Book and Lyrics by me!
Just posting this here so people can know about my original full-length musical — The River Is Me.
As of January 21st, 2021, really hopeful to find a composer to work with on the show.
100 WORD SYNOPSIS
THE RIVER IS ME is a coming-of-age musical theatre ghost story about a little boy who dreams of becoming a water-powered superhero to save his mother from the grown-up world of violence. Inspired by the murder of Emmett Till, in THE RIVER IS ME, BO–funny kid with a big imagination–travels from Chicago to Mississippi in 1955 to win friends and influence people with his games of make believe and hijinks. But when he whistles at a white woman in the 400-person town of Money, MS in her family grocery story, the white woman’s husband kidnaps BO, brutally kills him and throw the body into the Tallahatchie River. But, rather than be destroyed in death, BO transforms into the superhero he dreamed of as a living boy, returning to walk the earth to change it forever to save his MA.
CHARACTER BREAKDOWN
BO (High Tenor) – Male, Black, 30-40 years old. Plays a big-boned 14 year old jokester from Chicago,IL. [child actor]
MA (Mezzo/Alto) – Female, Black, 50-60 years old. Plays BO’s mother, a 32 year old Michelle Obama meets Tina Turner in the Ike years
ROBERTA (mezzo) – Female, Black – a 12-year-old tomboy [child actor]
UNCLE (Bari-Tenor) – Male, Black, 60-70 years old, a tap dancer. Plays BO’S elderly, illiterate baptist preacher uncle who has never left the 400-person town of Money, Mississippi in his entire life
ANTWOINE (tenor) – 11-year-old black boy and big-brother-protector type of his best friend [child actor]
CLAIRENNE (Soprano) – Female, Black, 20s-30s. Plays a 13-going-on-65, too-cool-for-school-except-she-loves-school, know it all who thinks the way to get ahead in life is to be an exemplary colored person and not get into any trouble [child actor]
ROY (Baritone) – Male, White, 20-30 years old. Plays BABY DOLL’S husband -a Mississippi James Dean without the money or fame or nice house
MELLVIN (tenor) – A 7-and-a-half-year-old white boy who thinks colored people were born with tails and is jealous of the fact [child actor]
BABY DOLL (Mezzo/Alto) – Female, White, 20s-30s. Plays ROY’S wife – a multi-time beauty pageant loser.
Sukari Jones 