Even before the tragic deaths that closed its open-all-night doors, the dilapidated antebellum Mississippi mansion known as “Graceland Too” was essentially a haunted house — haunted by the memory if not by the ghost of Elvis.
Long a place of irreverent pilgrimage for boozy after-hours Ole Miss students, Memphis daytrippers, indie rockers and other aficionados of the bizarre from around the world, the two-story, memorabilia-crammed Holly Springs shrine to Elvis Presley was closed in 2014, after its Elvis-fanatical owner, Paul MacLeod, shot and killed Dwight David Taylor Jr., 28, a local handyman, on the mansion’s front porch. Two days later, MacLeod, 70, died on that porch, of a heart attack.
Although the saga of Graceland Too inspired some magazine articles, a book of photographs and a few songs (check out “Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth” by Parquet Courts), the story in recent years has been more or less forgotten, even by those true-crime podcasters and streaming-service dramatists for whom surreal calamity is catnip.
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“It had been on my mind, but I kept thinking, ‘It’s too good a story, someone else will write it,'” said Nicole Hughes, a Cordova/Memphis native who now lives in New York. “I guess I didn’t have the confidence to think I’d be the one to do it until I realized nobody else was doing it.”
This week, Graceland Too has reopened its doors, so to speak, but in an unlikely location: The mansion, its troubled inhabitant, and its strange history have inspired a new play, “Graceland Too: The Building Elvis Never Left,” written by Hughes, 31, and directed by another Memphis transplant to New York, Maxx Reed, 32.
A third member of the New York Memphis mafia, Matt Wood (a classmate of Reed’s at Bolton High School), composed music for the show. “It’s really funny how all of us came together again in New York,” said Wood, 38, whose Memphis band as a teenager, Perspective, used to play such venues as Newby’s and the New Daisy.
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The Elvis flowers connection
“Graceland Too,” the play, made its debut Monday night during the New York Theater Festival, an annual event that provides what Hughes calls an “off-off-Broadway” showcase for new productions. Performances were set to continue Friday and Sunday. After that, the play’s future is uncertain.
Hughes said she visited Graceland Too only once, in 2008, when she was visiting friends at Ole Miss while she was a student at Auburn University. But she said that visit revealed a “weird” if loose linkage between her and MacLeod.
Hughes said her great-uncle, Frank Hill, worked at Memphis Funeral Home, “and his claim to fame, I guess, is he embalmed Elvis.”
As a result, Hughes said, the family had some flowers that had been used during Elvis’ funeral service, which Hughes’ grandmother pressed and framed. The “Elvis flowers” became a major totem of family lore. “At the end of the day, they’re just dried flowers, right? But no, they aren’t just flowers, they’re Elvis’ flowers.”
At Graceland Too, Hughes learned during her visit, MacLeod also had what he called “Elvis graveside flowers, but his were in a plastic bag taped to the wall.” Even so, here was another house with a proud display of Elvis flowers. “I thought, what if in some weird way we’re connected through those flowers?”
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The story behind Graceland Too
An Elvis-obsessed Detroit native, MacLeod moved to Holly Springs in the 1970s. In 1990, he transformed his so-called “Graceland Too” home into a self-made tourist attraction. The Graceland Too moniker was unsanctioned by Elvis Presley Enterprises, but arguably not unjustified: Built in 1853, the house — sold in auction after MacLeod’s death — does sort of resemble a mini-Graceland, with its colonial-style columns and stone lions.
Graceland Too never closed to visitors. Anybody who showed up at MacLeod’s door at any time of day or night on any day of the year was welcome, as long as the person had the $5 admission price.
What that five-spot bought was a MacLeod-guided tour that was not only a ramble through the home’s claustrophobic Elvis-stuffed interior but a rummage through an equally precarious Elvis-stuffed mind. Highlights included MacLeod’s performance of “Jailhouse Rock” and his display of Polaroid photographs in which ectoplasmic evidence of Elvis’ approving spirit was supposedly visible in the lens flares. Said Hughes: “He definitely thought Elvis lived in the flickering lights.”
Disturbing or amusing? The answer, for most visitors, was “both.” But the pendulum swung to the dark side on the night of July 15, 2014, when MacLeod killed Taylor with what a Paris Review story called “one of his many guns.” The men supposedly had been sometimes close, sometimes combative friends; according to reports, Taylor had come to Graceland Too to seek payment for some fix-it work he had done for MacLeod. In any case, MacLeod was dead two days later, and within a year his home and his Elvis collection had been sold at auction.
How the ‘Graceland Too’ play came together
According to Hughes, “Graceland Too: The Building Elvis Never Left” is a work of “historical fiction,” inhabited by actors portraying real people in a dramatized scenario. In musical terms, “Our first act is blues and our second act is gospel,” Hughes said.
Charles F. Wagner plays MacLeod, while Qaasim Middleton is Taylor. A barbecue restaurateur character who represents “the heart and soul” of Holly Springs is played by Toni Seawright, who in 1987 was the first Black woman to win the Miss Mississippi pageant and represent that state in the Miss America competition.
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While focusing on the particular personalities of the two men, the play also delves into other relevant topics, including gun ownership, mental health, “Elvis culture” and race. MacLeod was a white man, Taylor was a Black man; Holly Springs police did not charge MacLeod after the shooting. “Dwight didn’t really get any justice,” Hughes said.
Reed said Hughes has “a very, very special gift for story,” but in tandem he and Hughes made what he called “a perfect partnership” for the project: Hughes is white, while Reed — her fiancé as well as collaborator — is Black.
The play is being produced in cooperation with the Taylor family. “We are honored, because the Taylor family allowed us to use his name and tell his story,” Hughes said. The family contributed an open letter about Taylor to the play’s program guide (he was “a loving, kind, and sweet child who was taken from us unexpectedly”) and asks theatergoers to make a contribution in Taylor’s memory to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
After years of contemplating the material, Hughes said she wrote the play relatively swiftly, specifically for submission to the New York Theater Festival. After it was accepted in July, she and Reed had to raise money to produce the play for the event. A crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo website raised close to $10,000.
Auditions, casting and rehearsals were accomplished in the space of a few weeks before the play’s debut. “It was a mad scramble to get it produced,” said Reed, who has his own Graceland if not Graceland Too connection: His aunt, Dr. Susanne Taylor, is a veterinarian whose clients have included the horses at the Presley estate (including Moriah, Lisa Marie’s Shetland pony).
The duo’s arts experience helped them accomplish their “mad scramble.” Hughes earns a living working for a digital health company, but she long has been involved in various stage, film and social justice projects (she was a social-action campaign producer for the documentary “Coded Bias,” now on Netflix). Reed — who trained at New Ballet Ensemble here — is an actor, dancer and producer who appeared on Broadway in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”
“It’s good to have it on its feet,” Hughes said of “Graceland Too.” But will the house remain standing? With close to 90 plays, one-acts and sketches running in the New York Theater Festival through July, getting noticed can be difficult.
“We certainly hope to bring it to Memphis, but also would love an off-Broadway run, or whatever,” she said. “We’re hoping it lives on.”
