A Story in Two Worlds
Larry Gatlin premieres Quanah at Irving’s Lyric Stage Theatre
Quanah Parker, the Comanche chief who bridged the worlds of Native Americans and white settlers — as well as the ways of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — has been the subject of numerous stories. This spring, his story will be reimagined in a stage musical, by country music performer Larry Gatlin.
Gatlin, who was born in the West Texas city of Seminole (a place Quanah himself traveled to late in life in search of his uncertain birthplace), has long been fascinated with the Comanche leader’s legend.
Left Quanah Parker was born around 1845, possibly at Cedar Lake near present day Seminole, Texas. Son of Comanche warrior Peta Nocona and Anglo captive Cynthia Ann Parker, Parker grew to be a powerful and respected chief of the Kwahadi Comanches. Right Larry Gatlin, a native of Seminole, Texas, and a member of the country music group the Gatlin Brothers, wrote Quanah: Lord of the Plains, which received its world premiere staged reading in New York City in 2010.
The history of Quanah Parker and the Comanches drew him to visit Palo Duro Canyon in 2013 to present a Gatlin Brothers concert in the amphitheater surrounded by the same canyon walls Quanah once defended.
The world premiere of Gatlin’s musical will take place April 28 at the Lyric Stage Theatre in Irving. Quanah: Lord of the Plains is the musical journey of the Comanche chief Quanah Parker and his mother Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped as a girl and raised by the Comanches as one of their own. It runs April 28 through May 7.
