Finding Shakespeare in Staunton

Now I have to confess up-front that we went to Staunton (pronounced Stanton) to attend a performance at the Blackfriar’s Theater. I love Shakespeare and will go to great lengths to catch a play. As it turned out we didn’t see Shakespeare but rather Alexandre Dumas and I wouldn’t change a thing. The performance of The Three Musketeers was amazing.

This trip got off to a shaky start, our B&B canceled our reservation four days before we left for our vacation and I had to scramble to find a new accommodation. It turned out to be happy circumstance since we ended up at the Frederick House which had a perfect location and very friendly innkeepers. They are a small hotel where every room has its own unique design and rooms are offered at a variety of price points.

Beyond the American Shakespeare Center Staunton is home to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. It is located at the home where he was born and grew up. It gives an excellent glimpse into the man who was our 28th President. To find out more about this library check out their website www.woodrowwilson.org.

One thing that we didn’t have time to see was The Frontier Culture Museum which is an outdoor living history museum. What they have here are farm houses that have been moved from other locations. Not just from the United States but from Germany, Ireland and England. To find out more visit their website Frontier Culture Museum.

Quick Tips:

Staunton is a beautiful town which invites walking and poking around on their pretty streets. Mary Baldwin College has a lovely campus right across the street from the Frederick House. Make your first stop at the Staunton Visitor Center which is located on the lower level of the New Street Garage. They have a map of downtown as well as a map of the trolley route. To plan your trip visit www.stauntonva.com

There is some excellent shopping in downtown Staunton especially antique stores. We did a walking tour down Beverley Street and we stopped at a minimum of three malls with multi dealers.

Best Way To Get Around:

There is a free trolley that can take you around town. The route can be found at www.staunton.va.us.
Unlike other trolleys in other cities this one is very much used by the people of Staunton. It was a bit disconcerting when we first got on because I was not prepared to see what looked like street people on the trolley. It turned into quite a fascinating trip. One young man was on a cross country trip and he was talking about his adventures. There was also a group of mentally challenged adults with an attendant making their way around town. It turned out to be a lesson in the diversity of a small town.

There is a parking lot on New Street right below the Frederick House Inn if you are staying outside the downtown. Like most towns the only challenge is the one way streets. If you stay in the downtown area you can walk to most everything you will want to see.

The closest airport to Staunton is Shenandoah Regional Airport in Weyers Cave, VA. Which is fifteen miles north of Staunton. It has daily flights on USAir from Dulles. Albemarle Airport in Charlottesville which is 30 miles to the east offers a much wider choice of flights and is an easy drive from Staunton. It is serviced by several major carriers including but not limited to US Air, Delta and Northwest. The Amtrak Cardinal stops in Staunton on its trip between DC and Chicago.  Driving to Staunton north or south Route 81 is the best route. From Charlottesville take route 64.

Composed of five historic residences this small hotel is a European style accommodation. There are twenty three-distinctive rooms spread over the five houses. This was not my first choice in Staunton but after my B&B canceled my reservation, which is a whole other story, I had to make a reservation quickly. Frederick House offers online booking which made it easy to have a confirmed reservation. One thing I didn’t like about the website was that it didn’t show pictures of the rooms.

We received a very warm welcome when we arrived. We had chosen one of the rooms with a balcony. Okay it’s not a balcony, it’s a back porch and it overlooks the parking lot but the description didn’t exactly say that. This room had a sleigh bed and a very small bathroom but the seating area included a sofa as well as a chair. We stayed in that room for about a half hour, by then we had realized that the TV wasn’t working correctly. The innkeepers were very pleasant about making a change.

We were moved to one of the buildings up the hill. We had a pretty room with a canopy bed and a fireplace. This was much more what I had envisioned. Our bathroom was huge, I mean it was as big as a bedroom. There was a basket of Caswell & Massey amenities and two quilted bathrobes. We had a seating area with two arm chairs at the foot of our bed and the armoire hid our TV. The TV was dated and a bit small given the size of the room. The rooms have Internet access and since I travel with my laptop, I hoped to enjoy this but was unable to connect. A warning to light sleepers, this is a downtown hotel and the street is very close to the room. I had no problem but I was aware of the street noise. Our room was at ground level in the front of the house, we needed a special key to get into the building and another one to get into our room. There was also parking for us next to this building.

