Floyd Collins and the White Angels of Sand Cave
120 Minutes
3-7M/2-3F - MAX 50+/MIN 7
| Cast Size: | |
|---|---|
| Run Time: | |
| Play Type: | Colleges, Community, Doubling Possible, Drama, Edgy Play, Highly Theatrical, Large Cast |
MAY: They’ve been lies, mostly… people trying to make a buck off the ghost of Floyd Collins.
HARLEY: I guess that’s true … just trying to make a buck off Sand Cave and Floyd’s memory, that, like Floyd, just seems designed to slip in and out . . . never seems meant to render Floyd true like he was. You see, there are two ways a person can pass through life without too many people knowing the truth about him. One way is to hide out so that people don’t talk about you much, and the other is to so arrange circumstances that too many people talk about you too much. I guess Floyd, not really trying, took the second way. He just got lost somehow in all that talk.
WAYNE: Things get distorted.
MAY: And twisted around.
WAYNE: They get so backwards and distorted and twisted up and down that pretty soon the person himself who all the talk’s about doesn’t know what he himself is up to or down to, or all about.
HARLEY: That didn’t happen to Floyd.
WAYNE: No, it didn’t, but it might have if he had lived.
MAY: If he had ever got out of Sand Cave alive and had to listen to all the talk or the stuff people made up in papers and books.
WAYNE: He might have gotten confused about himself. Maybe he’d have taken to wearing a fancy hat or something or got himself a big car low to the ground.
HARLEY: Might have but didn’t.
MAY: No sir, he did not.
WAYNE: Because he never got the chance.
HARLEY: No, he didn’t. What he did was die in Sand Cave in 1925. Now we’ve got some slides here. May, do you mind lending a hand with that projector?
The Actors' Mission, 9th - 13th November 2022
The Actors' Mission, 9th - 13th November 2022
Daniel Bendtsen plays Floyd Collins and Shannon Bendtsen is the Angel of Sand Cave. Photograph by Dave Gutierrez
In Kentucky, caves were popular tourist attractions and a source of revenue. In 1925 Floyd Collins hoped to find another entrance to the Mammoth Cave, He got trapped undergound for two weeks and a frantic media circus ensued, heightened by a new invention, public radio broadcasts.
Enter Quantity Below
Play Details
MAY: They’ve been lies, mostly… people trying to make a buck off the ghost of Floyd Collins.
HARLEY: I guess that’s true … just trying to make a buck off Sand Cave and Floyd’s memory, that, like Floyd, just seems designed to slip in and out . . . never seems meant to render Floyd true like he was. You see, there are two ways a person can pass through life without too many people knowing the truth about him. One way is to hide out so that people don’t talk about you much, and the other is to so arrange circumstances that too many people talk about you too much. I guess Floyd, not really trying, took the second way. He just got lost somehow in all that talk.
WAYNE: Things get distorted.
MAY: And twisted around.
WAYNE: They get so backwards and distorted and twisted up and down that pretty soon the person himself who all the talk’s about doesn’t know what he himself is up to or down to, or all about.
HARLEY: That didn’t happen to Floyd.
WAYNE: No, it didn’t, but it might have if he had lived.
MAY: If he had ever got out of Sand Cave alive and had to listen to all the talk or the stuff people made up in papers and books.
WAYNE: He might have gotten confused about himself. Maybe he’d have taken to wearing a fancy hat or something or got himself a big car low to the ground.
HARLEY: Might have but didn’t.
MAY: No sir, he did not.
WAYNE: Because he never got the chance.
HARLEY: No, he didn’t. What he did was die in Sand Cave in 1925. Now we’ve got some slides here. May, do you mind lending a hand with that projector?
The Actors' Mission, 9th - 13th November 2022
The Actors' Mission, 9th - 13th November 2022
Daniel Bendtsen plays Floyd Collins and Shannon Bendtsen is the Angel of Sand Cave. Photograph by Dave Gutierrez