Monday night, December 28, PBS will premier the most wonderful biography of Louisa May Alcott!
During the past few years while I have been in Concord, MA, co-directing a National Endowment of the Humanities program on the Transcendentalists , I have had the opportunity to watch filming, talk with the writer and director, and preview the work in progress. Each time, I have been so impressed by what Nancy Porter and Harriett Reisen have done with Alcott's story. It is marvelous!
It was filmed entirely on location, including Orchard House, which only adds to the production in a way that one done on a set cannot. One gets the "feel" of Alcott's Concord and the people who lived there. Concord delibrately held on to the historical presence of the entire village through restoration and delibrate development, or should I say undevelopment, of the area. As one walks through the village, it is easy to visual the first shot of the American Revolution between the Butterick farm and Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather's home, the Old Manse. The energy of Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne still fill the village. It is easy to expect to meet them as one walks down Lexington Road or Walden Street.
The movie itself is well written and the website offers all kinds of wonderful resources (should you teach, homeschool or just have a passion for Alcott's works). Included is a very informative timeline as photos of the Alcott family. Were you aware that Alcott sent her baby sister May to study with Turner in England or that her older sister married John Pratt who had been at Brook Farm, a utopian community (he later became John Brooke in Little Women)?
Please put this on your calendar of must-do for Monday, won't you? It will be well worth the time! Enjoy!
