DoubleTime
Written with Composer Nile Rodgers
DoubleTime is a musical comedy that slams the Harlem Renaissance up against “post-race” America and brings together two mismatched artists who, together, rewrite one’s past and write the other’s future.
Meet Cas Jones, a geeky writer hired by a white gangsta rapper, named Dr. D., to create a musical about the legendary black impresario from the Harlem Renaissance, Leonard Harper. It’s a musical within a musical within musical about cultural appropriation with soaring songs and pound-the-floor dance numbers that pit old school tap against new school Oakland turfing in a cutting contest that reaches across the ages.
Central to this tale is the historical figure—Leonard Harper. Harper was the hottest impresario in the uptown clubs of Harlem’s heyday and the first African-American director/producer to break the color-barrier on the Great White Way. Harper broke new ground when he transferred his 1929 hit revue Hot Chocolates from uptown to downtown, and with it brought widespread fame to the likes of Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Bojangles, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, and the list goes on and on.
Yet, with all of Harper’s accomplishments he’s virtually unknown today, and the wonkish Cas struggles to get Harper’s rich story onto the page. Desperate, Cas performs an innocent ritual with a relic from Harlem’s famous landmark, The Tree of Hope, which miraculously brings Harper’s spirit back to life. Harper’s spirit finally freed, immediately convinces the spooked young writer they should write the show together, because it solves both their problems: Cas can finish his show and Harper can get his long overdue recognition.
The legacy that haunts Harper is his longing to make amends with his wife for letting Jim Crow step between them because of his own selfish ambitions. Cas’s struggles collide with Harper’s history as the production takes shape and "post-race" America’s more enlightened approach to how color is represented onstage looks eerily like how "blackness" has been expressed in our national cultural dialogue for centuries.
Bonded by this fait accompli, the unlikely pair take a hysterical, historical journey from minstrel shows, through Al Jolson and Elvis, to gangsta rap, showing the impact white folks’ long love affair with black cultural trends has had on the hearts and souls of those who made the original beat.
Read Sample
OSCEOLA
…the Dutchman was smiling ear to ear the whole show.
CAS
Dutch Schultz, the notorious mobster, he’ll be a great character!
(Another tap flurry, HARPER taps his way back in time and joins OSCEOLA.)
OSCEOLA
I think he’s going to fund our transfer, Lenny. Got a feeling sure as syrup!
HARPER
Ossie, baby, I told you one day we’d make it Broadway. Whole world’s going to hear us now, Ossie, whole world’s ‘bout to change.
(They kiss, passionately. The DUTCHMAN enters.)
DUTCHMAN
We chasing skirt or talking business, Harper?
HARPER
Mr. Schultz. Uh, Ossie, I’ll catch you later.
OSCEOLA
I’ll break out that champagne we been saving, meet me on the roof….
(OSCEOLA exits.)
DUTCHMAN
You giving it to that little sister, Harper?
HARPER
I thought we were talking business, not women.
DUTCHMAN
Careful with the back-flap, Harper, or I’ll change my mind about backing Hot Chocolates.
HARPER
You’re going to back the show—you’re really going to fund our transfer?
DUTCHMAN
Twenty-five grand.
HARPER
Mr. Schultz! Hot Damn! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
DUTCHMAN
Now that’s the kind of groveling I’m accustomed to. But before you piss yourself, Harper, I got some notes, couple things I want to see in the show.
HARPER
Notes? Sir, the show’s already a pip.
DUTCHMAN
A pip that needs punching up. Now, I like that ditty, Sweet Savanna Sue, but the show needs more funny tunes like in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1928.
(In the office where CAS types, a light glows on the poster that reads: “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1928. A black revue for white audiences!”)
HARPER
Sir, with all due respect, uh…Lew Leslie’s shows just Tom it Up! He plays that Yessum Mastah card for laughs over and over.
DUTCHMAN
And the white folks eat it up. Way I see it, Blackbirds has been running proud at the Liberty for over a year and Leslie’s the man to beat. I’m sticking my neck out bank-rolling a colored director on Broadway. I need to know if you’re man enough to beat Leslie?
HARPER
Three times the man. Leslie chips half my routines already, my revues are the genuine thing.
DUTCHMAN
Genuine don’t sell tickets; funny does. So tell Fats and Razaf more gut-busters.
HARPER
Will do, Mr. Schultz. Anything else?
DUTCHMAN
The dancing girls. They got to be “Tall, Tan, and Terrific,” like Leslie’s. All your dancers are up to snuff, Harper, but that dark girl you were playing grab ass with, she gets the axe.
HARPER
But that’s Osceola, my lead dancer—
DUTCHMAN
Don’t give a damn; that meat’s too dark for Broadway, Harper. So get a new lead in a more deLIGHTful shade of tan.
HARPER
We’ll double up her stockings, and there’s a new bleaching cream—Vanilla Bright—makes a big difference on her. Sir, I can’t replace—
DUTCHMAN
This isn’t some fucking smoky nightclub in Harlem, Harper, this is your big shot, so improvise. Now I’m in for 25G’s, but only if the dark girl goes.
HARPER
Sir, she’s uh—
DUTCHMAN
Jesus, Harper, Connie said you had balls. You gonna let a broad stand in your way to Broadway?
HARPER
She’s my wife.
DUTCHMAN
You got 24 hours to give me an answer.
(DUTCHMAN exits.)
Cast Requirements
Minimum: 18
9 men, 4 women; 1 boy; 4 chorus
Set Description
Flexible Set.
Honors
Press
This musical is still in development
Production and Development History
• Workshop Production: Alabama Shakespeare Festival
• Workshop, New Dramatists
SAMPLE TRACK
Harper and Osceola sing Start Again from DoubleTime. Vocals: Rodney Hicks, Ronica Reddick. Music Direction: Doug Oberhammer. Music/Lyrics: Nile Rodgers. Book/Additional Lyrics: John Walch. (c) 2012.