Written and performed by Connie Clark

(Performance running time: one hour 35 minutes plus intermission)

 Says Richard B. Sewall, author of The Life of Emily Dickinson:

"Of the many dramatic presentations of Emily Dickinson I've seen, Connie Clark's is the most convincing. It is solidly grounded in fact, not fiction; steers clear of coyness, quaintness, plaintiveness; and is superbly acted throughout. Is it the 'real' Emily? Who knows. But it is hard to see how, with  our present knowledge, one could come closer."

Says Rumer Godden, internationally celebrated author:

"I read Emily, staying up late to finish it because I was so entranced. It was real true Emily in every unexpected word. You have done it beautifully. Nothing jarred. I would not have believed that anyone could evoke Emily so well."

Emily took two years to write, as Clark re-read 4,000 pages of material, gleaned 65% of the play from Dickinson's own words taken from her 1,100 letters and  1,775 poems, and wove it all into a theatrical whole. In Emily, the elusive poet speaks to the audience from today with full knowledge of what became of her  poems after her death, and how she has been viewed both personally and as a poet by history and critics.

Clark debuted Emily in January 1986 as a tribute to the great poet on the  100th anniversary of her death. She has performed Emily in several states in the U.S. and in Europe, and continues to perform at colleges and universities, for  arts councils, and in secondary schools. A resident of western North Carolina,  she is on the performing artist rosters of North and South Carolina.

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© 1997, 1998, 2002 Connie Clark & David M. Walker