The Great Kentucky Tragedy & My Old Kentucky Plays, II

About the Book

Six Kentucky historical dramas, too This “murder for love” story charmed the world with its great lure for romanticism. In 1825, Solomon P. Sharp, a promising politician in Frankfort, Kentucky, was murdered at his doorstop by the apprentice that idolized him. Jereboam O. Beauchamp claimed he was defending the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke, who accused Sharp of fathering her child and abandoning her; both were executed and buried in the same grave. Songs, poems, novels, and plays responded around the globe. Even Edgar Allan Poe tried his hand at it in his drama Politian, but to safeguard himself changed the names, setting, date, and title. Its fiction failed to interest Poe and his public. Now, The Kentucky Tragedy, as it was known, can appear as Poe had dreamed it. BOTHERUM An old farmhouse, mid-Nineteenth Century Lexington, Kentucky. Widower Madison Conyers Johs purchases a farm with an unexpected enslaved family. Conyers, brother-in-law of abolitionist Cassius M. Clay, and the enslaved foreman overcome the situations that separate them, and develop a lasting friendship that surpasses social position and race. Two Kentucky Gentlemen of the Old School. BEATING THE DARK HOME Dressing room of the Pekin Theater in Chicago, 1906. Vaudeville performers Amos and Andy Tribble confront one another with their love and hatred of the stage. While Amos returns to the farm, Andy is left to reinvent his stage presence or lose it. DAY OF RELEASEMENT Shaker Village, Harrodsburg, Kentucky 1812 and 1999. Enslaved servant Patsy Williamson is not only gifted with freedom and equality at Shaker Village, but also with spiritual songs — music that connects her to the love of Andy, separated from her by almost two hundred years. These star - crossed lovers discover a hidden portal to bring them together: their music. Pioneer Christmas in Kentucky The Old Log Meeting House, on the road to the first county seat of Madison County, Kentucky, Christmas 1788. The residents of Milford unite with a plot to stop a group of marauding and murdering bandits. Moon Above Benson Valley Two taverns during Prohibition, one below the town belonging to John Fallis, the murderous and radical “King of Craw,” and the other atop Bald Knob, belonging to the low key, compliant, ever - bachelor William Vest, collide in the unsolved murder of an Italian immigrant.

About the Author

Richard Cavendish is the registered pen name with Dramatists Guild of America for The Rev. Dr. Russell Richard Reichenbach Cavendish. “Rusty,” as he has been known, restored the “i” in his family name after they had dropped it during World War One to appear less German. Cavendish was added to his name in 2023 after the death of his father Dr. John Claude Cavendish in 2021. Richard is a native of Frankfort, Kentucky. He graduated from Transylvania University with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Drama and Religion and completed the Master of Divinity and the Doctor of Ministry degrees from Lexington Theological Seminary. He attended Mansfield College of Oxford, England. He retired from ministry in 2012, to write historical dramas. Dr. Reichenbach Cavendish has restored The Old Parsonage of Andrew Tribble built in 1794, located in Richmond to be used for community events. His play Botherum was chosen Best Ten-Minute Play 2017 with Kentucky Theater Association’s Roots of the Bluegrass Play Writing Competition, and his plays Night Music of the River 2016, The Botanic Garden 2018, Beatin’ the Dark Home 2019, and Day of Releasement 2021 were winning finalists. His full-length play, The Minister’s Daughter, won first place with Kentucky Theater Association’s Roots of the Bluegrass Play Writing Competition 2022.