A new musical, “Roll On, America! Hard Travelin’ Songs of Woody Guthrie,” will make its debut at the Tin Shed Theater on Friday, March 13.
Created by producer Terry Stanford and director Jean Ann Foley, the play features 11 actor-singers from the local area, and weaves together vignettes of Woody Guthrie’s life and songs into a narrative arc.
Stanford, who lives in Patagonia, was first inspired to bring the songs and stories of Woody Guthrie to Patagonia after a chance online exchange with an old friend. The friend, who lives in Silver City, New Mexico, had been impressed with a local production of a musical that featured Woody Guthrie songs. Stanford started imagining doing something similar in Patagonia.
“I got all excited but didn’t know anything about putting on a production,” she said. “I just thought this sounds really cool.”
Soon after, Stanford happened to sit down next to Foley at the Patagonia Lumber Co., where they had met and talked briefly just once before.
Stanford shared her idea spark, and added, “but I don’t have much of a theater background.”
Foley thought, “Ding, ding, ding. I do!” She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in speech and drama, a Master of Fine Arts in acting and directing, plus a doctorate in educational research and curriculum design. Foley, who is building a house north of town and plans to relocate here from Flagstaff, thought, “Wow, this is a way I could contribute.”
“It was a weird synchronicity that happened around the table,” Stanford recalled. “We barely knew each other, and we both just felt an electric shock!”
For logistical reasons, they were unable to use the script for the play that ran in Silver City. They decided to create a new show by blending songs and Guthrie quotes in a series of vignettes set in a hobo camp in the 1930s. Stanford took the lead on script research and writing.
The hobos sing and speak about the hard times of the Depression, and their experiences trying to make their way to California.
“It’s got angst and lovely, joyful times,” Foley said. “The songs carry it through. It’s sweet.”
Once they had a draft script, they ran it by Jacob Chattman, a professional actor, screenwriter and friend of Stanford’s. “He helped us polish the script, and was actually going to be Woody,” Stanford said. But he had to pass on the part because March is a busy time for auditions in Los Angeles, and he needs to be there.
Without Chattman playing the lead character, Stanford and Foley had to rethink their approach. They decided that all the hobos would take turns being the voice of Woody, wearing the Woody hobo hat to designate when they were playing him.
“It’s a core theme or frame for the musical that we all have Woody inside of us,” Foley said.
Melanie Morrison, Patagonia songwriter and leader of the Tanagers band, is musical director for the production. She helped recruit singer-actors from the pool of singers from past Tanagers community singing nights.
The 11 actors in the play are Terra Wright, Francesca Claverie, Sarah Klingenstein, Krysa Kobryner, Melanie Morrison, Tami Blakely, Laurie Monti, Benji Kryzs, Mike Hogan, Jacob Masterz, and Rochelle Raya. Instruments are played by Kobryner, Morrison, Monti, Hogan and Raya.
“The play also is very personal to Jean Ann and me,” Stanford said. “My dad was a Dustbowl refugee who rode a freight train from Oklahoma to California. He worked in the farm fields for $1 a day, and was an orphan. Jean Ann is from Oklahoma, and her dad was also an orphan. So we had that instant family history connection.”
“When we first started, it really did feel like we were honoring our dads,” Foley continued. “Talk about hard traveling – you know, they didn’t have anything.
“My dad stayed in Oklahoma, but had no parents, nothing. And had some hard traveling being passed around to relatives. Yeah, some of them were really mean.”
“The idea of love kept coming up as a core element” for the show, Foley said. “Woody’s love for community and for his country.”
“And the down-and-out people, the hobos,” Stanford added.
“Woody didn’t stand on the sidelines,” Foley said. “He was engaged with all of it. He picked fruit and he rode the trails and the rails.”
“He worked alongside them,” Stanford went on. “He slept in the hobo camps. He slept with thousands of different hobos. He traveled to all 48 states and most of the seven seas. He was a traveling man who couldn’t stay still, even when he was married and had a family.”
One of the other reasons they wanted to do the play, Stanford said, was to showcase local talent. “It’s fun for the friends, the family, the neighbors, to come out and support the actors,” she said.
“It’s risky for several of them who have never sung on stage in this way,” Foley added. “The singers have been able to sing with a microphone and perform. But it’s a bit of a stretch to be on a theater stage. And, man, they’re just doing it!”
Stanford had particular praise for Morrison, who arranged Guthrie’s songs into a play.
“We couldn’t have done it or do it without Melanie,” Stanford said. “She deserves all the credit for bringing this thing together.”
Guthrie emphasized lyrics and storytelling, and kept chord structures simple to keep them accessible to everyone. “Anyone who uses more than two chords is just showing off,” Guthrie used to say.
In “Roll On, America!” each singer-actor will portray what Guthrie’s music means to them. In Morrison’s view, Kryzs’s delivery is most similar to Guthrie’s style. “Even though he’s only 14, Woody comes through in a lot of ways.”
“Roll On, America! Hard Travelin’ Songs of Woody Guthrie” will play March 13-14 at 7 p.m. at the Tin Shed Theater (304 Naugle Ave, Patagonia). There is a $5 suggested donation; proceeds will benefit the Patagonia Creative Arts Association.