VETERAN ACTOR WILL STUTTS RESURRECTS MARK TWAIN AT UNA
June 18, 2008
By Eric Hanback
UNA Student Writer
FLORENCE, Ala. — In 1968, 58 years after his death, Mark Twain appeared on the campus of the University of North Alabama — and now he’s returning again.
Will Stutts, veteran performer and producing artistic director of this year’s UNA Summer Theatre program, is reprising his oldest and one of his most famous roles once again for Shoals-area audiences.
“The show started at UNA,” Stutts said. “The first time I ever did it was in an American Lit. class. I thought it was sort of a classroom exercise of his.”
Stutts explained that because his professor knew Stutts’ interest in theater, he had asked Stutts to perform a skit to tie in with the course.
Since then, Stutts has performed in 39 states, three Canadian provinces and in more than 1,000 single engagements, his Mark Twain character and others paving the way.
Hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as the “master of the one man show,” the Alabama native can now reflect back on his career with a smile.
“It’s over an hour and a half of just one person on the stage making every effort to hold the audience,” he said, speaking on his performances. “If I had understood what I was doing, I would never have done that.”
But Stutts says that after all these years, it isn’t difficult to channel America’s first great author.
“My comfort level is like putting on some old cashmere sweater,” he said. “You know every crease in it.
“I could probably do six hours of Mark Twain material. I pick and choose as I go along. Some things are standard — some are crowd pleasers. A lot depends on the audience and the response. In the first few minutes, I get an idea of where they’re coming from.”
Stutts said that he’s read virtually everything written about Mark Twain, and whenever something new is published, he reads that too so it can mix with what he already knows. This way, he said, the show is different every time it’s performed.
And after 40 years in the theater business, that’s definitely a good thing.
“That’s what keeps it alive and keeps me from going nuts,” Stutts said.
Stutts also said he chose to perform as Mark Twain not only because of his and the character’s connection to UNA, but because the show is accessible for different types of people.
“I think that Mark Twain is special because it’s for English students, literature students, writing students and drama students. It cuts across all of those disciplines,” he said.
He also said he hopes to reveal more about where the author’s stories came from than what many people know. He said he believes that too many times, studying literature is not as exciting as it should be because there’s not enough focus on the context of how the story came to be.
“When a student is told to read ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ knowing that there will be a quiz on the material, it’s easy for the student to read the text just closely enough to pass the quiz,” Stutts said. “We’re so concentrated on the academic aspects. I feel there’s more of an appreciation if you know where the story came from.”
But there’s one other reason why Stutts said he will be resurrecting this particular character.
“July 5 is the perfect time [for the performance],” he said, “because there is no more American author than Mark Twain.”
