“Lincoln at Gettysburg” with Chris Small and local vocalists will explore the 16th president’s most famous speech in a program on Sunday, Feb. 1, at Tusculum College.
“What does it all mean?” At the height of the Civil War, a broken nation and its President were grappling with that question as Abraham Lincoln prepared to give a brief dedicatory speech for a new soldier’s cemetery at Gettysburg.
Lincoln’s contemplations that led to his most famous speech will be explored in “Lincoln at Gettysburg” on Sunday, Feb. 1. The program will begin at 2 p.m. in the Behan Arena on the lower level (side entrance) of the Annie Hogan Byrd Fine Arts Building on the Tusculum College campus. It is part of Tusculum Arts Outreach’s Acts, Arts, Academia 2014-15 performance and lecture series.
In a moving and educational presentation by Lincoln impressionist Chris Small, the 16th president’s visit to the cemetery will be recounted. The audience will learn about the cost of war and the price of freedom. Lincoln’s own experiences as a young man and as President, as well as those of slaves yearning for emancipation and soldiers—North and South, white and black—who made the ultimate sacrifice, help give meaning to the national conflict.
Interspersed throughout the program will be period music from the Civil War, including military songs, spirituals and popular standards, performed live by the Newsome Sisters from Newport and Tara Cohen, with Brenda Silva, from Greeneville. The program will conclude with the Gettysburg Address, which has become Lincoln’s most famous speech.
This year marks the 152nd anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and is the final year of the nationwide Civil War Sesquicentennial commemoration. Lincoln’s participation in the ceremony was requested only 17 days prior to the dedication service when David Wills wrote to the president, asking him to “a few appropriate remarks” after the main oration. Lincoln’s presence and words, Wills thought, would “formally set apart these grounds to their Sacred use” and give gratification and confidence to soldiers still serving in the nation’s forces and to their families back at home.
Small, a winner of the Association of Lincoln Presenters Outstanding Abraham Lincoln Award, began portraying the 16th president in 1997, later founding The Lincoln Project® in 2003 and continuing to lead it into new territories of “Bringing Lincoln to Life.”
In 2010, he authored the children’s book, “Abraham Lincoln Puts on His Hat.” Through The Lincoln Project, he has produced three films: “Abraham Lincoln’s Faith” (2009), “Lincoln and Emancipation” (2009) and “War in Heaven, War on Earth: The Birth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church During the American Civil War” (2014). Clients and partners of The Lincoln Project have included the National Park Service; the United States Post Office; the East Tennessee Historical Society; and numerous churches, schools and organizations throughout the United States.
Small has a graduate degree in communication, with a specialty in interpretation and performance studies, and has directed Playback Theatre, Bibliodrama, and Boal-based sociodrama. He has formerly served as a university lecturer and a Seventh-day Adventist minister.
Admission to the program is $6. For more information, please call Tusculum College Arts Outreach at 423-798-1620 or email jhollowell@tusculum.edu.
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–Valentine’s Dinner and Swing Dance 
A school record 231 student-athletes have been named to the 2014 Tusculum College Athletic Director’s Fall Honor Roll announced Frankie DeBusk, Tusculum College director of athletics.
