Mark Twain Cultural Center puts roots down in Incline Village

"The Ghost of Mark Twain" McAvoy Layne is opening a venue honoring the author who a century after his death remains in the news.

The Mark Twain Cultural Center opens July 2 at 760 Mays, in the Incline Village Center.

"I'm going to bring in educational programs for the kids and entertainment for the folks, and live entertainment five nights a week through the summer," said Layne, who made a living portraying Twain for nearly 23 years.

Samuel Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain, wrote about his time at Lake Tahoe in the book "Roughing It." He describes accidentally starting a forest fire near Incline Village. The Nevada Board of Geographic Names meets Sept. 14 at the Thunderbird Lodge and is expected to approve designating the area just north of the lodge Clemens Cove.

"We've got our fingers and legs crossed as well," Layne said.

Twain for families will be on Fridays and Layne will present an adult show Saturdays, retelling some of the author's bawdier stories.

Live music will be featured Sundays and Reno's Good Luck Macbeth will have live theater on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Layne is hoping to get the rights to Twain's play "Is He Dead," which was written in 1898 and discovered six years ago.

"On the family night we do things like the jumping frog and all the fun little stories that the kids can enjoy, and on the adults night we get into some of the off-color work that Twain did that nobody knows about," Layne said. "It's very funny."

Twain wrote an autobiography and requested it be published 100 years after his death. Robert Hirst, the editor and chief curator of The Mark Twain Project, said the first of three volumes of the autobiography will be published around Nov. 30, Twain's 175th birthday.

"I'm going to pitch a pup tent on the lawn of the Bancroft (Library in Berkeley) so I can get my nose on the window the day they release it," Layne said.

Mark Twain's Wild West Weekend will be Saturday and Sunday at Zephyr Cove Resort. The first of what organizers want to make an annual event will include a pie-eating contest, a bold-faced liars contest and a lecture dinner with Hirst and Nevada historian Robert Stewart. Layne will be the host.