Kelly Taylor revives Burke History through theater

Burke County native Dr. Kelly Taylor’s theater expertise has taken her from Texas to Maine, following in her mother’s footsteps as an educator. Now retired, she is still bringing her passion for entertainment and teaching to her home community, telling the stories that have shaped Burke County.

Taylor first fell in love with theater at East Burke High School, which had a strong theater program in the late 1970s. She was first exposed to theater via “The Music Man,” a classic Broadway musical about a con man who poses as a boys’ band organizer in a small town and then falls for the local librarian, who had plans to expose him.

Phyllis Garrison, the founder of the Burke Theater Guild, was the director of the show when Taylor’s class got to watch it. Though it was set in a tiny theater, Taylor said it was loaded with excitement as actors ran through the theater and down the aisles.

“It was overwhelming,” Taylor said. “It was the most exciting theatrical experience that I had ever seen. I was like ‘I’ve got to be a part of this.’”

It wasn’t long after that Taylor got her first shot on stage. Her first role as Mrs. Higgins in “My Fair Lady” sparked some controversy, she said with a giggle. As a sophomore, Taylor didn’t know that many of the senior girls at East Burke already had their eyes set on the role.

“I auditioned, and then I had my wisdom teeth removed, and came back for my callback and my face was all swollen,” Taylor said. “I was very fortunate to have made a good impression the first time.”

From East Burke, Taylor went on to get her undergraduate degree in acting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Then she went on to earn her master’s degree and PhD in communication studies with an emphasis in performance studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Louisiana State University, respectively.

At first, she was torn between moving to Atlanta, a major acting hub at the time, and pursuing a career in teaching. Because she wanted stability, she opted for the classroom as a way to still stay connected to her passion.

“The older I got, the more I had a love for directing and for teaching,” Taylor said.

Taylor taught a year at the University of Texas at Tyler, a year at the University of Maine at Orono, and then went on to teach for about a decade at the University of North Texas, where she became an associate professor and earned tenure.

However, a major accident while biking one day on her way to campus forced Taylor into an early retirement from teaching.

She moved back to Burke County in 2014, but it wasn’t long before Garrison got her involved again with theater through the Burke Theater Guild. From bringing reader’s theater performances to local elementary schools to shows at the historic courthouse, Taylor has a way of telling Burke County’s most prominent stories, while also shining a light on those that have been overlooked.

Taylor spends much of her time adapting or writing new scripts for the group’s performances. The most recent reader’s theater performance took the audience back to the historic courthouse, the spot of the infamous murder of Sam Fleming by William Waightstill Avery.

Her most recent script is for a performance called “Tarheel Ladies of the Revolution,” which will tell the stories of seven women from the American Revolution just in time for the country’s America250 celebration.

Among the seven women from North Carolina were three from Burke County: Margaret McDowell of the McDowell House, Sarah Erwin, and Grace Greenlee. Taylor said the performance will honor women of the Revolutionary era whose stories have often been overshadowed or only told as folklore.

“We hear so much about the men of the Revolution, and you don’t hear the stories of the women,” Taylor said. “I wanted people to realize that the women also had very dramatic parts, interesting stories that we should know and remember.”

The stories about Burke County’s women of the Revolution also reflect a larger mission to preserve the history of the county, which she said is why she’s glad to partner with the Burke Historic Society.

“I want people to feel a sense of pride in being part of Burke County,” Taylor said. “We think, you know, Burke County is just this nondescript sort of place where we live because we don’t have any big cities, but at one time Burke County stretched all the way to Tennessee.”

Even after decades of education and theater, Taylor’s work remains centered on bringing local stories and local people to the stage.

“It was a very important place, and we do have a lot of history here and so I want us to have a sense of where we are and that we do have a history of folklore that is unique to us,” Taylor said.