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The Players. www.shcrryrubelphotography com $t) AmtKotknJ IwJb th# $lm A decade ago, "It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues" took the theater world by storm. The first Broadway show of the legendary New Jersey-based Crossroads Theatre Company, "It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues" earned four Tony nominations in 1999, ^ inrli irlinn thp rnx/pteH Best Musical. " IW.WMI. .JJ V..W WW. It was major for the show, considering that it's not a musical in the traditional Broadway sense. / In a nutshell, "It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues" is a / marvelous story of the history of the blues. Video / ' screens project images from the painful past of 4 blacks in this country. The images are intended to convey why the blues is inherent in black folks. The music, ana the talented men and women w^n rw- 1 - " ? - ~C ?|* Dialogue is minimum - although perfoinic.c form it, are the stars of "It Ain't Nothin Blues." . Derrorm. i ne rom compos Handy, Robert L. the talking. give some background of eacn song tney j performances, which include classics J er/musicians like Jimmie Rodgers, W.C. Johnson and even Hank Williams Sr., do all "It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues" is written by Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Dan Wheetman and Ron Taylor, who origi nated the idea ana got to see its success before passing away in 2002. Some of the writers perform the dozens of songs in the musical, including the incomparable Bevel, who insists that the Aug. 6 at 8 p.m\ tug. 7 at 3 & B p.m. tug. Bat 3 SB p.m. at Reynolds Auditorium K Ticket Price: 1 42 / blues is not just African-American music, but America's sound track. "The Blues does not mean black music. It means having the ? courage or audacity to speak to what is in your heart ... That human attribute is colorless Bevel said. "Its x a ronnnt ho HonioH Hut mnct nf it<; pnpr "M I l^ai I I WW LJ cai II IV V. L/V/ UUi MV/Vt j MWt. I ? ivwv w . ? vw w. .w. gy ... (is) acquired from a people beina forced to v continuously live on the outer edges of the majori \ ty culture in America." Located 31 miles outside of New York City, New Brunswick, N.J., has been home to the Crossroads Theatre Company since it was found ed in 1978 by Ricardo Khan and L. Kenneth / Richardson. Crossroads has produced more than / 100 works, many starring some of the world's best-known African-American talent - people like Averv Brooks. Olu Dara, Ruby Dee, Micki Grant, Leslie Lee, Denise Nicholas, Ntozake Shange, Anne Deveare __ Smith and George C. Wolfe. In 1 999, the Crossroads Theatre Company won the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in America. Ironically a year later, the Company briefly shut its doors in 2000 amid finan cial troubles. It reopened two years later and has been going strong ever since. - The Chronicle ^
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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July 30, 2009, edition 1
61
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