Contact:
David Navalinsky
UNC Department of Dramatic Art (919) 9621557
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 6, 2014
Kenan Theatre Company Presents World Premiere Of New Johnny Johnson Musical With Book by Paul Green and Music by Kurt Weill
Chapel Hill, NC — The world premiere of the new edition of Johnny Johnson by Paul Green and Kurt Weill, with text and music not heard since 1937, will be staged at the University of North Carolina. Performances will take place in the Kenan Theatre, Center for Dramatic Art on Thursday, November 20th at 8pm, Friday, November 21st at 8pm (postshow discussion), Saturday, November 22nd at 8pm (preshow symposium), Sunday, November 23rd at 2pm, and Monday, November 24th at 5pm. Tickets are $10, $5 for students. For reservations and information, please visit http://drama.unc.edu/johnnyjohnson/
It is World War I. The United States of America, having pledged to remain neutral, is pulled into the fight in order to make the world safe for democracy “over there.” Lowly American tombstone cutter, Johnny Johnson, has been persuaded to enlist in the U.S. army both by his sweetheart, Minny Belle Tompkins, and by President Woodrow Wilson’s promise of “a war to end all wars.” But confronted by the horrors of the trenches in France, he is outraged at the absurdity of it all, and by dint of laughinggas, he fools the Allied generals into calling a ceasefire. Johnny is arrested, shipped back to America, and locked up in a lunatic asylum for his “peace monomania.” Released some twenty years later, he makes a living selling handmade toys as the trumpets of war once more sound in the distance.
This premiere features modern dance created by choreographer Heather Tatreau from UNC’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science. Additionally the flexible set design by Julia Warren is saturated with archival photos projected onto nontraditional surfaces and curated by Cameron Kania. Director Serena Ebhardt’s vision reveals the context of Johnny Johnson’s journey by including relevant historical and cultural events of the time period not mentioned in
the text — from silent film stars to lynchings to women’s suffrage. The cast is composed of UNC Students, 18 22 yearsold, the same age of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the “war to end all wars” one hundred years ago.
UNC Department of Dramatic Art (919) 9621557
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 6, 2014
Kenan Theatre Company Presents World Premiere Of New Johnny Johnson Musical With Book by Paul Green and Music by Kurt Weill
Chapel Hill, NC — The world premiere of the new edition of Johnny Johnson by Paul Green and Kurt Weill, with text and music not heard since 1937, will be staged at the University of North Carolina. Performances will take place in the Kenan Theatre, Center for Dramatic Art on Thursday, November 20th at 8pm, Friday, November 21st at 8pm (postshow discussion), Saturday, November 22nd at 8pm (preshow symposium), Sunday, November 23rd at 2pm, and Monday, November 24th at 5pm. Tickets are $10, $5 for students. For reservations and information, please visit http://drama.unc.edu/johnnyjohnson/
It is World War I. The United States of America, having pledged to remain neutral, is pulled into the fight in order to make the world safe for democracy “over there.” Lowly American tombstone cutter, Johnny Johnson, has been persuaded to enlist in the U.S. army both by his sweetheart, Minny Belle Tompkins, and by President Woodrow Wilson’s promise of “a war to end all wars.” But confronted by the horrors of the trenches in France, he is outraged at the absurdity of it all, and by dint of laughinggas, he fools the Allied generals into calling a ceasefire. Johnny is arrested, shipped back to America, and locked up in a lunatic asylum for his “peace monomania.” Released some twenty years later, he makes a living selling handmade toys as the trumpets of war once more sound in the distance.
This premiere features modern dance created by choreographer Heather Tatreau from UNC’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science. Additionally the flexible set design by Julia Warren is saturated with archival photos projected onto nontraditional surfaces and curated by Cameron Kania. Director Serena Ebhardt’s vision reveals the context of Johnny Johnson’s journey by including relevant historical and cultural events of the time period not mentioned in
the text — from silent film stars to lynchings to women’s suffrage. The cast is composed of UNC Students, 18 22 yearsold, the same age of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the “war to end all wars” one hundred years ago.
When the GermanJewish composer Kurt Weill sought exile in the United States in September 1935, he wanted to
continue his work in musical theater begun by way of his collaborations in Berlin in the late 1920s with Bertholt
Brecht, including Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise
and Fall of the City of Mahagonny). These were hardhitting political works that used music in new theatrical ways
to support a radical political agenda.
In New York, Weill teamed up with the leftwing Group Theatre, who put him in contact with the prominent North
Carolina playwright, Paul Green, who at that time was on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Group’s first production (in 1931) had been Green’s The House of Connelly, and his interests in theatrical music
were well known. Weill visited Chapel Hill in May 1936 (staying at the Carolina Inn), and during the summer he and
Green worked together with the Group on Johnny Johnson, which opened on Broadway on 19 November, 1936 (Lee
Strasberg was the director). It was intended to be the first of three collaborations between the composer and
playwright; in 1937, Green asked Weill to write the music for The Lost Colony (1937), and that same year they worked on a historical pageant celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. constitution—but neither came to fruition, and The Lost Colony’s music was instead written mostly by the North Carolina composer Lamar Stringfield.
playwright; in 1937, Green asked Weill to write the music for The Lost Colony (1937), and that same year they worked on a historical pageant celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. constitution—but neither came to fruition, and The Lost Colony’s music was instead written mostly by the North Carolina composer Lamar Stringfield.
Johnny Johnson was picked up with some enthusiasm by the Federal Theatre Project, with productions in Boston
and Los Angeles in May 1937. Here Green and Weill sought to restore some of the drastic cuts to the work that the
Group Theatre had made in the run up to the premiere: given that the Group was committed to Stanislavski’s acting
“method,” it had grown more and more nervous about the music. However, that more complete FTP version of
Johnny Johnson has since lain hidden in the archives; those few productions of the work since 1936–37 were based
on an incomplete, inadequate text.
Some of this archival material survives in the Southern Historical Collection in UNC’s Wilson Library, some in the
National Archives (College Park, MD), and some in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. These
newly uncovered sources provided the basis for the critical edition of Johnny Johnson prepared by Tim Carter, David
G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC and recently issued by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. This
edition won the Claude V. Palisca Award of the American Musicological Society for an outstanding scholarly edition
or translation in the field of musicology published during 2012.
Johnny Johnson is a major collaboration between UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art and Department of Music and
is part a yearlong conversation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during 20142015 focused on the
legacy of World War I. The World War I Centenary Project features undergraduate and graduate courses, seminars,
lectures, conferences, workshops, exhibitions, dramatic performances, music and dance events, and workshops for
K12 teachers. For more information, visit www.iah.unc.edu/WWI.
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