Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to be Performed at Reynolda House

Press Room

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to be Performed at Reynolda House Museum of American Art

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sharyn Turner
336.758.5580
sturner@reynoldahouse.org
or Sarah Mansell
336.758.5524
manselss@reynoldahouse.org

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (March 31, 2009) Reynolda House Museum of American Art will present a stage adaptation of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," performed by the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem on Friday, April 17, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 18, at 3 and 7 p.m. Admission is $5 for members and students, $8 for non-members.

"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" is the story of a farm girl who leaves her impoverished family to live with her two strict aunts in Riverboro, Maine. While they have certain ideas about how to raise a young lady to become a proper housewife, Rebecca, who loves to write poetry and songs, teaches them the importance of spontaneity and imagination. As she matures, she develops her talent for writing and aspires to become a teacher, all the while retaining her high spirits. This dramatic adaptation was written by the novel's author, Kate Douglas Wiggin.

Many of the artists represented in Reynolda House's current exhibition, "American Impressions: Selections from the National Academy," visited or lived in Maine, and their love of its rural ruggedness and vitality are evident in many of their works. George Bellows's "Three Rollers" (1911) is based on his trip to Maine's Monhegan Island, for example, and "Winter Landscape" (1902) by Abbott Thayer depicts a view of Mt. Monadnock in nearby New Hampshire.

"American Impressions" is on view through June 28, and Reynolda House is the exhibition's only venue outside of New York.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation's premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150.

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