Book and lyrics by Ed Bullins and Anthony De Ritis
Music by Anthony De Ritis and Jude Gold
Directed by Del Lewis
Premiered at Northeastern University, Blackman Theatre, Ell Hall, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Friday 2/24/06 and Saturday 2/25/06, 8PM
Janie’s Song: The Musical (2006), a remix of Ed Bullin’s Obie Award-winning play “The Taking of Miss Janie”, acclaimed by Time magazine as “a hot, sly, funny, sexy, drunken montage of black-white confrontation”.
Set during the Civil Rights era, the 1975 play centered on the relationship between a black revolutionary man and a liberal white woman.
Janie?s Song is a musical metaphor for social struggle, sexuality, race conflict, and generational transition, set in motion by a group of political idealists who rap and remix America?s past and future. This new work is based on the New York Drama Critic?s Circle Award-winning play “The Taking of Miss Janie” by Ed Bullins, one of the most powerful black voices in contemporary American theater.
The world premiere of the show features a pit band anchored by Gold, associate editor of Guitar Player magazine, and a nine-member professional cast from Boston and New York, including NY and LA session veteran Tony Vaughn on Electric Bass.
Cast:
Kelly Sullivan – Janie
Sean Phillips – Monty
Kishan Redding – Len
Tom Sawyer – Lonnie
Ben Wiggins – Mort
Kaili Turner – Flossy
Montez Cardwell – Rick
Kaimy Masse – Peggy
Amanda Good Hennessey – Sharon