Interview with Author-Playwright Louis Kraft

[Diane Merkel]

From the Wild West website:

Western history takes center stage in Louis Kraft's career, but Kraft does more than research and write books. Before turning to history, he was an actor, and these days one is as likely to find him speaking about his subjects or playing them onstage as writing about them.

For some time Kraft has immersed himself in the life of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian agent Edward W. ("Ned") Wynkoop. In 2002 the playwright's one-man historical drama, An Evening with Ned Wynkoop, premiered in Kansas. He has since reworked and performed the play in California, Colorado and Oklahoma, most recently in Ned Wynkoop: Long Road to Washita as part of the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site's 140th anniversary remembrance in December 2008. Kraft's full-length play Cheyenne Blood, directed by Tom Eubanks, premiered in Oxnard, Calif., in April 2009.

Kraft's nonfiction titles include Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer's Winter Campaign on the Southern Plains (1995), Gatewood & Geronimo (2000) and Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (2005). He has also written a novel, The Final Showdown (1992). Forthcoming projects include a Wynkoop biography, Ned Wynkoop: Walking Between the Races, and a book on the Sand Creek massacre, Sand Creek: A Clash of Cultures. He's also working on Errol & Olivia, a book that addresses the relationship between actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.

Read the great interview: www.historynet.com/interview-with-author-playwright-louis-kraft.htm