ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM
The artistic team that created LIL & LOUIS--now LIL & SATCHMO, includes multi-award-winning playwright Jo Morello; respected director Harry Bryce; acclaimed trumpeter Randy Sandke; vocal coach Steven Phillips; choreographer Brentney J.; and dramaturg Jack Gilhooley, among others. Sandke called on several nationally recognized musicians to form the LIL & LOUIS Jazz Band. He arranged music for the songs Morello had selected—and composed three new songs especially for this new play.
Credentials of the entire company are also impressive. A talented troupe of actors, techies, advisers, and volunteers have enthusiastically joined forces to present LIL & LOUIS in January 2020. Script consultant Chuck Smith said, “Lil is going to take us on a wonderful musical ride.”
Click HERE for the Program Book from the January 2020 production, with full credits of the LIL & LOUIS company and crew.
The artistic team that created LIL & LOUIS--now LIL & SATCHMO, includes multi-award-winning playwright Jo Morello; respected director Harry Bryce; acclaimed trumpeter Randy Sandke; vocal coach Steven Phillips; choreographer Brentney J.; and dramaturg Jack Gilhooley, among others. Sandke called on several nationally recognized musicians to form the LIL & LOUIS Jazz Band. He arranged music for the songs Morello had selected—and composed three new songs especially for this new play.
Credentials of the entire company are also impressive. A talented troupe of actors, techies, advisers, and volunteers have enthusiastically joined forces to present LIL & LOUIS in January 2020. Script consultant Chuck Smith said, “Lil is going to take us on a wonderful musical ride.”
Click HERE for the Program Book from the January 2020 production, with full credits of the LIL & LOUIS company and crew.
JO MORELLO (playwright/producer) has written three plays about Lil and Louis Armstrong: LIL & LOUIS, full-length play with music; HOT MISS LIL & LITTLE LOUIS, 15-minute dramedy about the younger Armstrongs; and BORN TO SWING, 10-minute monologue of Lil at 73. Her produced work includes three other plays with music about historical figures, as well as numerous other plays including dramas, romantic comedies (some with Jack Gilhooley) and three plays about Eugene O’Neill. Productions: Off-Off Broadway/NYC, Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kent/UK. Readings: 10 states; includes Neighborhood Playhouse, O’Neill Theater Center. Winner or finalist: dozens of fellowships, grants and/or contests including Florida's Division of Cultural Affairs (eight awards); National Endowment for the Arts (NEA),; O'Neill Theatre Center (twice); Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Producer: five years. Memberships: Eugene O’Neill International Society board, newsletter editor/five years; Dramatists Guild of America. Jo also operates a small public relations agency, serving as PR director of the Sarasota Jazz Festival among other clients. Jomorello.com RESUME
HARRY BRYCE (director) is a resident director with the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe. He has developed visionary works as a director, choreographer, writer, and arts educator for over thirty years, directing for professional theater companies throughout the U.S. He received the 2000 Carter G. Woodson Award of Merit for Lifetime Achievements in Performing Arts. He is best known locally for his work with Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, where he has directed nine shows including Dearly Departed, Little Shop of Horrors, and Bubbling Brown Sugar.
In 1997 Bryce founded the Memphis Black Repertory Theatre, where he was producing artistic director for five seasons, producing and directing 21 shows. He has also directed for the past 11 years at Cumberland County Playhouse, the largest and oldest professional regional theater in Tennessee). He has led dance companies in Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA where his original concert ballet, Beyond the Cane Breaks: Moments in the Life of Harriet Tubman performed to sell-out crowds and received national and critical acclaim at the National Black Arts Festival.
In 1997 Bryce founded the Memphis Black Repertory Theatre, where he was producing artistic director for five seasons, producing and directing 21 shows. He has also directed for the past 11 years at Cumberland County Playhouse, the largest and oldest professional regional theater in Tennessee). He has led dance companies in Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA where his original concert ballet, Beyond the Cane Breaks: Moments in the Life of Harriet Tubman performed to sell-out crowds and received national and critical acclaim at the National Black Arts Festival.
CHUCK SMITH (consultant, script development) is a resident director at the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe (WBTT) in Sarasota, Florida, where his credits include The Amen Corner, The Mountaintop, The Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Knock Me a Kiss and, in 2020, Flyin’ West. In Chicago he is a member of the Goodman Theatre’s Board of Trustees and a resident director. He is also a Chicago American Blues associate artist (Leroi Jones’ Dutchman and Pearl Cleage’s Flyin’ West). In 2019 Chuck was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Governors State University in University Park, IL. He is a 2003 inductee into the Chicago State University Gwendolyn Brooks Center’s Literary Hall of Fame and 2001 Chicago Tribune Chicagoan of the Year. He is also recipient of the 1982 Paul Robeson Award and the 1997 Award of Merit presented by the Black Theater Alliance of Chicago. Click HERE for bio.
RANDY SANDKE (music director, trumpet) has toured Europe over forty times; performed extensively throughout Japan, the U.S., Canada, and India; and has recorded over twenty albums as a leader. He has recorded with instrumentalists including Michael, Benny Goodman, Kenny Barron, Dick Hyman, Mulgrew Miller, Bill Charlap, Eric Reed, Frank Wess, Ray Anderson, Chris Potter, Sweets Edison, Flip Phillips, Scott Hamilton, Wycliffe Gordon, Warren Vache, and Mel Lewis. Singers include Mel Torme, Rosemary Clooney, Cab Calloway, John Pizzarelli, Gregory Hines, Art Garfunkel, Barbara Carroll, Dr. John, Diane Reeves, Sting, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, James Taylor, Chaka Khan, Ruth Brown, Billy Eckstine, and Joe Williams. Randy has played on the soundtracks of several films, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club, Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, American Splendor, and five Woody Allen movies. On Broadway, Randy played in the production of Chicago with Beebe Neuwirth at the City Center. He also played the on-stage Harry James trumpet solo which climaxes the show Fosse. He recorded all trumpet solos for the recent production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom starring Whoopee Goldberg. He has performed on television in Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, in the U.S. with Benny Goodman for a PBS special, and on the Late Show with David Letterman. Click HERE for bio.
DICK HYMAN (music adviser), an NEA Jazz Master, is a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. With over 100 albums under his name, he was among the first to record on the Moog synthesizer; his Minotaur hit Billboard charts. Dick has won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and two Emmy awards. He was music director for Benny Goodman's final TV appearance, In Performance at the White House, and orchestrator of Broadway’s Sugar Babies. In addition, Dick was composer/arranger for twelve Woody Allen movies, Moonstruck, Scott Joplin and other films. He was also artistic director for Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y for twenty years. A member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society, Dick has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Juilliard School of Music and Wilkes College and the Satchmo from the Jazz Club of Sarasota. Click HERE for bio.
STEVEN PHILLIPS (vocal coach) holds a bachelor of music degree in organ performance, a master of music degree in choral conducting and has over thirty years experience as a church musician. He also is near completion of a master of arts in religion. At First Presbyterian Church, he spends three-quarters of his time director of music ministries and the balance as director of congregational care.
Choreographer BRENTNEY J. is an Atlanta-based dancer/singer/actor who frequently performs with Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe. She has choreographed and assisted various projects across the country. She is currently the director/choreographer for M.A.D. (Music Acting Dance LLC), a musical theater training company in Atlanta. She is honored to bring her choreography talents to the Sarasota stage. Click HERE for resume.
JACK GILHOOLEY, dramaturg, is a New Dramatists alum, double NEA playwright (Individual and International to Centaur Thr, Montreal), double Fulbright Guest Artist (Spain and Ireland), NYFTA grant, O'Neill Conf. Guest Playwright, Four Florida Division of Cultural Affairs grants, double Puffin Fdt grants, PEN award, etc. Guest Artist: MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi Fdt, Millay, Dorset, Hawthornden Castle (SCOT), Tyrone Guthrie Inst (IRE). Productions: NY Shakespeare Fest, Circle Rep, Phoenix (NYC), 59E59, Theatre Row (twice), Cubiculo, Theatre For The New City, Folger Thr (DC), Asolo (FL), Indiana Rep (twice), ACT/SF, Elite Thr (CA), Theatre of the First Amendment (VA), Focus Thr (Dublin), etc. Development: Long Wharf, Mark Taper Forum, Sundance Inst, Festival of Southern Theatre, Carnegie Mellon New Play Fest, Avignon Fest., NY International Fest. Capital Fringe Fest, Edinburgh Fringe Fest, etc. Click HERE for resume.
Meet the original LIL & LOUIS BAND, a group of talented musicians and others who joined forces to arrange and prerecord songs for the workshop production of LIL & LOUIS that was staged in March 2019. From left they are Z. MIKE MORAN, piano and arranger; RANDY SANDKE, internationally acclaimed trumpet player and music director for LIL& LOUIS ; JO MORELLO, playwright; CHUCK SMITH, director; and MIKE TRENI, trombone player, bandleader, and educator. Not pictured: NEA Jazz Master DICK HYMAN, music adviser. (Click on their names to view their bios.)
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