Come fly with me - see the historical context of "Capt. Ferguson's School for Balloon Warfare"

On Monday, May 3rd at 7:30pm, Dixon Place will present a new play by Isaac Rathbone, Captain Ferguson's School for Balloon Warfare, produced by Oracle Theatre, Inc.  Dixon Place, "NYC's Laboratory for Performance," as their mantra claims, hosts a Works-In-Progress (aka. Under Construction) several times a month.  On May 3rd, the series will workshop a performance of Isaac Rathbone's new one-man drama about a military leader during WWI, whose mission was to defeat the Kaiser utilizing Zeppelin-style balloons.

The serio-comic and tragically heroic Captain Ferguson, who's innovative balloon work is based on an actual historical military Captain(1) in Omaha, Nebraska, establishes a school and trains his recruits for balloon warfare.  Through the integration of this modern technology of hydrogen-filled balloons, Ferguson prepares his adventurous troops for surveillance and aerial combat in WWI in France. 

Playwright, Isaac Rathbone, comments for this article in Examiner.com: 

During the first World War, there were pioneers that developed new methods of surveillance and aerial warfare.  While attending a theater conference at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, within the fields of the old military training barracks, I discovered a commemorative plaque on one of the buildings.  It detailed the aeronautical tactics of balloon warfare before 1918 and featured Captain Chandler.  Men were being prepared to enter the fight in WWI using large, hydrogen-filled balloons with wicker baskets and guiding ropes attached.  One man, leading the discovery of this new weapon, was Captain Charles deForest Chandler, Colonel United States Army(2).

(See the continuation of this article on Captain Ferguson's School for Balloon Warfare on the following page.)

(1) Multiple biographies on early aviators at http://earlyaviators.com/echandle.htm

(2) Biography on Arlington National Cemetery website at http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/chandler.htm