This Thursday, Theatre West Virginia began rehearsals for the 2026 productions of “Honey in the Rock” and “Shrek the Musical.” On their first full day of rehearsals for the season, the actors are already thrilled to bring local history and fantasy comedy to the Cliffside Amphitheater once again.
Actor and firearm technician Emma Hanks, playing Marguerite and Fiona, says this is a special year for TWV:
“This is a huge, huge summer for Theatre West Virginia. Is this our 65th anniversary season for ‘Honey in the Rock’ in particular, which is huge… Today is really a ‘Honey in the Rock’ day. So that is our sort of trademark historical. We’re the longest continually operating Civil War drama in the country, so it’s really cool to be here and to get to be sort of like one stitch in the giant quilt of both ‘Honey in the Rock’ and Theatre West Virginia.”
Actor and puppeteer Xander Alvarez is playing Rex Covington and Thelonious and performing as lead puppeteer for the dragon. He says being a part of TWV, especially for this production, means the world:
“I love it. I mean, I’ve been back here five summers now. It means so much to me. Like my mom used to come see shows here when she was a little girl. So to be just like one small mark in this big history of this company is, I mean, just astronomically huge to me.”
Alvarez says that for the 65th anniversary of Honey, Theater West Virginia has been refining the play, considering changes across showings since 1961:
“Honestly, I think it really is close to as historically accurate as possible. That’s something, especially these days, we’re adapting to try and do. We just underwent a major rewrite of the script to encompass some of the old stuff that had been written in the sixties, in the eighties, some of the stuff that has been lost to time, as we’ve gone through many iterations, right? So I think there’s definitely this era of us trying to narrow it down and getting it as close to the truth as we can and still, you know, putting on a little dramatic flair, of course.”
The actors will be shooting for accuracy with more than just the script, as Hanks demonstrates with explosively exciting props:
“This is like a Civil War drama, obviously. And I think it’s really important to tell that story as realistically as we possibly can. So we have a lot of antique replicas of guns that actually were used during that time, which is super cool as a history buff to get to interact with as well.”
Shows begin on June 19th and run until July 18th. For more information and tickets, visit theatrewestvirginia.org.
