A Peek at Playwright Jamie Ridenhour’s Work
Benedetto Maniscalco | November 24, 2021
Special to The Echo | Gwyn Ridenhour
Jamie Ridenhour, Ph.D., is a multi-genre author and instructor for the English department of Warren Wilson College (WWC). He has taught for 22 years at a variety of schools, including Western Carolina, University of South Carolina and the University of Mary, a small Catholic college in Bismarck, North Dakota. He started teaching at Warren Wilson in 2018 and has since made a lasting impression on many students.
He went to a small liberal arts college in South Carolina called Coker College. He started as a music major but switched to theatre his junior year after taking an acting class for an elective. This is where he discovered his love for theatre, and it has been influential in his life since. Many students can relate to the fact that Jamie had not necessarily figured out what he wanted to do when he first started college.
“I had a vague idea that I wanted to be a rockstar,” Ridenhour said. “And a vague idea that being a famous writer would be fun.”
Ridenhour has written six plays in his life, five of which have been produced and staged, and he assures that nobody wants to see the sixth one.
His most recent play, “Blood Bath: Victoria’s Secret,” ran from October 15, 2021 to October 30, 2021. A quick synopsis of the play provided by Jamie painted a picture of a woman who had starred in many slasher films in the 1980s and whose career had mostly dried up. It takes place in 1999 on New Year’s Eve during the expected Y2K event. A night that was meant to be a romantic dinner with her girlfriend goes awry as unexpected guests from her past begin to show up.
One WWC staff member, Caroline Crew, had the opportunity to see his play.
“His play was wonderful! Being new in town, pandemic weary, and feeling bereft at the prospect of another dampened Halloween holiday, Jamie's play was the answer to my Halloween blues,” crew wrote. “It was raucous, bloody and challenged the trope of the final girl all while making a slasher movie possible in a stage setting. My only regret was being too slow to get splash zone tickets!”
There was a splash zone warning issued for the front row, but it only applied to a few of the show nights. Don’t worry though, because if they ever do a staging of the show again, according to Ridenhour, the blood splash zone will be more of a guarantee than a warning.
Apart from theatre, Ridenhour has written literary analyses and criticisms, novels and audio dramas. His audio drama “Palimpsest,” about “memory, identity and the things that haunt us,” has an original story through each of its seasons. Previous seasons have involved ghosts and possession, cosmic horror and slasher horror. It is available on all podcast websites as well as on its own website. Ridenhour said that this audio drama is “the most fun thing” he has ever worked on because of its broad availability that allows him to connect with listeners from around the world and similarity to writing theatre.
His love of horror runs deeply throughout the genre’s utility in confronting darker parts of humanity and the ways this confrontation can be beneficial. But this attachment to horror started earlier in his life, during the period of time in between his parents’ divorce and his mom remarrying. Every Friday night during this transitional period he and his mom would attend a horror double feature.
“You’d be up until 2 am watching this stuff … and it was cool, and I got to stay up late,” recounted Ridenhour, noting his younger siblings did not get this same privilege.
Clairissa Hitcho, a senior at Warren Wilson, horror enthusiast and fledgling of Ridenhour, had the opportunity to work on his most recent play for an internship.
“Jamie is my mentor; for me, he is so much more than a professor and an advisor,” Hitcho said. “He is the most kind, helpful and excited person that I have gotten the pleasure of working with at Warren Wilson. He makes learning fun and engaging, but then he also takes the extra steps to check in on students and shows how much he cares and values everyone in his classes … If you hang around Jamie for a while you'll hear some of the funniest remarks on literature and also get heartwarming support and advice from him.”
Paula Garrett, chair of the English department at Warren Wilson referred to Ridenhour as “a rockstar colleague,” which hopefully fulfills an inkling of his youth desires.
“He helped tremendously as we all worked together to revise the English major,” wrote Garrett in an email. “He is game to teach innovative classes. He is crazy talented: playwright, podcaster, writer, teacher and thinker. I’ve enjoyed getting to know and work with him.”
Jamie Ridenhour is teaching three classes this spring semester: intro to reading poetry, readings in humanities: book to film, and romanticism.
Though it may be too late now to sign up for his classes in the spring, Ridenhour often teaches interesting classes, whether they are about horror, complex novels, or the book to movie process.