DURHAM -- The Durham County Library will host a performance of "Star Spangled Girls," an ensemble production from the Touring Theatre of North Carolina, today at 3 p.m. at the Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St. The play, which is being presented in celebration of Women's History Month, is drawn from the memoirs and letters of 37 women veterans.
Over the course of the 75-minute production, a five-woman cast recreates the personal stories of women who served as Army nurses, WACs, WAVES and Red Cross volunteers. The play follows the women from recruitment and basic training through work assignments in the United States and overseas, to the end of the war. Stories of love and adventure, patriotism and sacrifice, discrimination and loss reveal how these "star spangled girls" became pioneers in the women's movement.
The play is free and open to the public and is co-presented by the League of Women Voters of Orange-Durham-Chatham. For more information, call Marian Fragola at 560-0268 or visit www.durhamcountylibrary.org.
Society to honor Mark L. Bradley
LEXINGTON Ky. -- University Press of Kentucky author Mark L. Bradley was recently selected as the recipient of the North Caroliniana Society's 2009 North Caroliniana Book Award for his book "Bluecoats & Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina."
In "Bluecoats and Tar Heels," Bradley tells the story of the U.S. Army's lengthy occupation of North Carolina after the Civil War, during a time of intense political instability and social unrest. Bradley's study examines military efforts to stabilize the region in the face of opposition from both ordinary citizens and terrorist organizations such as the Regulators and the Ku Klux Klan.
Bradley, staff historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C., is the author of "Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville" and "This Astonishing Close: The Road to Bennett Place," which was a finalist for the 2001 Lincoln Prize.
He will be announced as the winner of the North Caroliniana Society's annual meeting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill May 21.
Hosler to read from memoir
Author Mark Hosler will sign copies of his memoir "Shackles of Faith: Escape from a Backwoods Cult," March 19 at 2 p.m. at Fitch Creations, 2000 Fearrington Village, Pittsboro.
"Shackles of Faith" is Hosler's account of how he was excommunicated from a religious cult for questioning his pastor's ways.
