'White Plains, Blue Mountain' brings notorious Alabama double murder case to stage

We begin in Anniston, Alabama, sometime in the 1970s, as an investigator is talking to a woman. A murder from two decades earlier is mentioned.

The woman is intrigued, and asks all about the case that began with the discovery of two dismembered bodies in White Plains, Alabama, and includes an investigation in Etowah County.

As they talk, the investigator, who worked on the case earlier in his career, asks this acquaintance why she thinks a woman would commit such a heinous murder. It becomes apparent that more is going on here — and has been going on — in the life of this other woman.

The stage is now set (literally) for an intriguing story-within-a-story to unfold. You can learn about these eventful, actual crimes at the historic Ritz Theatre in Alabama City.

“White Plains, Blue Mountain,” a full-length play by Gadsden writers — and spouses — William “Bill” Thornton and Donna Thornton, makes its premiere with Theatre of Gadsden. (Both Thorntons are journalists: He writes for AL.com, while she is a long-time reporter for the Gadsden Times.)

Theatre of Gadsden commissioned the play in 2017, but the foundations for writing it were set before then.

“Several years ago, (Bill and I) did some research on the summer of 1959 murders (in White Plains), because we had the idea of writing a true crime story about it,” Donna Thornton said. “We talked to probably 11 people involved in the investigating and criminal case — from one of the attorneys who defended (confessed killer) Viola Hyatt and one of the state investigators, to the state trooper who got the tip that led to the identification of the two (male) victims.

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“We didn’t get the true crime project off the ground, but we kept all our notes and clippings.

“Then, in about 2017, we saw a post from Mike Beecham on Theatre of Gadsden’s Facebook page asking someone to work on a writing project related to the Alabama bicentennial. Bill contacted Mike and found out one of his ideas for a possible project was the story of Viola Hyatt. Then Bill came up with an idea of incorporating another Calhoun County crime into the mix.”

Thus, “White Plains, Blue Mountain” had its beginnings.

“The most important thing (about playwriting) is to make sure you are creating something that a troupe of actors can interpret in a way that leaves the audience not only with something to think about, but also (something that) inspires the feelings that every human being has,” Bill Thornton said.

“That’s very different than our day jobs,” he added.

Bill said the writing process already had some sense of flow from how the Viola Hyatt story played out, so a major part of drafting the play involved documenting those events.

“We read some plays beforehand to get some ideas about structure and staging, and it took about two to three months to get a first draft done,” Bill Thornton said. Several rewrites later, the theatre held a one-night-only reading in July 2019, before more revisions "to cut and condense some scenes to focus in on the two main stories.”

“Fortunately, the TOG folks were happy with what we put together,” Donna Thornton added.

Bill shared more about the challenges of the creative process for writing a play — from starting with the idea to turning it into a finished product ready for the premiere.

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“The biggest challenge is dramatizing what the information is,” Bill Thornton said. “A play is about characters, situations, and action. Some of the scenes would seem obvious, but the characters have to be believably motivated and explicable.

“One of the reasons we didn’t just tell Viola (Hyatt)’s story is that much of it is still a mystery. She never spoke publicly, that we could find, about what happened. That was a creative challenge,” he said. “So we needed another voice to tell the story, which is how the other case came into the play because it involves a very vivid, memorable character.”

Some of the sources the Thorntons spoke to while writing the play were memorable themselves.

“Both of us talked to Noble Yocum, the former Etowah County coroner who was there for the examination of the two victims in the Hyatt case,” Donna Thornton said. “He was such a colorful character and obvious storyteller. He had this very deep voice and could give very clear details about what it was like at this or that occasion.”

“He still remembered what he had been doing just before getting called to one of the crime scenes,” she added. “He had a sharp memory in his 80s.”

She also talked to John Phillips, Hyatt’s lawyer, who gave his memories and thoughts on what he perceived was the relationship in the Hyatt household.

Bill said it’s important for audiences to remember that, while dramatized for the stage, the stories being portrayed are true and have long-reaching effects on people’s lives.

“We’ve come to know some people who were involved peripherally in the lives of the two women,” he said. “These were real crimes that affected flesh-and-blood people, and they were tragedies. We’ve tried to be as respectful as possible in both instances.”

Weekend showtimes for “White Plains, Blue Mountain” are 7 p.m. on Oct. 28, Oct. 29, Nov. 4 and Nov. 5; and 2 p.m. on Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. All performances are at the Ritz Theatre, 310 Wall St., Gadsden, Alabama, 35904.

A meet-the-playwrights reception is open to attendees following the opening night performance.

This program/project was supported by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

For tickets and more information, visit www.theatreofgadsden.org.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Play drawn from notorious murders comes to Theatre of Gadsden stage