productions

Premiere Reading
Timucua Arts Foundation Orlando FL
March 17-18 2023

part of the inaugural Timucua Arts WordPlay Festival

BABY, WHAT a burnin’ scene that has such cats in it!

• 

  DUKE PROSPERO/

  The once King of Swing Bands. Prospero goes to war and is “lost”, he returns three years later, shell-shocked and unknown, hiding in a lower east side loft while quietly amassing a crowd of new players eager to learn. Spending most of his time in his loft, listening to his old records and reading his collection of sheet music of his compositions, obsessively, while his brother Antonio takes over the band and reaps the profits of keeping everything exactly the same. Protective of his daughter, he is capable of harsh tempers to keep his band members in line, and scarcely utters a kind word.

• MIRANDA

  Duke's daughter, a horn player. Totally tired of the old ways of music and life, she is taken by the music and then the person of Fiona. She wears a “zoot suit” as an act of rebellion and has a habit of using a string of rosary beads to count out the tempo.

• FIONA

  Alonso’s daughter, at the forefront of the new bebop. Tasked by her father to infiltrate Prospero’s band and attempt to steal the musicians and take over this precarious form. She meets Miranda and immediately falls in love with her.

• ARIEL

  Prospero’s lover and magical muse. A sprite, a spirit, a manipulator and the best vocalist anyone has ever heard. They sleep with Prospero when it pleases them, plays both sides in all things and tells whatever stories suit their purpose. Magical in presence and temperament, they seem to appear and vanish at will. A shape-shifter – woman, man, hipster, zoot suiter, old woman, young girl – they are the main source of Prospero’s magic, using their own powers to accomplish Prospero’s wishes. They recognize human emotions and what causes them even though they choose not feel them themselves.

• CALIBAN

  The bridge between the old and the new, he is mockingly called "Cab" by other band members. He plays the ordinary in an extraordinary way, known for his unorthodox often manic playing style, his embrace of new rhythms and sounds, and silent, expressive sadness. The old Swing bores him; the new bebop scares him, so he is compelled to switch constantly between both.

• GONZALO

  The Jewish gunslinger, “The Rabbi”, he has played in every band at every phase of the history of jazz since arriving from Eastern Europe, seemingly centuries ago. Gonzalo has spanned the ages, playing on most of the major hit records of the past 20 years, but is unknown out-side the studio. Prospero knows him well, but is often dismissive. He brings with him exacting knowledge of what works for an audience, and the old tonalities of Klezmer that work so well with the minor keys of bebop, and teaches it, slyly, to the new generation by manipulating their after-hours improvisations.

• ALONZO

  Head of a rival, commercial big band, the self-proclaimed "Reigning King of Swing" plots to take over what remains of the big band business, stealing musicians from Prospero's band, making deals with Antonio and Ariel, and forcing his daughter, Fiona, to spy for him.

• STEPHEN

  A sideman, a freelance musician eager to play with anyone if the price is right. Boisterous and often drunk, he enjoys wordplay even if he's not quite sure what the words mean. He believes he is in on the plot to take over Prospero's band, and indeed has fantasies of taking over himself and marrying Prospero's daughter, Miranda.

• ANTONIO

  Duke's brother-in-law. Has been running Duke’s band while he was "missing", maintaining his stodgy commercial ways and plotting with Alonso to share the wealth - by whatever means necessary.