The location of Frederick House couldn’t be much better. It is across the street from Mary Baldwin College and within walking distance of everything in downtown Staunton. You really can leave your car and hit the pavement. It is however a hilly area. Karen and Denny were more than happy to give us dinner suggestions and to point out those choices that might not be open on a Sunday night.

Breakfast is served in the same building as check in. It is restaurant style with small tables and the coffee mugs are the menus. There are lots of choices and one is sure to please. I chose fruit, yogurt and granola. Al had a frittata. We both were very pleased with our choice.

If you have a hankering for a return to the '50s and '60s, think Arnold’s on Happy Days, then Wrights Dairy Rite is going to be just the place to satisfy your craving. Open since 1952, this classic drive-in restaurant has had car hop service since its inception. The booths are red and white leatherette seats on the booths, tables with Formica tops and the chairs are chrome. There is a shiny red vintage jukebox on one wall. This restaurant will appeal to everyone. It was a weekday lunch time and certainly most of the people were working people and families with children too young to be in school.

What is really fun is that there is a white phone on the wall at every booth and when you are ready to order you call in your order. Now it took us a while to figure this out but once we did it was great fun.

The food is then delivered to your table on a red tray wrapped to go. Everything is cooked to order, this is not fast food and they tell you that up front. Your drinks are however delivered to you as fast as possible. We ordered two pattie melts, an order of french fries and an order of coleslaw. A pattie melt is made just like a grilled cheese but with grilled rye bread, it has a burger with Swiss and American cheese and sauteed onions. It was very good, cooked perfectly and served hot and fresh. The french fries were very ordinary and so was the coleslaw but the pattie melt was stellar.

The prices here are not quite 1950s but there is nothing more expensive than $7.99 offered.

The menu has pretty much everything that you would expect from a drive-in, burgers, hot dogs, bit even these come in some interesting varieties such as the Carolina Burger which adds a couple of unique toppings, chili and slaw to normal cheeseburger and sliced onions. Their dogs come in regular size and also Dogzilla, a 1/3 pound dog served on a sub bun. You can top them with kraut, chili, coleslaw and cheddar cheese sauce. They also offer chicken salad, fried scrimp baskets, homemade soups, subs, pulled pork, fish sandwiches and Rubens, club and grilled sandwiches. Nothing fancy just good down-home food.

Wrights is also an ice cream bar so you can get thick shakes in the regular flavors and some not so regular like banana, butterscotch, cherry and pineapple, with or without malt.

For dessert they offer regular ice cream and yogurt in cones, floats, sundaes, and cups. They even do a flurry.

It isn’t all about the '50s here. They offer WIFI. To find out more about them check out their website at www.dairy-rite.com.

Jane & Michael Stern wrote about them in Roadfood so you can be sure it’s worth a stop. www.roadfood.com

Mill Street Grill is located in the historic White Star Mill. The Mill was founded in 1890 and they installed modern equipment for processing wheat. The principal brand of flour manufactured here was Melrose which was a staple in Southern Homes. It operated as mill until 1963 and then as a restaurant on and off until 1992 when the current owners took over. There motto is “at the Mill, no one is a stranger, we treat you better than family and we don’t ask you to do the dishes.”

We arrived on a Sunday and were quickly seated even though it was very busy. We had a warm three part loaf of bread and pumpkin flavored butter on the table in no time at all. All the sections of the loaf were different and the pumpkin butter, it was a good thing. The Yuengling and Miller Lite were also good things, the glasses were frosted and had an icy rim which made for a beer served at what I consider the perfect temperature.

It still has the look of a factory inside with stone and brick walls, exposed piping but painted red, reverse painted glass and nice wooden tables. We didn’t have appetizers having decided that we were going to have dessert.

Al ordered the New York Strip with garlic mashed potatoes. The steak was perfectly cooked and the garlic mashed potatoes were creamy and delicious. We both loved the potatoes. I ordered the Cajun shrimp and a baked potato. The potato was perfectly cooked and the shrimp was wonderful with a very spicy coating and there were two skewers with 10 shrimp on each. We rated it an excellent meal and our service was excellent, we never wanted for anything.

When it came time for dessert it was hard choice, what to have caramel fudge pecan cake, pumpkin creme brulee, key lime pie, chocolate lovers spoon cake, caramel granny apple pie, pumpkin tiramisu and Reese peanut butter thunder cake. Al was no help, he ordered ice cream. I listened to our waiter and ordered the pumpkin tiramisu. You see a pumpkin theme here don’t you, keep in mind that it was October when we visited .

