The Alabama Shakespeare Festival's playwright-in-residence John Walch is teaming with pop music legend Nile Rodgers on the development of a new musical, Double Time. Walch is the musical's librettist and Rodgers will supply the music and lyrics. Double Time will be part of ASF's Southern Writers' Project Festival of New Plays, May 13-15, 2011. The concert reading of Double Time will take place on Saturday, May 14.
The project was commissioned by ASF's producing artistic director Geoffrey Sherman.Double Time follows the amusing trials of a young white playwright trying to create a new musical comedy about the life and times of Alabama native Leonard Harper, one of the first superstar African American Broadway performers. The writer, whose youth and cultural background create considerable artistic self-doubt, is encouraged by many around him. But no one is more helpful, literally, than the effervescent and ultra talented tap dancing spirit of the late Mr. Harper.Walch's play In the Book Of will receive its world premiere at ASF during the 2011-12 season. Walch is the winner of several awards including the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, The Mark Klein Playwriting Award, three Austin Critics Table Awards and a James Michener FellowshipSWP is endowed by an Anonymous donor. Alabama Shakespeare Festival is a participant in the New Generation Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre. Blood Divided is a recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays award.
Are you an avid theatergoer? We're looking for people like you to share your thoughts and insights with our readers. Team BroadwayWorld members get access to shows to review, conduct interviews with artists, and the opportunity to meet and network with fellow theatre lovers and arts workers.
Interested? Learn more here.
Videos