Actress Barbara Bates Smith — known at Haywood St. for leading a Story Circle and greeting guests at her station outside our Hospitality Room — is known is wider circles for her Off-Broadway performance of Ivy Rowe, adapted from Lee Smith’s bestselling novel Fair and Tender Ladies.

She is celebrating her 25th year of touring Ivy Rowe with musical accompanist Jeff Sebens by offering a weekend of performances at NC Stage Co.  as a benefit for Haywood Street Congregation ministries! Quoting from the Lee Smith novel, “I used to be a scandal; now I’m an institution!”

Barbara describes her more than 700 times of portraying this fiesty mountain woman’s life of “livin’ on love,” even as she takes a stand against the coal company’s bulldozer. Watch an interview with Barbara and see a preview scene from the show.

Tickets are available at http://www.ncstage.org/productions/ivy-rowe/

This show is made possible with generous support from: