Cornbread and Bean Soup

Cornbread and Bean Soup is a live-theatre production that takes place in Melvin's Diner, a country eatery in 1970, in the southern USA, where a group of musicians stop when their automobile needs repairs. They meet some of the local residents and their differences and their similarities, the shadows and reflections, are revealed when they all must take shelter from a storm.

These two dissimilar groups are confronted with America's awakening consciousness as it relates to Civil Rights and basic Human dignity, women's new-found freedoms, sex, drugs, rock and roll, the stings of passion and sorrow, haunting memories and new starts, and the part music plays in social intercourse, are all intermixed with the unpredictable weather.

Cornbread and Bean Soup is written for a theatrical production, including both dialogue and music. There are different opinions as to what a stage play is and what a musical is, and whether the two types can or should be combined into one form. In fact, according to some people, "Never the twain shall meet." But what the heck, let's just call it, Live Theatre.

Hallie Flanagan (August 27, 1889 - June 23, 1969), the producer, playwright, and author, was the Director of the WPA Federal Theatre Project (1935 - 1939), and she wrote, "People will not come to the theatre for history alone any more than they will come for teaching or preaching or propaganda. They will come for many reasons and in many moods. They will come when theatre becomes not a private affair but a public experience...in which workers in the arts join with citizens in all walks of life to create dramatic celebrations which at once illumine and enrich our American heritage." Flanagan, Hallie. (1940). ARENA, The Story of the Federal Theatre. New York, NY: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.

This author/playwright also works as a carpenter and has had the pleasure of building sets for the stage. In that process he has been fortunate to interact with the people who bring theatre to life. Included in that long list are members of the cast and crew and the production and venue personnel. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to them for allowing me to witness your talents, and for your invaluable tutoring in this age-old form of artistic communication.