A haunting look at history at Buckeye Library set for April 8

MEDINA — The haunting legacy of the Civil War will be revisited in a live theater program at the Buckeye Library. "Ghosts of the Civil War: Shade of Blue and Gray" will present bits of history, poems and songs from the period along with chilling ghost stories from the conflict, performed by the Largely Literary Theater Company of Cuyahoga Falls. It's a one-act play performed by two actors, Mark Dawidziak and Sara Showman, the husband-and-wife team behind the theater company they founded in 2002. Dawidziak is a former journalist and an author, and Showman an actress. The two write their own shows and have performed two-person shows throughout Ohio and other states. The couple performs in period costume, and this show has a personal meaning to them, Dawidziak said. "My wife, she is from Tennessee, and on her father's side, she had family in the Confederacy and on her mother's side they were loyal to Mr. Lincoln. So when we do the show, she represents the South and I represent the North because I was born and raised in New York. We didn't have a dog in the fight." The Civil War show is very popular with audiences because it packs quite a bit into a compact package, he said. "The show gives you songs, history, literature and some good ghost stories," he said. The first few ghost stories are in Ohio, centering on the Underground Railroad and the forges in southeast Ohio that supplied iron for the Union Army. Other stories will feature the Confederate prisoner-of-war camps in Columbus and Johnson Island in Sandusky, and then broaden out to include tales from Virginia, South Carolina and then to the White House to include stories of President Lincoln himself. "Wherever there was conflict, there are ghost stories attached to them," he said. Buckeye Branch Manager Laura Kettering expects the show to be well-received. "We have worked with the Largely Literary Theater Company before, and their historical programs are so good," she said. "This one sounds really interesting." Contact Rini Jeffers at areanews@medina-gazette.com.