MANKATO - His sister made the coat. The beaver felt top hat came from a distributor in Ontario. But the beard is completely of his own doing.

"It took a bit of experimentation to get it the way I wanted it," Bryce Stenzel admitted. "And it took a while to grow out and get it shaped. Ask any gentleman and he'll tell you that it just takes time."

Now that he has had an almost perfect Abraham Lincoln beard for 11 years, there's little chance that Stenzel will be shaving it off any time soon. He uses it frequently for his portrayals of the 16th president, for one thing, and he's afraid his friends won't recognize him without it.

"If I shaved it off now, no one would know it was me," he laughed.

The beard, along with the 1858-style frock coat, top hat, cane, watch chain, dress shirt and vest, will make Stenzel easily recognizable at the Blue Earth County Library Saturday, where he'll be signing copies of his new book, "Lincoln for the Stages," and leading a discussion about Lincoln's life and death.

At 38, Stenzel has spent almost two-thirds of his life learning about Lincoln. The fascination began as a child, when he found himself drawn to books about the president. In high school, he says, he often drifted to the back of the library, where the history books were kept. There he found Jim Bishop's book, "The Day Lincoln Was Shot."

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"That was a breakthrough for me," Stenzel said. "It tells the story of Lincoln's assassination hour-by-hour. When I read that, I knew that I was right, that there was a lot more to the story than I knew."

Stenzel, now a social studies teacher, has read Bishop's book 20-plus times since then, along with countless other books about the president. Finding resources has never been difficult; the challenge, he says, is finding fresh ways of interpreting the information.

"It's a story almost everyone has heard," he said. "So the challenge is in telling the story again in a different way, in a way that will get different people interested in it."

In "Lincoln for the Stages," Stenzel tells the story in four plays. The collection begins with Lincoln's birth in Springfield, Illinois and ends with his assassination at the Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. on April 14, 1865.

It's taken most of a decade to finish the four plays, says Stenzel, who started the project after visiting the Ford Theatre on April 14, 1995-exactly 130 years after Lincoln's death. "Beware the People Weeping," which documents the president's death, came out of that trip.

Three of the four plays have been produced several times in the years since, including one performance at the Blue Earth County Library. Stenzel hopes the release of "Lincoln for the Stages" will encourage other schools and drama groups to put it on and, in the process, inspire others to learn more about Lincoln as well.

"I'm the messenger," he said. "For me, it's all about telling the story, whatever form it takes. I'm an educator first. Whether I'm teaching, acting, or writing, I'm always an educator."

© 2007 Design by
Ron Affolter
Updated
April 25, 2007