southern voice and signaled Price’s emergence as a major Southern writer of his generation. It also received the William Faulkner Award for notable first novel, one of numerous awards he earned for his more than 40 novels, plays and collections of short stories and poetry. His novel, Kate Vaiden, completed in 1986, won the National Book Critics Circle prize for the year’s best work of fiction. Price was a writer who proved that great stories could exist just outside your backdoor. He focused on what he knew best; the people and places of North Carolina. Price said, “I’m the world’s authority on this place. It’s the place about which I have a perfect pitch.” He also found success as a lyricist, collaborating with James Taylor on the songs “Copperline” and “New Hymn”. In 1984, Price was diagnosed with spinal cancer, a disease that left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Price refused to let the disease silence his creative voice and detailed his struggle with the disease in his 1994 memoir A Whole New Life. He would continue to write until his death in 2011 from complications of a heart attack
Scenic Ground Plan by Howard C. Jones
All three plays in New Music are performed on the same set. Staged on a wooden deck that is decorated by numerous painted quilt patterns, the scenes in August Snow, Night Dance and Better Days utilize set pieces to help stage a variety of different locations. Better Days Ground Plan |
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New Music Dramaturgy
Artistic Associate Bryan Conger has created a Google site about Reynolds Price, as well as some background and historical context of New Music.
Click here to visit our New Music Google site.
