9 /10 1 Votes
Music Gary Geld First performance 1970 Composer Gary Geld | 9/10 AllMusic Lyrics Peter Udell Lyricist Peter Udell Adapted from Purlie victorious | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Book Ossie Davis
Philip Rose
Peter Udell Basis Ossie Davis's play
Purlie Victorious Productions 1970 Broadway
1972 Broadway revival
1981 U.S. Television
2004 London fringe festival
2005 Encores! Playwrights Ossie Davis, Peter Udell, Philip Rose Similar Hallelujah - Baby!, Me and Juliet, Falsettoland, Zanna - Don't!, Passing Strange | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Purlie 1970 original broadway cast i got love
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell, and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis's 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included all of the original Broadway cast, including Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, and Godfrey Cambridge.
Contents
Purlie
Plot
Purlie is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic, traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community's church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee's plantation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie's plans is Cotchipee's son Charlie, who ultimately proves to be far more fair-minded than his Simon Legree-like father and who saves the church from destruction with an act of defiance that has dire consequences for the tyrannical Cap'n.
Songs
1Walk Him Up the Stairs
2New Fangled Preacher Man
3Skinnin' a Cat