The tiramisu was an interesting dessert, probably not my favorite (I was leaning toward the pumpkin crème brulée) but I am glad I tried it. It was very fluffy and had little chocolate chips on top and pumpkin and coffee is a unique combination. I finished up with a coffee, passing on the cappuccino and lattes.

This is a very nice restaurant that I would definitely return to. The clientele was a mixed bag but certainly it is a place where you can bring your family, your date or even your mother.

I had one reason and one reason only for visiting Staunton and that was to visit the Blackfriars Playhouse. I am an inveterate devotee of Shakespearean Theater and going way out of my way to see a production is not at all unusual. What we finally did was to drive to Staunton from Charlottesville for a Thursday night performance of the Three Musketeers. It was offered in repertory with Hamlet and A Comedy of Errors. We spent Sunday Night in Staunton and the Sunday Matinee offering was Hamlet. Having last seen Hamlet in Stratford on Avon on September 11, 2001, I was not anxious to see a repeat performance. Every season brings a new list of offerings. They offer four different show schedules every year.

I recommend knowing where the theater is before you drive into town. We got stuck in a terrible traffic jam and had to take an alternate route off the Interstate. We pulled into a Blockbuster Video and asked the help there (more than one person) where the Shakespeare Theater was. We got totally blank stares. Evidently these young folks weren’t into Shakespeare. If I wasn’t afraid of missing the performance, I would have found this whole episode very amusing. It really was funny, there is a Shakespeare Theater in Staunton, wow Luckily a customer was able to give us general directions.

We found a parking spot along the street on the hill below the theater. There is free parking in the New Street Parking garage right behind the theater which we didn’t know at the time.

This theater is an exact recreation of Shakespear’s original theater. There are several seating options. We opted for the most expensive, the Lord’s chairs. These run along the side the stage and have seat backs. The benches have no seat backs. Bench seats in section A include portable backs and seat cushions. There are discount seats that don’t include the backs. If you want a very special experience, you can choose to have some gallants stool. These are stools right on the stage, talk about being in the middle of the action

Before the show drinks were offered in the lobby and then in the theater. It was hilarious, a very fake French man was selling zee beer and zee soda. He was flirting with the ladies and making sport of the men, it was all in good fun.

There is no photography allowed in the theater but I had contacted the manager in advance and he allowed me to go into the theater as soon as the actors finished their warm up and let me shoot whatever I wanted. Another reason I didn’t want to arrive late.

The company here is wonderful and I can’t imagine not loving any show they put on. The prices are very reasonable too. Booking is available online. www.americanshakespearecenter.com 

I have always felt a certain affinity for Woodrow Wilson since I attended Woodrow Wilson Junior High School and the part of Middletown, CT, where I grew up attended Woodrow Wilson High School. Wilson also spent some years in Middletown as a Professor at Wesleyan University.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton on December 28, 1856. His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson had taken the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church in Staunton in 1855 and by 1858 he and his wife Jennie Woodrow and their three children were moving on another Presbyterian church in August Ga . So in reality, though Staunton is where he was born, it was not where the future president was raised. The House where he was born is the Manse, the parish house that is provided by the parish for the pastor and his family.

What you have to visit here is the Museum, the future location of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and the Manse which has been restored to what it would have been like at the time the Wilson family was in residence.

You can get to the Museum by taking the Trolley which will drop you off right along side the House. This is a two part tour. The first part is self guided. Here you will walk through a museum that will tell you about the 28th President’s childhood, college years, early married life, and then the years of his presidency. You will meet his parents, his two wives and a myriad of others who were part of his life. Even his presidential limousine is here.

The second part of the visit is the tour of the actual house where he lived with his family growing up. I love taking a guided tour especially when the docent is enthusiastic and that was certainly the case here. This is the south of course but it was still disturbing to find out that the church rented three slaves to help out during the time the Wilson’s were here. Jennie Wilson was a talented musician and her guitar has been saved and is displayed in the parlor. Also on display is a coffee service that was a gift from the congregation in Augusta, GA.

We get to see the room where he was born at 12:45pm on December 28, 1856. He was given the name Thomas and called Tommy by his family but when he went to college he dropped it and took his middle name which was his mother’s family name. The bed where he was born is not here, it is in South Carolina but his crib is here and his mothers which came with her from England.

I found this whole visit fascinating . I realize that even though he is listed as the 6th most important president I didn’t know very much about Woodrow Wilson. You definitely won’t be able to say that after you leave here.