by Mark Wagoner

On a busy day in mid-April, Preston Lane and Laurelyn Dossett sit down at Triad Stage’s new third-floor UpStage Cabaret and try to explain why their third play-and-music collaboration, Bloody Blackbeard, has them a little worried.

True, Lane is still adding and subtracting lines from the script merely one month away from the start of rehearsals. And Dossett freely admits that she still has a couple of songs that aren’t quite finished yet.

But underneath all that, it’s clear that these two have been there before, have completed two prior successes, and if they’re trying to hide the fact that they’re having fun, they’re failing to do so.

The team has been working on the story and music about North Carolina’s most notorious pirate for about a year, hoping to craft what Lane calls “a fun, energetic adventure that’s entertaining for the viewer.” Their own enthusiasm for the tale suggests it will be just that.

Lane says he first heard Dossett and her band, Polecat Creek, when her song “Leaving Eden” was used in conjunction with a BBC report on the end of the Chinese textile trade. Lane and Dossett shared a common interest in Appalachian music and traditions. Coincidentally, both had seen a production of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind , which included traditional and original music by North Carolina’s Red Clay Ramblers.

Moved by that influential experience, the pair decided to work together on an Appalachian adaptation of the ancient tale of Beowulf that would involve music without becoming a musical. The result was the well-received Brother Wolf , for which Dossett and Riley Baugus, also of Polecat Creek, provided the music.

Dossett notes that it was while she was standing on stage for Preston’s Brother Wolf pre-show announcements that she learned they were going to collaborate again on the equally Appalachian-flavored Beautiful Star , which has marked the Christmas season at Triad Stage since 2006.

From there Krista Hoeppner, who acted for Lane in Hedda Gabler , pressed him to consider tackling the Blackbeard tale. “It’s a North Carolina story; pirates are popular, so it seemed natural in some ways,” says Lane, recalling his early reaction to the idea. “But I grew up in Boone, and somewhere as far east as the ocean seemed like another country. It would definitely be outside our comfort zone.”

Dossett agreed. “ ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ was my first thought. But it has really been fun. I listened to lots of music, especially English folk tales and sea chanties.”

For help with all things coastal, the duo set off for the sea. Dossett wrote songs while staying at Okracoke, near where Blackbeard — whose real name is said to be Edward Teach — met his demise in 1718. Meanwhile, Lane wrote a near-final draft while visiting Atlantic Beach.

“We did more with the legend of this pirate than historical fact,” Lane adds. “He was a man who was building his own legend. He terrified people intentionally. We tried to look a little at what would drive someone to do that, in the context of America when it was still a blank slate.”

And that is exactly what the show conveys.

“There are no banjos or Bibles, but otherwise, it’s much like Brother Wolf ,” Lane says with a laugh. “Though we kind of miss the banjos.”

When asked if this will be the last production for the two, Dossett and Lane look at each other and shake their heads.

“Oh, no,” Lane says. “We can’t stop; we just have too many ideas. We see this as a new place where music and theater interconnect with regional stories. We hope there will be more.”

DRESS REHEARSAL

Bloody Blackbeard is the largest production Lane and Dossett have conceived to date. In addition to musicians, the show puts 20 actors on stage, set in the period of Blackbeard’s life, which was roughly 1680 to 1718.

To create this, the theater needed a lot of authentic era costumes, a task which falls to Kelsey Hunt, who has been resident designer and shop manager since 2004.

“We will be building period-accurate reproductions for every item in the show,” she says. “That kind of work involves a good deal of research and preparation. You compile notebooks full of images for the shop and the director to reference — but this piece is unique because there are very few primary resources. Pirates didn’t sit for portraits. This is the legend of Blackbeard, too, leaving room for speculation and invention and design.”

In addition to dress, making actors look like residents of the early 18th century requires an assortment of beards, wigs, and other pirate garb. Especially challenging is the job of outfitting the four versions of Blackbeard — from a young boy to a grown pirate — that appear during the show.

And Hunt is designing for a varied Blackbeard cast — a mix of several New York City-based actors, some local talent, and students from UNC Greensboro. The size of the cast plays a pivotal role. The average performer has three to four costume changes in the course of the show, and finding room for everyone to dress while staying out of each other’s way is an added concern.

Foremost, though, authenticity is key. “Preston doesn’t cut corners when it comes to production values, and he has a particular commitment to authenticity,” Hunt notes. “We work on a thrust stage where audience members are sometimes only inches away from the actors. The audience gets to see everything in detail, so you can’t get away with any of the usual theater tricks. It has to be the real thing. If I try to fake a pair of breeches or put an actor in a blouse from the thrift shop, the audience is going to know.”

With a shifting target like a play in progress, Hunt says she will also work to separate her vision as a costume designer from the reality of creating the designs.

“The goal is to dream first,” she notes. “You figure out how to realize the dream second.”

TUNING UP

When Lane studied the history of Blackbeard the pirate, he says he felt that the story of the man and the legend could make a good play — “but not without music.” Lane turned to Dossett to not only create the tunes, but to manage how the music would be played during the performances.

“It was a funny thing as a songwriter,” Dossett says. “Many North Carolina musicians have written Blackbeard songs, but I wanted to avoid a specific ballad about Blackbeard. The songs I have been creating needed to be appropriate for pirates, and the lyrics are more about telling the story than relating his history.”

The artist says working on an adventure story set at the coast was a challenge for her when compared to her normal style and songwriting location. And though the year set aside for preparing the show was longer than the two prior works, it didn’t make much difference. “As it turned out, it was a busy year for other projects — a new CD with my band, directing shows for Preston,” Dossett explains. “We really ended up with about the same amount of actual working time as before.”

The journey back and forth to the coast had its benefits, though. “My favorite thing about traveling to and spending time on the coast was all the eastern-style barbecue I could eat on the way,” she says.

Although the production of Brother Wolf had two musicians and Beautiful Star had three, Dossett’s Blackbeard score requires a larger, five-piece band. “It’s my first time to use percussion, so while still fun, it’s again something that’s outside of my comfort zone,” she says.

Following with the show’s goal of engaging and educating students, the band will join two professionals — Scott Manring and Molly McGinn — with three high-school students: Evan Frierson, Scott Johnson, and Max Spiewak.

The result should mark a tuneful experience for all involved.