YOUNGSTOWN PLAYHOUSE 'Rootin' Tootin' show has Wild West laughs

The actual 'Buffalo Bill' show started in 1883.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
The Youngstown Playhouse will present an original play by Youth Theatre Director Patricia Fagan. "Buffalo Bill's Rootin' Tootin' High Falutin Wild West Show" was written in 1996, and toured for a season with another theater company.
The performance, part of the Small Fry series, will be a premiere for the Playhouse.
Much of the play is based on historical fact and legend, but Fagan has added her own touches. It features three characters: Buffalo Bill, played by Youngstown State University freshman Bret VanDerMark; and Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane, played by junior high students Jackie Whitmore and Rebecca Worthington, who also play other roles.
The play begins as Jane, who is in charge of the tour, accidentally sends the cast and crew to Youngstown, Mo. -- everyone except these three characters, who end up in Youngstown, Ohio. So, since they're here, they decide to each tell their own story.
"Annie Oakley was known as a sharp-shooter, who actually met her husband in a shooting competition," said Fagan. "She established a reputation for shooting game in southern Ohio to provide food for her widowed mother and the rest of her family. Soon neighbors began asking her to provide for them, too. She met Frank Butler when she competed against him at a competition in Cincinnati. They were married a year later."
Real characters
Fagan describes Buffalo Bill (William Cody) as "a colorful character at a time in American history when everyone needed a hero." Ned Buntline began writing dime novels in the mid-1800s that were great exaggerations of Buffalo Bill. Fagan used his novels as a starting point for her play.
Buffalo Bill really did have a touring show. It began in 1883 and still continues today.
"Bill began the tour so that people all over the country could see what the Wild West was all about," said Fagan. "He took it everywhere from small towns like Youngstown, Ohio, to Madison Square in New York. It was performed in a tent, like a circus, and included horses, buffalo, natives. One of the stories was a re-enactment of a stagecoach robbery, where they would ask a member of the audience to participate. Annie Oakley really was a member of the cast [in 1901]." The show also toured England and Scotland.
As for Calamity Jane, Fagan said there isn't as much information available about her.
"She begins telling her story in the play, feeling she is not worthy, or equal to the other two," Fagan said. "She served as a scout for General George Custer, and could ride, shoot, and really do anything a man could do. She got sick with pneumonia before the Battle of Little Big Horn, where Custer and all his men were massacred. But Jane recovered, then decided to become a nurse. She was known as the 'Florence Nightingale of the Frontier,' and also began taking in orphans. By the end of the play, she realizes that she really did play an important role in history."
The last story in the play, "Tall Tale," is about the legend of Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue.
Fagan said the purpose of this play is to celebrate the legends and characters of the Old West, and to recreate the experience of Bill's show. But she pointed out that the show is mostly humorous.