Admission:
Event: $15.00
Lunch & Event*: $39.95
*Extend your time with us and enjoy a meal in our historic, lakeside Dining Hall. Click below to register for this event and see the option to add a meal reservation. Subject to availability.
Samuel Clemens: Tales of Mark Twain is a contemporary one-man show, written and performed by Joe Baer, that tells the story of Samuel Clemens’ life. Context and words from the pen of Mark Twain are intertwined to reimagine this legend on the lecture circuit, highlighting the ebbs and flows of this iconic American figure’s life against a visual backdrop of historical imagery.
"I’m not trying to impersonate Twain but rather personify him. My goal on stage is to create a Twain character for the 21st century. His logic and ‘snappers’ are timeless, and many, for better or worse, are still applicable to todays’ world.”
- Joe Baer, Actor & Playwright
The show is an original script sprinkled with excepts from the hand of Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain. Baer portrays Samuel Clemens near the end of his career, in a narrative and thought-provoking performance. The show highlights events in Twain's life with events happening during his lifetime in American history. Baer presents a nostalgic look back through time, beginning with Twain’s rural roots in small town, Missouri, to his international acclaim. This parallel timeline brings Twain back to life by conveying how many of the same topics back then are just as relevant in today's world. Baer’s performance also portrays Twain's irreverence for politics and politicians as is his penchant for embroidering the truth with less true but more interesting alternative facts. Act 2 includes condensed passages from Clemens’s masterwork, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. If you enjoy history and story-telling with a satirical twist, you won’t want to miss this solo show.
Joe Baer - Actor & Playwright
Joe Baer began his theatrical career in the 1970s backstage as an apprentice at the Metropolitan Opera (NYC). He worked on a variety of Broadway theater and television shows to earn his Journeyman’s Union card, eventually landing the position of Assistant Electrician at Sesame Street and Head Electrician at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Later in his technical career he became the Head Lighting Director at WPIX Television, Inc. (NYC), winning an Emmy Award for lighting in 2003. Upon retiring from WPIX in 2010, Joe moved his focus to the other side of the camera to fulfill a lifelong interest in solo shows. His most recent endeavor is Samuel Clemens: Tales of Mark Twain.