The Catskill Chronicle

Story and photos by Ted Waddell

LOCH SHELDRAKE – “Inherit the Wind”, a 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and
Robert Edwin Lee was brilliantly adapted to the local stage by Ron Nash with vocal music arrangements by Lori James.

Staged by the Forestburgh Theatre Arts Center (FTAC), an outgrowth of the 65-year old Forestburgh Playhouse, “Inherit the Wind” is a fictionalized account of the world-famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial in which John T. Scopes was convicted in the sultry summer of 1925 of teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law that banned the teaching of evolution. The trial took place in Hillsboro, Tennessee, and the original authors of the play used it as a powerful and thought-provoking parable to explore the then contemporary state of McCarthyism and anti-Communist investigations conducted by the House Committee of Un-American Activities (HCUA) and the then-mighty Senator Joseph McCarthy before his fall from grace…

To read the rest of Ted Waddell’s story on the Forestburgh Theatre Arts Center production of “Inherit the Wind” – Creationism vs. Evolution please visit the Chronicle’s Theatrical Previews and Reviews page listed under our Theater, Dance and Poetry section.

To view more photos or to purchase prints from “Inherit the Wind” – Creationism vs. Evolution visit the Chronicle on Zenfolio.