Mountain Voices | The Dramaturgy of Nostalgia in the Old Home Movement with Andy Colpitts

When does the theatre of rural life become its reality? Old Home celebrations, inaugurated by New Hampshire Governor Frank Rollins in 1899, sought rural revitalization by appealing to nostalgia. Calls were sent to former residents of New Hampshire inviting them to return for a week in the summer filled with parades, pageants, plays and pie eating contests. The goal was to lure those who’d left the state— for jobs in urban centers and greener pastures out West— to purchase second homes or even return permanently. At the heart of this enterprise was a remaking of rural life in New England to match the expectations and desires of touristic returners: simple, quaint, unchanging. Over the course of the subsequent century and a quarter, the movement spread throughout the country and continues to this very day. This presentation considers the historical precedents, contemporary manifestations, and social ramifications of this New Hampshire tradition. 

This lecture will be facilitated online and in-person. To receive a link to join online, please register via Microsoft Teams HERE.

Andy Colpitts is a theatre artist and PhD candidate at Cornell University in the Department of Performing and Media Arts. He holds a BA from Brown University in Theatre & Performance Studies and Comparative Literature and an MA from Cornell University in Performing and Media Arts. His scholarly interests include rural identity, popular performance, and nostalgia. His dissertation project, entitled “Backcountry Onstage: Rural Theatricality and the Performance of Nostalgia,” interrogates the creation and dissemination of idyllic imaginaries of rural New England through quotidian and theatrical performance from the late nineteenth century to the present day. As a theatre-maker, Andy is a puppeteer, director, playwright, and burlesque dancer (stage name La-Di-Da). He trained at the École ­Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and has toured nationally with the Bread & Puppet ­Theatre. With composer Michael Wookey, he wrote the new musical The Family ­Copoli: a post-­apocalyptic burlesque and repopulation play.