Have you ever walked into a cemetery and wondered about the lives of the people lying under the headstones? At the next production of the Extended Run Players (ERP), residents of a smalltown cemetery will speak to you from beyond the grave . . .

ERP will present an adaptation of “Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters on Thursday and Friday, May 14 and 15, at 2:30 p.m. at the Cheever Theatre of the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW). The text of this American classic will be brought to life by a cast of seasoned local actors, under the direction of Michael Howard and Linda Ford. As with all ERP productions, proceeds will benefit a scholarship fund for promising theater students at UIW. A suggested donation of $20 (cash or check) will be accepted at the door.

UIW is located at 4301 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209. The Cheever Theatre, in the Coates Theatre Building, is just west of the intersection of Broadway and Hildebrand Avenue, facing Hildebrand. Free campus parking will be available.

Edgar Lee Masters published “Spoon River Anthology” in 1915 as a series of short, free-verse poems, the epitaphs of departed souls from the fictional Midwestern town of Spoon River. Many of the pieces were considered scandalous when they first appeared, exposing the hypocrisy behind the supposedly virtuous life of rural America, as those who “sleep beneath [the] weeds” revealed their secrets and regrets, their loves, frustrations, and unfulfilled dreams. The book was initially banned in Masters’s hometown of Lewistown, Illinois, because of the thinly veiled identities of the characters.

ERP originated in 1996, when a group of local theater notables and drama department staff at UIW, energized by Sister Germaine Corbin, envisioned a readers’ theater for San Antonio. An affiliate of the UIW Department of Theatre Arts, the troupe offers performances three times a year at UIW and by special arrangement elsewhere in the community. As the participating actors like to say, collectively they have “over 1,000 years of experience”!