Larsen, L. Dawn

Dr. L. Dawn Larsen received her Ph.D. in Speech Communication with an Emphasis in Theatre and Performance Studies, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is Associate Professor of Theatre at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. Previous owner and operator of the last traveling tent show, the Hard Corn Players, her troupe traveled in the summers reconstructing Toby shows in Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois. She was cast as Sweet Sally (Toby's girlfriend) in the last stationary Toby theatre in Branson, Missouri, which closed in 1987. She has given numerous papers at SETC, MATC, ASTR, and the Society for the Preservation of Tent, Repertoire and Folk Theatre, where she also serves on the advisory board. She has published in journals including Theatre History Studies and Theatre Symposium. She has also acted and directed professionally for over thirty years.

American Traveling Tent Theatre, 1900-1940: Rural and Small Town Tent Shows Performed in the Midwest (including Scripts of Popular Tent Theatricals)

2014 0-7734-4275-8
The first anthology of typical tent theatre repertoire from the late nineteenth-century to the early twentieth-century. This collection of seven of the most important plays of that era includes not only the scripts but also contains informative headnotes, commentary and an outstanding bibliography. An illuminating study of twentieth-century rural America and its cultural mores and values.