Sept. 23rd, 2025
Written and Performed by Philip Paradis
When hope is hard to find, voices from our past can inspire our future.
Join us as Ralph Waldo Emerson appears onstage, offering sage advice and optimism, through the magic of reader’s theatre.
In this often funny and touching one-man show, playwright/actor Philip Paradis brings Ralph Waldo Emerson to life with his characteristic wit, wisdom, and self-effacing manner in this dramatic portrayal based on Emerson’s life and writings.
Through the magic of reader’s theatre, you will meet Ralph Waldo Emerson in his home in Concord, Massachusetts, in September of 1871. As you travel back in time to America 150 years ago, you will be introduced to the man Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes called “the Buddha of the West.”
Emerson shares anecdotes of his life and times, his views on reading and writing, nature, religion, science, politics, and his contemporaries Henry David Thoreau, the Alcotts, and Abraham Lincoln; you will leave hopeful, inspired by his wisdom and optimistic philosophy.
PHILIP PARADIS (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Philip is best known for FOOTPRINTS OF THE POLAR BEAR & OTHER ECO-CENTRIC PLAYS (about climate change/environmental degradation), SOLDIER’S CHRISTMAS, a play with song about the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914, and his one-man shows RALPH WALDO EMERSON: THE SAGE OF CONCORD; and EVENING WITH STEPHEN CRANE, the author of The Red Badge of Courage. Twenty-seven of his plays have been produced in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Diego, Cincinnati, Louisville, Spokane, Fort Thomas, Newport, KY and Newport, RI. His awards include a Kentucky New Play Series Award, a Cincinnati Directors Competition Grand Prize for FOOTPRINTS OF THE POLAR BEAR, and an Audience Choice Award at 24 EXPERIMENT, Point Loma Actors Theater, San Diego. A resident playwright at American Theatre of Actors, and a lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild. He has served as an editor and editorial consultant and on the faculties of Northern Kentucky University, Iowa State University, Western Carolina University, and Oklahoma State University. He directs Actors & Playwrights Collaborative. He lives with his wife and their two kitties in Fort Thomas, KY.