On a cool October evening, as darkness settled between the gravestones of Evergreen Cemetery in Pine Plains, a crowd gathered by lantern light. From the shadows, voices emerged — some familiar, others long forgotten.
For two nights, Oct. 17 and 18, the Little Nine Partners Historical Society, in partnership with the Pine Plains Free Library and Stissing Theatre Guild, transformed the cemetery into a stage. The 2025 Evergreen Cemetery Lantern Tours — part play, part pilgrimage — invited audiences to meet the town’s predecessors where they rest.
Directed by Robert Lyons, with casting and costumes by Lenora Champagne, the production drew together local actors, historians, and volunteers to inhabit six Pine Plains residents whose lives spanned more than two centuries. Standing at the very plots where those figures lie buried, the performers offered quiet resurrections of lives once lived here — scholars, soldiers, farmers, and homemakers whose names still shape the town’s memory.
At one gravesite, Catherine Howard as Grace Hudson Hoysradt recalled the peony gardens that once blanketed her family’s farm — 50,000 blooms that drew visitors from across the Hudson Valley. Nearby, Jordan Schmidt, portraying Marjorie Ayers Best, described a life balanced between domestic duty and civic purpose, from early women’s athletics at Smith College to her work founding the Drama League of America in 1910.
Thayer Durell, as Maj. Ebenezer Husted, stood in colonial uniform and reflected on the contradictions of the Revolution — a war for freedom fought in a nation still bound by slavery. “Let’s not go another 250 years before we abolish these things,” he said, his words carrying through the rows of headstones.
Amy Chase Gulden gave voice to Anna Davis, who spent her entire life watching Main Street from the window of her family home, long since torn down. Her story, gentle and solitary, spoke to the quiet losses that accompany progress.
Rounding out the cast were Carl Baden as Quaker farmer James Winans, torn between pacifism and patriotism, and Marc Jackson as Alex Wilhoite, a Virginia-born farmer whose story intertwined hardship with small-town grace.
Tour guides, including Dyan Wapnick, Rachel Greenfield, Martine King, and others, led groups by lantern from grave to grave. Music by Vaughn Fritts and Jackson carried between performances, mingling with the rustle of leaves and the faint smell of damp earth. Costumes by Esther Evans and Neil Murray gave texture to the evening.
The production, entirely volunteer-run, raised funds for the Historical Society and the library. Its impact was less material.
Standing above a grave, addressing a crowd that would, in time, join him below, one of the ghosts offered a simple farewell: “Enjoy the time you have on Earth.”
In the past, you included a link to a video. Are they still filming this event? I’d love to see the latest version.
I descend from the Bostwicks, who helped found the cemetery, the bank, the Presbyterian Church..hell, the whole town. Why don’t they pick one of my ancestors, who are buried smack in the middle of the graveyard?
Also, any chance we could have a link to the horror movie some guy from Millerton shot in town? He did a scene (un-approved but OK) from our yard at the lake, and that plus a lifelong love of the genre makes me want to see that too. Thanks.