|
WEST VOLUSIA HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
presents
DELAND...
The
‘Athens of Florida’
A play told in semi-documentary style
about the “City in the Forest” as remembered by
some of its early settlers and founder.
Produced & Directed by
William “Billy” de Silva
Encore Performance Saturday March 31 at 7:30PM
The cast of the John Knox Village
production which premiered on July 23, 2011.
RESERVED SEATING
Adults $16; Seniors Over 62 $14; Students & Children $10
foreword
by the Director
This
historical special event is intended to celebrate 136 years of the founding
of DeLand by Henry A. DeLand in 1876. All of the information, as told by 14
of DeLand’s original settlers portrayed in this production, has been
carefully researched and authenticated from books, newspaper articles,
letters, and documents, and is intended to serve as a living tribute to
those early pioneers. I have chosen to “bridge” the dialogue for each
character’s introduction with a narration by Helen P. DeLand, Henry DeLand’s
only daughter, who in the late 1920s decided to write her memoirs as a
testimony to her father’s efforts and struggles to make DeLand flourish --
and flourish it did. It was this pioneering spirit that those early pioneers
captured, and each actor seen and heard in this presentation portray those
settlers in a straight forward style, each telling of their own personal
contributions to the founding of the city which shaped early DeLand, and who
make this production historically important. It is well that the pages of
history be turned backward to those settlers who each had a “special dream
and vision,” and who were instrumental in the beginnings of the most
important events that have taken place here in the distant past. |