Boardinghouse Guests: A New Kid in Town
It has been incorrectly written that a young Thomas Wolfe performed in a Shakespeare play in The Circle Park at The Manor. The Manor was a popular Asheville resort during his lifetime, and events were commonly held on the grounds. Occasionally, there was outdoor theater. However, we could find no evidence that Wolfe had ever performed in a play in Asheville. Instead, as a part of the nationwide tercentenary commemorating Shakespeare’s death in 1916, a pageant was organized to be held at The Manor using school children, including Wolfe, to illustrate the narrative.
He tells the story in Look Homeward, Angel about Eugene Gant’s brief but humiliating appearance as Prince Hal. Wolfe notes how Eugene also won a medal for writing an essay. In a contest sponsored by the Independent Publishing House, he wrote an essay entitled “Shakespeare: the Man.” Thomas Wolfe also won the student declamation contest reciting the essay. As a participant in the school debate club, he was well-known, much like his father, for his loud and passionate rhetorical displays and he was well versed in the works of William Shakespeare. Not until later, in 1919 at Chapel Hill, did Wolfe act in a play. He became one of the first of the Carolina Playmakers and took the leading role in his own one-act play “The Return of Buck Gavin.” On stage he became the tragic mountain outlaw. Wolfe went on to write plays at Harvard, and even after completing his master’s degree in 1922, he continued to work on his plays, hopeful that one would make it on a stage in New York. In August, 1926 he finally gave up his aspiration of becoming a famous playwriter and turned instead to writing his first novel.
Ironically, the following season, in the guest register for Julia Wolfe’s Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse appears two names that would soon be associated with theater in Asheville: Wilbur K Morgan (1891–1940) and his son Kneale Morgan (1913–1991) from Carbondale, PA. In December 1926, Wilbur became a widower when he lost his wife, the mother of his three young children. He had been in show business in Carbondale since age 14, participating in Chautauqua and Lyceum Movement events, and local minstrel shows. He managed the town’s Vaudeville house and started his own production company, all while working as a baker and a salesman to support a family. It was time for a change. The first stop was the Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse. He moved to Asheville permanently in 1928 to work in advertising for Majestic Theater enterprises. The 1930 Census reveals three generations of the Morgan family at Asheville living in a home on Pearson Drive. Wilbur’s parents helped with the children. He is described in the census by the occupation of theater director. He became widely known in the community over the next decade for teaching and directing amateur theater with Asheville organizations such as the Little Theater, Southern Workshop School, and Biltmore College. In 1933 he directed the popular mountain folk play “Tight Britches,” cowritten by Asheville fireman Hubert Hayes. The following year the play travelled to New York. During the Great Depression, Morgan administered the local Federal Theater Project and later wrote and performed skits on radio for the Governor’s Hospitality Committee, which encouraged North Carolinians to be friendly to tourists. Pursuing greater work on the stage, he left Asheville for New York where at age 49, he died in Manhattan of a heart attack in 1940.
The new kid in town Kneale Morgan, like his father, quickly became popular in local theater as part of the drama club at Asheville Senior High School. He was frequently seen on stage and received statewide recognition several years in a row for writing one-act plays. The plays won an annual contest held by the Carolina Dramatic Association and were performed in Chapel Hill. After completing high school Kneale signed a one-year contract with the Lykes-Ripley Steamship Co., sailing from New Orleans to the Orient. The following year he continued his education at Biltmore College and again won the prize for the state’s original one-act play competition for students. In 1938, he appeared in a play with a young woman from Beaverdam by the name of Wilma Dykeman. The play was directed by Wilbur K. Morgan. Like Thomas Wolfe, Kneale’s future was not in playwriting. He instead went to work as a stockbroker in Miami. Returning to the sea for a short time during WWII, he graduated the US Maritime Service and served as a Quarter Master on several vessels for the Merchant Marines.
