F. Reed Brown has deep roots in the St. Louis theater world. Founder and longtime head of the Ozark Actors Theatre in Rolla — a place where St. Louis theater artists often work — he still comes back from time to time, most recently to appear in "A Song for Coretta" last season at the Black Rep.

Brown lives in Eau Claire now, teaching drama at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. But he's back this weekend with his show "Voices," a play that deals with writers and solitude.

Brown plays writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau; Ron Himes plays poet Langston Hughes. "Voices" also includes portraits of poet Emily Dickinson, diarist Anne Frank and the deaf and blind writer Helen Keller.

"All of these writers were isolated for different reasons," Brown said, "but they all wrote about the human condition. I tried to weave together the universal themes that they addressed.

Brown used the authors' own words, taken from their published work, letters and journals. A Vermont composer, Diane Huling, added a score.

The use of original text was, of course, the signature style of Historyonics, the late lamented troupe that used to perform at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. In a nice touch, that's just where "Voices" runs, through Jan. 24. For more information, visit the museum online.