Dick Hyman
MUSIC ADVISOR
Dick Hyman
MUSIC ADVISOR
Dick is 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.
Dick is 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.
Production as LIL & LOUIS
JoMo Productions, January 2020
Director — Harry Bryce • Lil — Marta Mckinnon • Louis — Michael Kinsey
Ensemble — Andrea Coleman, Yvonne Lyles, Donovan Whitney
Lil & Louis Cast
Harry Bryce
DIRECTOR, JANUARY 2020 PRODUCTION
Harry Bryce 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 is best known locally for his work with Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, where he has directed nine shows including Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, 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. (Photo by Michael J. Kinsey.)
Director’s Notes
“Listening is the key to imagination. Lil and Louis created for the ear. However, their lives were as colorful as their music. Jo Morello has cleverly crafted a play with music, fusing dramatic historical facts with the complexities of a love built around an insatiable desire to create--all seen through the lens of the African-American experience. A director’s dream!”
FIRST DATE
LOUIS: You know a club where dudes lay cash on the floor? This girl singer does cartwheels towards the dough, then a split. One hand for the cartwheel, one to pick up the money.
LIL: Mae Alix, “Queen of the Splits.” Sings with Ollie Powers at the Dreamland. Let’s go!
Krooked Blues
Cast: Lil (Marta Mckinnon), Louis (Michael Kinsey), Dancer/Mae Alix (Andrea Coleman), Audience (Donovan Whitney and Yvonne Lyles)
FOREPLAY
LOUIS: Come ’ere, Chickie. I'll teach you tango.
LIL: Teach me, Papa Dip!
LOUIS: The way I feel, the way we are…. I never felt nothin ' like this. Nowhere.
LIL: I love you so much, Louis. Let's never lose this.
LOUIS: No way we gone let that happen. You'll always be my Hot Miss Lil.
Lil and Louis Tango
Cast: Lil (Marta Mckinnon), Louis (Michael Kinsey)
SHEIK OF ARABY
Sheik of Araby
Cast: Lil (Marta Mckinnon); Louis (Michael Kinsey); Decie, Lil’s mother (Yvonne Lyles)