Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Hundreds of playwrights apply and submit their work to be considered as features in the Barter Theatre Annual Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights in Southwest Virginia.
Of the submissions for the 2025 festival, six were selected. Among them was the play “Deera’s Country Funeral,” by Ned Doughe-rty, of Green Bank.
Dougherty said he was pleased to learn that his play was selected for this year’s festival and is excited to see actors bring his characters to life at the event February 13-16.
“It’s really special that they’ve chosen my work,” he said. “I’ve applied a few times, and this is the first time they’ve accepted one of my plays.”
Doughtery’s play will open the week-long event on Thursday, February 13, and instead of a full performance, will be more like a table read. The actors will have the scripts in hand and a stage manager will give stage directions.
“It will feel like you’re seeing the play,” he explained. “Readings are pretty cool like that.”
The play follows an elderly farmer, Ray Sally, who is grieving a great loss – his trusty tractor Deera.
“He wants to give his old girl a Christian burial,” Dougherty explained.
“He’s going through his grief and he’s kind of wondering aloud why it wasn’t him that was chosen to pass on because what good is a farmer if he can’t keep his equipment running and what good is a farmer without his equipment.”
Not only is the farmer mourning the loss, but the entire community who benefitted from the generosity of Ray and Deera through the years.
“They were in all the parades together – him and his tractor – and they always helped people during the floods and so the town is grieving as well,” Dougherty said. “Everyone is very supportive of him having this funeral.
“It’s definitely inspired by my time in Pocahontas County.”
The play is no stranger to the stage, especially here in Pocahontas County. Last spring, Dougherty worked with Margaret Baker and the Pocahontas Drama Workshop, and Brynn Kusic and the Pocahontas County Opera House, to do two readings of the play.
“One was a private reading which was with actors and some trusted friends of Margaret’s,” Dougherty said. “Then we did a public reading of Deera in mid-May at the Opera House. I don’t think this play would have qualified for the Barter Theatre Festival without the development that those guys helped me with.
“Margaret is a key piece of that,” he continued. “Craig Goheen, one of the actors that she always has, was great in giving me feedback for Ray Sally and that narrative arc. There were about fifty people there one Friday night in May and it was really well received. That gave me the confidence that the play is on the right track.”
Dougherty began his writing career in his 20s with poetry. He considered pursuing higher education in prose when he was hosting poetry readings in New Mexico.
“The slam poetry scene is really big in New Mexico, but I never really could inhabit the persona of a performer and then everything else about poetry sort of seemed like it was whispering into the void a bit,” he said.
Since he was unable to find the performer in himself, Dougherty realized he could write something for others to perform instead. That lightbulb moment happened when he entered a small festival in New Mexico.
“It was a 32-hour theater festival where you have 24 hours to write ten pages and the actors have eight hours to memorize or figure it out and put it up on its feet by the end of that night,” he said. “That was really fun and kind of eye opening for me.”
Dougherty continued writing for theater and got his Master’s degree in the process. He’s been a playwright ever since.
“It was just so clear how much community is involved in the theater and how you really need your community to be able to achieve anything or to create anything, and give it back to your community,” he said. “It felt way more collaborative and community-oriented and from there, once I saw that the first time and I worked with other folks, I just got hooked.”
Dougherty said he also liked how, with plays, there is a short life span with the piece. Unlike a film which will live on as long as there are copies out there, a play will run for a limited amount of time.
While that may seem like a negative, to Dougherty, it adds to the importance of the play. It becomes a part of the people who were there to see it in person.
“It’s for the people to be there in the same room together, everyone’s hearts beating at the same time and seeing the people on stage play out this drama or this comedy,” he said. “It’s really special because it happens once, maybe three times in a weekend, maybe two weeks, but in a community theater, that’s all you’ll see of this play sometimes.
“It’s ephemeral, it’s quick, there’s urgency to it and it’s really special to see any kind of play in a rural place,” he continued. “I feel like to be the playwright that someone would take so seriously is really special.”
