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It
was a dark and stormy day at the Barter Theatre’s
new Playhouse Café in Abingdon. Severe storms could
not keep show goers, locals and out-of-towners away
from the funky new eatery. Each chair, stool, table,
ornament and wall decoration was a Barter Theatre
prop at some time during theatre’s last half
century. Open
less than two weeks, the café’s cash register was
kerchinging.
Who
would have thought the day would come when people
would pay cash money to dine at a Barter establishment?
In
the hardscrabble days of the Great Depression,
Barter founder and Glade Spring native Robert
Porterfield brought a ragged band of actors south
from New
York
where he had gone to become a star. The troupe
performed plays for food, literally trading
entertainment for chicken, ham, eggs or whatever
else Grandma had in her larders.
On
this particular day, as the Barter café crowd
chatted over Shakespeare garden burgers, fancy teas
and low-fat lattes, thunder clapped and a fire-blue
stripe of lightning split a nearby hemlock exactly
in half. Onlookers gawked as the giant tree crashed
to the ground, flush with one of the plate glass
windows.
Deafening
silence. Then a startled young woman yelled that
someone should “get Rick.”
On cue, Barter Theatre Artistic Director
Richard Rose, drenched in his rain jacket, strutted
through the café and fretted with diners about the
danger he had always known the tree had posed to
theatre goers. In his typical serious but playful
mood, Rose suggested that everyone go out and carry
away part of the tree to remember its dramatic
conclusion.
The
story is emblematic of an economic development issue
now facing the town of Abingdon,
“nestled in the foothills of Southwest
Virginia,”
as Porterfield used to promote it.
Planned
development of the so-called Barter Green, named for
the green space located across West Main Street
from Barter Theatre and adjacent to the renovated
Barter’s Stage ll playhouse, has been
generating
atmospheric fireworks its own for the past two
years. The issue: how to develop this green patch of
land, the only one of its size remaining in the
town's historic district?
Rick
Rose’s vision encompasses not only the completion
of Stage ll
renovation, which includes the new café in the
lobby, but the establishment of retail shops and
apartment dwellings, dubbed the Stonewall Square
Project. Barter owns the property, it can be argued,
so it’s Barter’s business what it does with the
land.
But
the property sits squarely in the heart of the
town’s historic district, and some townspeople
feel that developing the green is just plain wrong.
The Stage ll renovation and its café are a done
deal. Barter renovated and expanded -- and the
people came bearing cash. But the proposed
transmogrification of the entire block on the north
side of West
Main St.
between Church
St.
and the Martha Washington Inn
strikes many as just
too much.
The
green development team has modified the
architectural plans in response to criticism, and
will revisit the issue in late June. Barter has
stated its intention to develop the property over
whatever period of time it takes to settle on a
plan, create as much community unanimity as possible
and raise funds necessary for the development.
There's
a lot more at stake than a one-block plot of land.
The Barter Theatre is one of the few destinations in
Southwest Virginia capable of luring visitors from
all over the United States and even other continents.
The only other attraction that comes close is the
Virginia Highlands Festival, which draws hundreds of
thousands to the region for its annual two-week
summer run -- but that could hardly be construed as
a year-round economic boon.
On
the other hand, a tremendous part of Barter's charm
is its setting in downtown Abingdon, a historic
district of brick-lined streets, 19th century
architecture, and dignified old trees. Abingdon has
maintained a charming, small-town ambiance seen in
Lexington, perhaps, but in few other places in
Virginia. Without its historic, small-town context,
the theater loses much of its appeal. The challenge
for Abingdon is to figure out how to harness the
Barter's formidable drawing power to build a tourist
industry -- without destroying the rare and
impossible-to-reproduce atmosphere that draws
visitors in the first place.
Abingdon
may be small -- its population is less than 8,000 --
but it may be Southwest Virginia's best bet for
economic development.
The
coalfields are playing out, farms are dying and
mill-towns shriveling as manufacturing moves
off-shore. The U.S. is evolving into a knowledge-
intensive,
innovation-based economy, driven forward by
scientifically, artistically and entrepreneurially
creative people who prefer living in places that
look at lot more like Washington, D.C., or
Charlottesville than Bristol or Big Stone Gap.
