The Mountain Music Bluegrass Jam featuring banjo player Raymond Fairchild, The Sons of Ralph and The Whitewater Bluegrass Company with Marc Pruett will be held Friday, Jan. 30. Doors open at 7 p.m., show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12, $10 for students with valid ID and children under 12. For more information or advance tickets call 828.627.4583 or 828.216.8156.

Those who are interested in playing a part in “Crazy Mary” should arrive early for the open casting call, held from 6-10 p.m.

Students at Haywood Community College are working to bring a local legend to life.

As the story goes, Crazy Mary lived in the mountains of Tennessee, a recluse, a widow and a mother to a child taken too early by the grips of death.

Her oddity made her an easy target for the pranks of local school children raised by parents who did not understand her ways. Of these misdirected merrymakers was the preacher’s brood.

As reparation for his children’s misdeeds, the preacher invited Mary over for dinner. The evening began well enough, as Mary arrived bearing a gift of wine. But glass after glass, Mary’s gentile guest persona wore off and, having made a spectacle of herself, she was asked to leave.

Later that same night, a shot rang out in the darkness. Tracing the footsteps in the snow, leading from the preacher’s house to Mary’s, the preacher’s family found him dead at Mary’s doorstep. Justice, the family decided, must be had.

A child was sent to fetch the sheriff, but after a long day’s ride to and fro, the tracks in the snow had melted, leaving little evidence of the crime.

Not to be outdone by a bit of warm weather, the townspeople congregated and, in a move of vigilante justice, burned Mary’s house to the ground. Homeless and unwanted, Mary loaded her wagon with the few possessions she had remaining and fled into the hills, never to be seen again.

Or at least that’s how Doug Chambers’ storyboard portrays it, not that he particularly likes storyboarding.

“What I really want to do, which kind of ties in with storyboarding, is editing,” Chambers said. “That’s the good part.”

He, along with his fellow Film & Video Production Technology classmates Renee Doutt, Mike Lesser, Scott Schreiber and Wes Wehking are putting Crazy Mary’s story on the silver screen as the culmination of their two years of study in the program. Consider it a senior thesis, movie style.

Like most folk tales and legends, facts about Crazy Mary are few and far between. The events in the story supposedly took place sometime between the late 1800s and early 1920s, somewhere around Mountain City, Tenn. Revisited, revised and relocated to Haywood County, Crazy Mary’s tale is set to finish filming in early May of this year.

But before filming can finish, it must begin. That task is proving somewhat arduous for the class, which has been in existence for only two years at HCC. The students organizing the project are the first to complete the program.

Although students are about to graduate, they have yet to actually shoot film, namely because they don’t have a camera. A 16mm camera is needed, but since they are so expensive the class is being forced to rent one from an Asheville-based company, Blue Ridge Motion Pictures.

Luckily, Blue Ridge is cutting them a deal. But other costs including reels of film, props, editing, distribution and cast payment — which is being done with food as the class can afford nothing more than volunteer actors — total an estimated $5,000. Sounds like a low-budget film, except when you’re starting at $0.

“It’s been a scramble,” said Film & Video Production Technology professor Edwin Dennis.

The class has held one fund-raising event, garnering about $1,000, and will host a bluegrass concert this weekend. Guests include Raymond Fairchild, The Sons of Ralph and The Whitewater Bluegrass Company with Marc Pruett.

In addition to raising the $5,000, students also are hoping to generate a few leads on where they can find two 1918 era cabins, a handful of antique rifles, lanterns, cooking utensils, high back chairs and costumes to be used in the production.

Students are aiming to shoot approximately 90 minutes of material, which will be edited down to a 30-minute feature and distributed to various film festivals. The project not only will serve as a portfolio sample for the students, but as an example of what the Film & Video Production Technology program can turn out.

“It’s kind of a calling card for our program here at Haywood,” Dennis said.

And the students themselves may serve as calling cards as well — each member of the “Crazy Mary” production staff plans on following through with their learned skills, pursuing jobs in film production.

Lesser hopes to work in lighting, Chambers and Doutt in editing, Wehking — who originally planned on being a chef— in camera work and Schreiber in production.

“I don’t really want to be the main man anymore,” Schreiber said in reference to his decision to work toward becoming an assistant director rather than a director. “I like making sure things get done.”