The Lanier Library is sponsoring a performance by actress Becky Stone in the role of the civil rights activist Rosa Parks at a special presentation at the Tryon Fine Arts Center on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 2 p.m. The free performance, open to everyone, will be followed by a reception at the Lanier Library. (Note that the time of the performance has changed since a previous announcement.)

Becky Stone has performed as an actress and storyteller in Western North Carolina over the last 20 years. She has participated as a storyteller at the LEAF Festival, the Toe River Storytelling Festival, the Biltmore Estate, the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching as well as many libraries and schools. Audiences have enjoyed her acting at the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater, Asheville Community Theatre, Asheville on Broadway, the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater, and the Montford Park Players.

This year Stone was a Chautauqua scholar for the Greenville, Asheville, and Spartanburg Chautauquas portraying Rosa Parks. This was the third time over the last seven years that she has portrayed a historical character for Chautauqua, whose motto is &dquo;History that just won&squo;t stay in a book!&dquo; In 2003, she was Pauli Murray and in 2006, she was Harriet Tubman.

In this performance Stone will present Rosa Parks&squo; story as Rosa Parks. Then she will field questions from the audience in character, as Rosa Parks. Finally, Stone will field questions as herself, a scholar on Rosa Parks. This format provides audiences with the unusual, and often moving, experience of having dialogue with famous, historical characters. History comes alive.

Stone was trained as an actress at Vassar College and has a master&39;s in elementary educational counseling from Villanova University. She is the worship leader at Fairview Christian Fellowship. She has lived in Fairview since 1978.

She teaches drama part-time at Veritas Christian Academy in Fletcher and helps her husband publish &uot;GreenPrints,&uot; a garden quarterly, out of their home.

Later this month at the Lanier Library, on Tuesday, Oct. 20 at noon, actor Cary Carden will tell stories from his book &uot;Mason Jars in the Flood,&uot; and on Oct. 23 and 24 the library will hold its fall book sale from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m..

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