Community
leaders in far Southwest Virginia are scrambling to
identify an economic base with staying power in the
Knowledge Economy. It isn't easy. To Washingtonians
and Richmonders, the far Southwest is terra
incognita -- the region beyond Roanoke, beyond
Blacksburg, that drops off most weatherman's map. The
region rolls squarely into the heart of
Appalachia
,
a place easily stereotyped as The Sticks... a place
where everyone is a relative of a relative... where satellite dishes sit atop
shacks with sofas on the porch... where school is a
place you drop out of.
The
economic base is rapidly hollowing out.
Factory jobs have vaporized from areas such as
Smyth County. Economic developers have managed to
attract call centers, paying up to $12 an hour, but
now that kind of work is moving overseas.
College-educated Indians speaking fluent English
will answer phones for a fraction of the lowest U.S.
wages.
The
bright side of Appalachia is the cognoscenti who
trace their origins back to Pocahontas: the young
professionals who rack up several degrees and come
back to run for public office, the retirees who
discover the benefits of smart, small town life. The
lack of mean streets attracts people who have a deep
need to feel safe. Abingdon has all that and, unlike
most mill towns in Virginia's Southwest, so much
more -- theater, history and lattes. It has
the potential to become a magnet for the so-called
"creative class" and the assets to build a
tourism industry.
Abingdon can tout not only the historic Barter Theatre but
the other amenities of a pedestrian-friendly
downtown, including the region's finest hotel in the
Martha Washington Inn, not to mention the Virginia
Highlands Festival, the Virginia Creeper Trail and
something-for-everyone Coomes Recreation Center.
What
about the other, despairing communities of the far
Southwest? Here’s
a thought: Bundle the tourist possibilities. Lead
with the Abingdon/Barter Theatre experience and
advertise comfort-ride bus tours as A Relaxing and
Educational One-, Two- or Three-Day Adventure.
The
region has enough hotels, bed-and-breakfast homes,
snazzy restaurants and other attractions to host
tours based out of Abingdon. Smyth
County
is home to the ill-promoted
Hungry
Mother
Park.
The park has quiet forest-surrounded cabins, bridged
walkways that follow babbling streams and a little
beach on a sparkling lake. Thousands of local
baby-boomers remember Hungry Mother as the place to
go for fun in the sun. The park could be the
centerpiece for a Smyth
County
abuzz with jobs, tourists and cash flow.
Saltville
provided salt for the Confederate Army during the
Civil War, making it a bull’s eye for Yankee
invaders. Let tourists see the old town and tell
them about its history.
Motor
on to Bristol
on the other side of Abingdon. That is where country music actually had its
humble origin, but that fact remains mostly lost
among the glitterati of Nashville
and Branson,
Missouri.
A.P. Carter’s gravesite with its shiny Keep
on the Sunnyside gold-plated record marker could
be a tourist attraction in and of itself, if only
more music lovers knew where to find the
A.P.
Carter
Museum.
Burke’s
Garden, near Tazewell, has been dubbed “God’s
Thumbprint.” One of the most heavenly plots of
land on earth, few tourists have ever heard of it,
much less seen the lush phenomenon of “the
garden.”
The
mountains are not for everyone, so pump promotion
for the lakes area that stretches from
Virginia
across the Tennessee
border. A part of the country that once was mostly a
wine spodie-odie hangout for teen-agers has been
prosperously upgraded during the past three decades.
The
South
Holston
Lake
now sports well-manicured boat docks from which
vessels can be launched to view breathtaking sunrises and resplendent autumn sunsets.
So,
the Barter Green development continues according to
phase, funding and compromise — the last
compromise being the preservation of an historic
stone wall, which runs the length of the block. Rick
Rose and the Barter Green committee
deal daily with the brutal downturn of the region's
economy with creativity and imagination.
Let
other areas of the Far
Southwest look to Abingdon for inspiration, and as a
hub and starting point for regional tour packages. The
Mountain Empire just might one day become the Tourism
Empire of the Southeast, as new economies are
launched, new jobs created and world-wide excitement
generated from the bundling of abundant extant
resources.
--
June 16, 2003
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