Roles:

• Sandy
• Hagar
• Harriet
• Tempy
• B. Mused
• Sister Jackson
• Annjee
• Gavitt
• Jimbo
• Buster
• Willie Mae
• Georgia
• Patsy
• Billy
• Mary
• Eugene
• Rose
• Carny
• Jackson
• Minister
• Teacher
• Patron

The following resources are included in each performance license:

• Permission to photocopy the PDF script/score for your production so there is no additional cost for these assets.
• Vocal demo tracks for rehearsal

Please note: The music was originally performed by a live three piece blues band. The instrumentation was drum kit, bass and keyboard/guitar. This music can all be performed on solo piano. It could also be performed with additional instruments. It’s the blues and it
should sound like the blues no matter who is playing.
The score itself is all handwritten and consists mainly of lead sheets: melody lines with chord symbols. It’s the blues. The composer urges any production of this piece to hire players who play this style of music, players who are comfortable reading lead sheets, players who can lay down bluesy groves and ad lib chord voicings and fills in the style. Neither the piano parts, nor the bass or drum parts are written out. Everyone plays off of the same lead charts. All musicians and singers are urged to ad lib. They should all feel free to go outside of the written music to find the authenticity of the blues genre. Demo recordings of the songs are provided with this score. These are recordings with vocals of all the songs. These recordings are not necessarily accurate to the printed music since some of the music changed after the recordings were made. These recordings are provided primarily for reference, to hear the style and tempo of each song. With these demo recordings the written lead charts will make much more sense.

The following resources may be added to you license for an additional fee:

• Logo/Media package

Syl Jones is the author of 60-plus plays, including Black No More, produced by the Guthrie Theater and Arena Stage and winner of the Kennedy Center Award for Best New Play of 1998. He is the only playwright to win the Mixed Blood Theatre Versus America and the Penumbra Theater Cornerstone awards in the same year. He began his career as a journalist in Cincinnati at the age of 14. In 1980, his historic interview with physicist William B. Shockley appeared in Playboy magazine and has since been anthologized in The Best of The Playboy Interviews, Vol. II. Mr. Jones writes an editorial column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper and is the author of Rescuing Little Roundhead: A Childhood In Stories, published by Milkweed Editions in 1996. Jones has been named a National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Fellow, and his plays have won The Cornerstone Prize and have been honored by the Jerome, McKnight, Dayton, Hudson, and General Mills Foundations. He lives in the Twin Cities. 

Victor Zupanc was born and raised on Vancouver Island in Canada and started studying music at age six. He earned his Masters Degree in Music Composition at the University of California, San Diego. Since then Victor has worked on over 300 productions as composer, musical director, sound designer and performer at many of the most prestigious theaters in America. His music has been heard in China, Japan, South America, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Victor has received many major awards, grants and fellowships for his work. He also composes music for orchestras, choirs and NPR radio as well as several feature films, shorts and documentaries. Victor has been the resident Music Director/Composer at Children's Theater Company since 1989 composing dozens of scores for the theater. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Dianne, and daughters Luisa and Lydia.

Originally produced by Children's Theatre Company in the 1996-1997 season