Innocent or guilty? Dive into the Wild West at the Billy the Kid Festival
LAS CRUCES – Step back in time to the Wild West this month at the Billy the Kid Festival, featuring original music and a dramatic depiction of the trial of New Mexico’s most infamous outlaw.
The Doña Ana County Historical Society is presenting its third annual February festival later this month at the Rio Grande Theatre. In previous years the event was known as the Pat Garrett Western Heritage Festival.
The festival will kick off Friday evening, Feb. 24 with a performance of “The Trial of Billy the Kid,” written by local historian David Thomas and directed by Ross Marks (“Walking With Herb,” “The Heart Outright”). The play is based largely on the 2021 book Thomas wrote about the life and times of Henry Antrim, known around the country as Billy the Kid.
Audiences will be transported to Mesilla in 1881 where actors will portray such well-known characters as Judge Warren Henry Bristol, prosecuting attorney Simon Bolivar Newcomb and defense counsel Col. Albert Jennings Fountain. Actors will take the audience through the facts of Antrim’s case, which involved the death of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady.
Thomas said he was drawn to Antrim’s story because it is local history, but Antrim was also the only person tried in connection to the Lincoln County War.
“In the end, only one man was tried for any of the murders and that man was Billy the Kid,” Thomas said. “It was very unfair because essentially, everybody else got away.”
The production is interactive, establishing the audience as the jury in the trial. Audience members will have the job of convicting or acquitting Antrim at the end of the play via their phones. Antrim was convicted during the real trial and sentenced to hang but was shot and killed by Garrett after escaping custody.
Marks said that Thomas contacted him originally about adapting “The Trial of Billy the Kid” as a movie or TV anthology. He explained he is following the lead of his mentor, Mark Medoff (“Children of a Lesser God,” “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?”), who he said would develop productions as a stage play before taking it to the silver screen.
“I find doing a stage play first is a great way to develop a screenplay because you’re really diving into character and behavior, and you get an understanding of what makes the characters tick,” Marks said. “What I miss about doing theater is the rehearsal process because in film, you hardly get to rehearse.”
Marks has focused mainly on feature and short films for the past decade. He said rehearsals for “The Trial of Billy the Kid” will last about a month before they open for audiences. Marks added that live audiences also give them instant feedback as to what is working in the material before tackling the screenplay version.
He said the play will open with a short film segment featuring a montage of past portrayals of the outlaw before local actor Nick Check transitions the production from screen to stage.
“We’re working really hard on the text, on the script to make it difficult for the audience to make a decision,” Marks said. “In a perfect world … one performance he’s innocent and the next performance he’s guilty. And then we’ve done our job because that’s a good courtroom drama, where the audience is conflicted and really ambivalent about what their decision is.”
Check said he has also been working mainly in film recently and welcomed the opportunity to take on the role of a notorious outlaw.
“He's not just some crazy murderer. He’s just kind of like a misunderstood youth and he gets caught up in the middle of the entire territorial war and kind of just gets everything blamed on him,” Check said.
A second presentation of the play will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26.
The festival continues Saturday, Feb. 25 with a screening of “Young Guns” at 1 p.m. and a musical presentation at 7 p.m. with original songs by Dan Crow about Billy the Kid, Garrett, Stagecoach Mary Fields, the Fountain mystery and Deacon Jim Miller.
The full program schedule includes:
7 p.m. Feb. 24 – “The Trial of Billy the Kid”
1 p.m. Feb. 25 – “Young Guns”
7 p.m. Feb. 25 – “Sing the Legend,” a musical presentation
2 p.m. Feb. 26 – “The Trial of Billy the Kid”
4 p.m. Feb. 26 – Presentation of “Billy’s Murder Trial, a Historical Perspective” by David Thomas
Festival tickets are $25 which includes admission to all three days. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at www.riograndetheatre.org.
Others are reading:
'Be noble': New Mexico State alumnus publishes epic fable 'Legacy: The Saga Begins'
Happy Valentine’s Day! Check out ways to celebrate the holiday in Las Cruces this year.
Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Innocent or guilty? Dive into the Billy the Kid Festival
