Smoke on the Mountain

Connie Ray (Book Writer) is a playwright and actress who divides her time between LA and NYC. She wrote the musicals Smoke on the Mountain, Sanders Family Christmas and Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, three of Samuel French’s most popular titles. Her musicals and plays have been produced off-off-Broadway, off-Broadway, regionally and around the world.

On Broadway, she appeared in Hands on a Hardbody, Next Fall and The Heidi Chronicles. Films include Flags of Our Fathers, Thank You For Smoking, About Schmidt and Hope Floats, among others. TV: Star of The Torkelsons, recurring guests on The Big C, Justified and Entourage, among many others.

Alan Bailey (Conceiver) co-authored one of the country’s most frequently produced musicals, Smoke on the Mountain, which ran more than 500 performances at the Lamb’s Theatre in New York, garnering award nominations from the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. It was named one of the ten best plays of the year by Time magazine, The New York Times, and the Associated Press. Smoke on the Mountain and its sequels Sanders Family Christmas and Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming are among Samuel French’s most frequently produced plays.

Additionally, Mr. Bailey has written eight plays that have been produced regionally; he contributed to the musical scores of six of these shows, including the cult favorite Henry the 8th at the Grand Ole Opry. His play Wedding Belles was a semi-finalist for the American Theatre Critics Association’s Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Award, recognizing the best plays of the year that premiered professionally outside New York City.

Alan, a Macon, Georgia native, is a five-time undefeated Jeopardy champion and multi-tournament Jeopardy veteran. Additionally, he is not only one of the few humans to defeat IBM’s computer Watson in a Jeopardy match, he holds the record for having beat that fearsome son-of-a-bitch computer by the biggest margin of any player who lived to tell it.

Mike Craver (Co-Musical Arranger) is a North Carolina-based songwriter, actor, and composer. Off-Broadway credits include The Oil City Symphony (co-author and original cast member, cast recording, Drama Desk award), Smoke on the Mountain (arrangements, published by Samuel French), Radio Gals (co-author and original cast member, cast recording, LA Ovation award, published by Samuel French), Wilder (co-author and original cast), original music for Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, and Bland Simpson and Jim Wann’s Diamond Studs (cast recording and band). Mike also arranged and wrote original material for Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming (published by Samuel French).

He has worked in theatres across the country, including the Pasadena Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, MA. Commissioned work includes three musicals (Bosh and Moonshine, The Belle of Wabash, Sarah Bernhardt in Texas, and Oklahoma Hale and Damnation) based on a troupe of actors and musicians touring the American West during the 19th century. Mike collaborated with southern novelist Clyde Edgerton on a musicalization of Edgerton’s novel Lunch at the Piccadilly.

Mike graduated from the University of North Carolina and was a member of the Red Clay Ramblers for many years. Recorded work includes nine Red Clay Ramblers albums. Craver has released three solo albums – Fishing for Amour, Wagoner’s Lad and Shining Down – and recordings of two musical projects with Clyde Edgerton – Lunch at the Piccadilly and The Bible Salesman. He currently plays with the old time string band Craver, Hicks, Watson & Newberry. (Photo by McIntyre Photography).

Mark Hardwick (Co-Musical Arranger) composed the music for the 1975 Broadway production of Of Mice and Men and co-wrote the musical Oil City Symphony.

Rev. Mervin Oglethorpe John Vessels Jr.*