Outdoor drama on bandit Otto Wood back for fifth season

Published 12:00 am Thursday, June 11, 2015

By Mark Wineka

NORTH WILKESBORO — The fifth season of the outdoor drama “Otto Wood: The Bandit” opens June 25 at The Record Park, located at the corner of Fourth and E streets in North Wilkesboro.

Wood, a notorious Depression-era criminal, has a strong Salisbury connection. The drama tells much of his life’s story and inevitably builds to New Year’s Eve 1930, when Wood was gunned down on East Innes Street in Salisbury.
Salisbury Police Chief R.L. Rankin fatally wounded Wood in a gunfight that sprayed some 11 bullets after Wood was confronted by Rankin and Assistant Chief J.W. Kesler.
Thousands viewed Wood’s body at Wright’s Funeral Home in Salisbury before citizens donated money for the shipment of his remains to his mother, Ellen Wood, in West Virginia. Mother and son are buried side by side in Coaldale.

Nat Padgett returns for the fifth year to play the role of Wood,  a bandit, known for car thefts, moonshining, womanizing and numerous jail breaks – all this with one hand and a disabled leg.

For the fifth season, Heather Dean directs the show, which has won multiple awards from the N.C. Society of Historians.

Live music by Crabgrass will be performed before the show and between scenes.

Show dates for “Otto Wood: The Bandit” are: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 25, 26, 27; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, July 1, 2, 3; and Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 9, 10, 11.

Tickets are $8.

Call The Record at 336-667-0134 for more information.

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