TRAV'LIN - THE NEW 1930s HARLEM MUSICAL Opens Tonight in Fort Worth

By: Mar. 29, 2013
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Following development in New York City and Washington, D.C., including a sold-out run at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), Trav'lin - The New 1930s Harlem Musical receives its Regional Premiere at Fort Worth's Jubilee Theatre, the original home of African-American theater in North Texas,beginning Friday, March 29, 2013. Opening Night is Friday, April 5, and the show runs through April 28, 2013.

Jubilee Artistic Director Tre Garrett directs a Texas cast including May Allen, T.K. Bell, Marvin Matthews, Thelma Mitchell, Oris Phillips, and Michael Anthony Sylvester.

Trav'lin celebrates the joyful energy of 1930s Harlem with a classic jazz and blues score by Harlem Renaissance composer J.C. Johnson (1896-1981). The original book, by Gary Holmes and Allan Shapiro, inspired by Johnson's tales of his life and times, follows three couples of different ages playing the game of love in 1930s Harlem. They learn an enduring lesson when George, a retired Pullman porter and church deacon, meets his match in the guise of a down-and-out stranger who is not the person she pretends to be.

J.C. Johnson wrote Bessie Smith's signature "Empty Bed Blues" and collaborated with some of the best-loved composers and lyricists of the period including "Fats" Waller, Andy Razaf, Chick Webb, George Whiting and Nat Schwartz. His music has been performed and recorded by numerous stars including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and has been heard on Broadway in Ain't Misbehavin' and Me and Bessie.

Following public readings at The York Theatre Company, Trav'lin received a fully-staged developmental production at NYMF in 2010 featuring Doug Eskew (Five Guys Named Moe) and Brenda Braxton (Smokey Joe's Café). The show was called "a minor miracle" and "a pure delight" by The Huffington Post and highlighted in a Wall Street Journalfeature story on Johnson. In July 2012, a revised version of the script was presented in a public reading at 1stStage Theater in the Greater Washington, D.C. area. More information on Trav'lin - The New 1930s Harlem Musical and sound clips can be found at www.travlinthemusical.com.

Tickets to Jubilee Theater's production of Trav'lin are available for purchase on-line atwww.jubileetheatre.org or by phone (817-338-4411). Jubilee Theatre is located at 506 Main Street in downtown Fort Worth. More information about the theatre can be found at www.jubileetheater.org.

 

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