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Oakwood Lives!

WUNC News | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published May 27, 2015 at 10:58 AM EDT
Actors George Jack and Greg Paul performing in a production of Oakwood Lives! at Oakwood Cemetery. The productions are a colalboration between the cemetery and Burning Coal Theatre.
Burning Coal Theatre
Actors George Jack and Greg Paul performing in a production of Oakwood Lives! at Oakwood Cemetery. The productions are a colalboration between the cemetery and Burning Coal Theatre.

Host Frank Stasio talks with actors DJ Curtis, George Jack, and Ann Forsthoefel; playwright Brook North; director Jackie Knollhuff; and Oakwood Cemetery executive director Robin Simonton

Oakwood Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 20,000 citizens, including notable community members and prominent state and national leaders. A collaboration between Burning Coal Theatre and Oakwood Cemetery honors the stories of some of the deceased each year through staged production.

This year's theme is protest and the production features a wide-range of characters from Raleigh's “Peanut Man,” Jesse Broyles, to Dr. Michael Hoke, the man who invented orthopedic “bone carpentry.” The performances take place in the cemetery at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 29, at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 30, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 31.  

Host Frank Stasio talks with actors DJ Curtis, George Jack, and Ann Forsthoefel; playwright Brook North; director Jackie Knollhuff; and Oakwood Cemetery executive director Robin Simonton.

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio