Tami Kress followed Bryan Wilson through the wooded world of Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre in southern Alamance County as he explained how his dad, James, had helped create its signature drama, The Sword of Peace, about the local Quakers’ response to the American Revolution. Kress, the executive director for Burlington’s Studio 1 community theater, saw potential. Yet the more she listened, the more one question kept popping up in her mind: Can this place ever be saved?
She saw around her a wall of invasive bamboo 30 feet high, and spotted the rusted cover of a collapsed sewage tank before reaching the hand-lettered plywood sign: Wilson Amphitheater.
Beyond it were plastic seats for 400 cascading down to a stage with a backdrop of towering pines and hardwoods…