LIBERTY — See the exploits and adventures of Lewis Redmond, Pickens County’s own Robin Hood, brought to life this month during a special production of “The Prince of Dark Corners.”

Gary Carden’s award-winning play will be performed March 27-28 at Liberty’s Rosewood Center as a special fundraiser for the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife, whose mission is preserving and promoting the arts, folklife, history and conservation of the Blue Ridge region.

The center received a grant from the SC Arts Commission that, combined with funding from the City of Liberty and other sources, will bring “The Prince of Dark Corners” back to Pickens County.

The play sold out two performances at the Pickens County Museum last year and has been performed around the South and on SC ETV, and returns to Pickens County by popular demand, said Dot Jackson, Birchwood’s Site Coordinator.

“Everybody wanted it,” she said. “The last we did it, so many people said, ‘If you ever do it again, let us know.’ It was very popular, very popular.”

The play tells the story of Lewis Redmond, the area’s most notorious outlaw and bootlegger.

“People just thought he was the greatest thing walking,” Jackson said. “We love him because he didn’t trust the government, and there’ve certainly been times in this area when we couldn’t trust the government.”

Actor Milton Huggins, who originated the role of Redmond, will once again bring the local Robin Hood to life onstage.

“I don’t know that anyone else has ever played that part,” Jackson said. “Milton told me once, ‘I am Lewis.’ And he is.”

Part of the play’s popularity is the connection between actor, playwright and their subject, she said.

“Gary’s is Mountain Carolina as Lewis certainly was,” she said. “If Lewis was still living, there’d be a great understanding between that pair.”

As part of the event, Carden will host two free storytelling and dramatic form workshops, one 10 a.m. to noon at the Littlejohn Center in Clemson Friday, March 27, the other 10 a.m. – noon Saturday, March 28 at the Rosewood Center The workshop is open to high school students and adults, but seating is limited.

“He’ll talk about how you turn folklore into more formal stories like plays,” Jackson said.

The weekend’s events conclude with a special showing of “The Outlaw” an award-winning documentary on Redmond’s life. The free screening takes place 2 p.m. Sunday, March 29.

Performances are scheduled for 8pm on Friday and Saturday, March 27 and 28. Tickets, at $15, are on sale at the Liberty Town Hall, the Pickens County Museum in Pickens, McClure’s Bookshop in Clemson and McDowell’s Emporium in Anderson. Tickets will also be available from Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife board members and any remaining will be sold at the door.

The Center will also sponsor a hike along the Eastatoee Creek Heritage Preserve Trail Saturday March 14.

Birchwood Center board members Laura and Bill Jones will lead the moderately difficult hike, which begins at 10 a.m. at the Trailhead on Horsepasture Road in Rocky Bottom.

Birchwood Center members are still hard at work restoring the old Sutherland-Masters House, the area’s first resort hostelry, purchased by Birchwood in 2001.

Recently, Jackson led some members of the Sutherland family around the old homestead.

“They wanted to walk the grounds,” she said. “I was so glad to see them, I thought I would die.”

For now, because of the economy, Birchwood members have curtailed efforts to go public with fundraising requests, and are relying on volunteers to help with the restoration, Jackson said.

“We want anybody to help us,” she said. “But if they’re connected to the family, that’s just a little sweetening added to it.”

For more information about the Birchwood Center and these events, call 898-1418 or visit Birchwoodcenter.org.