conceived & written by Paul Outlaw
a new experimental play with music
MUSIC
Each act of the play showcases a different genre of American music: Act I dips into the mid-20th century American jazz songbook; Act II imagines the hip-hop-inflected electronic dance music of the 22nd century; Act III goes back in time to the slave chants, spirituals and
a cappella folk balladry of pre-Emancipation North Carolina.
ACT I
“Route 66”
lyrics and music by Bobby Troup
“Find Me a Primitive Man”
lyrics and music by Cole Porter
“The Late, Late Show”
lyrics by Roy Alfred, music by Murray Berlin
“Lush Life”
lyrics and music by Billy Strayhorn
ACT II
“Tip the Velvet”
“Fight for a Little Future”
“Do You Know What Longing Is?”
lyrics and music by Paul Outlaw
sequencing and keyboard programming
by Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson
“Beneath My Skin”
lyrics by Paul Outlaw
music by Paul Outlaw, Rainer Frey and Horst Neff
sequencing and keyboard programming by Jonathan Snipes
ACT III
“Kuner Chant”
lyrics traditional
music by Paul Outlaw, Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson
“The Social Band”
“Oh, Death”
traditional
The motif of the persistent memory of the cruel and tangled injustices of American chattel slavery was borne perfectly by the concept of the vampire freeman. That Outlaw couches that bloody memory in the dual underground musical traditions of jazz and EDM nailed home how those crimes doomed their victims and their descendants to a marginalized existence (but often avant-garde in their expression) long after Sherman’s march.
David Jette, sydiot.com
Paul Outlaw is a great song stylist. His revelatory interpretation of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" inspired me to begin a research project on Strayhorn and Los Angeles gay life in the 1940s.
Lecil Wills, historian
The music is dramatic, flamboyant, performed by a diva in command with tons of energy and flair.
It's giant, elevated!
Jim Merson, performer
