At our meeting on Wednesday, February 26, the C-W Rotary Club had the pleasure of hosting Kelley Rouse as our guest speaker/performer. Kelley performed “Called Back” which is an original work that explores the groundbreaking poet Emily Dickinson's most enduring themes of love, death, and immortality through the story of her life-long friendship with Susan Gilbert-Dickinson. The script was inspired and supported in 2016 as part of Worcester County Library's The Big Read and a grant from The National Endowment of the Art and Arts Midwest.
About Kelley Rouse:
As an actress and playwright, Kelley enjoyed a distinguished career of over thirty years as an anchor and award-winning broadcast journalist for WMDT and WBOC. She received Associated Press Awards for her series "Our Town," "To Baghdad and Back," and "The Anniversary of 911." While at WBOC, she helped inaugurate "The Jefferson Awards" to celebrate unsung heroes on the Delmarva Peninsula.
During a long career in television, she raised a family and performed in numerous plays, including three one-woman plays "The Year of the Woman" (as Jeannette Rankin,) "Sunset of an Artist" (as Georgia O'Keefe,) and wrote her most recent play "Called Back" (as Emily Dickinson's sister-in-law Susan Dickinson.)
She was selected to perform "Sunset of an Artist" in 2014 for the Maryland Humanities Chautauqua. She is certified by the Teaching Artist Institute in partnership with Maryland State Arts Council. Kelley divides her time between Dover, Delaware, where she delights in the companionship of her ninety-eight-year-old father, and Salisbury, Maryland. She continues to write as well as perform locally and nationally.
