Cumberland County Playhouse & Scopes Trial Festival Partner for 90th Anniversary Celebration

The 2015 Scopes Trial Festival, beginning today in Dayton, TN, will mark the 90th anniversary of the historic Scopes Monkey Trial. The Cumberland County Playhouse and the Dayton Scopes Festival partner for a second year to produce Front Page News from the Rhea County courtroom, the original site of the trial in 1925.

Front Page News, a newly adapted play with music, will be presented in the Rhea County courtroom where William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow clashed over whether Tennessee schools would teach evolution or Biblical creation during Dayton's 1925 "Monkey Trial."

The Playhouse is co-producing this historically-accurate account with Grammy-nominated Nashville songwriter/actor Bobby Taylor teaming with Cumberland County Playhouse Producing Director Jim Crabtree to adapt the play by Deborah DeGeorge Harbin of Elizabethton, TN. Taylor, whose Billboard hits have been recorded by Montgomery Gentry, The Oak Ridge Boys, Alison Krauss and Don Williams, will also play "The Storyteller," weaving original, traditional and sacred music throughout the story.

Dates and times of the play are below:

Friday, July 17th at 7:30 PM
Saturday, July 18th at 2:30 PM
Sunday, July 19th at 3 PM

A full schedule of activities throughout the festival can be viewed at www.scopesfestival.com. Tickets range from $23 to $25 with discounts for seniors and children.