Ray Sally wants to have a funeral for his tractor. That’s right. His tractor. The old machine has played Santa’s sleigh in many a Christmas Parade, has helped rescue folks during a flood, has served as a chariot for the Little Miss Pioneer parade, and hard-worked too many harvests to name. But Deera is old and worn out, and you can’t find parts anymore, and it’s time for her to meet her maker. Or is it Ray Sally himself who is on the short road to the great beyond? Questions of destiny, community, and the measure of a life well lived are themes in Ned Dougherty’s play Deera’s Country Funeral, a premise that invites both humor and poignancy.
The Pocahontas County Drama Workshop will hold a reading of Ned’s new work on Saturday, May 18th, at the Opera House. Showtime is 7:30. Admission is free. Craig Goheen will take on the role of Ray Sally, while Jeff Marcum portrays John, the undertaker charged with conducting the unique burial. Leslie McLaughlin will play John’s wife, Mary, hairdresser, gossip, and link to the spirit world. Jack Herold will portray their son Cole, a teenager who lives in fear of spending all his life in Bargantz County, though the place permeates his bones more than he realizes. Charlie Hughes will play the stranger in town drawn into the turbulence caused by Deera’s demise, and Sabina Leyzorek is a guardian angel trying to get a promotion out of the deal. As a playwright works on a script, it is helpful to hear it read aloud by actors as he gauges audience reaction. Audience members are invited to give Ned feedback after the reading.
Ned Dougherty is an award-winning teacher and playwright whose plays have been developed with The Playwrights Workshop, The Greenbrier Valley Theatre, AboutFACE Ireland, ForgeNYC, the Taos Center for the Arts. He is a 2024 semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and his work has been staged for festivals or independent productions from Albuquerque to Dublin. He is a
two-time Fund For Teachers fellow and has facilitated writing workshops with the Taos Writers Conference and the Appalachian Studies Association. He founded the Appalachian Ode Project, which brings free community writing experiences to communities across the region to foster improved youth retention and ignite new artistic forms of the civic imagination. He teaches middle and high school students how to navigate the juvenile justice system and leads free creative writing classes for youth in Pocahontas County, WV, where he lives with his family.
