Turpentine Jake

Summary

Turpentine Jake is an epic play about the turpentiners, African-American men who worked fourteen hours a day harvesting pine gum from the longleaf pines in the Florida Panhandle. This forgotten chapter of American history (1890-1960) illustrates the story of Blacks held under debt peonage, earning less than the cost of food and clothing provided by the company store.

Co-authors Linda Bannister and James E. Hurd, Jr. based the drama on the true story of Hurd’s grandfather and oral histories gathered from surviving turpentine workers. The play follows Jake, a legendary storyteller and mentor to those in the camps, as he spins tales and songs that help his fellow workers assert some control over their oppressive environment.

A drama with music and original folktales, the play has a total of twenty-one roles. Double casting can bring the number down to nine or ten actors, if preferred. The set and costumes can be abstract or minimalist, with mere suggestions of the pine forest and turpentine camps. Productions can be mounted relatively easily, but offer high impact and strong audience involvement, as well as address slavery issues more timely than ever, given rising worldwide human trafficking.

The play’s premiere was staged in workshop at Loyola Marymount’s Del Rey Theatre and received two NAACP Theatre Award nominations. Constance Congdon, Playwright in Residence at Amherst College writes, “Turpentine Jake is a play full of mystery and song, with an epic story and indelible characters. I left the theater feeling thanks and hopeful about what theater can accomplish with wonderful material.”

“While the historical setting of Turpentine Jake takes place more than fifty years ago, debt peonage is as much an issue in the present as it was in the past. Turpentine Jake is a play for our time,” says Elias Wondimu, publisher and editorial director, Marymount Institute Press and Tsehai Publishers.

Praise for Turpentine Jake

“Turpentine Jake is a play full of mystery and song, with an epic story and indelible characters that lifts some dark times out of the piney forests of Florida and into the hearts of the audience. On the cloud of an ending that is as honest as it is surprising, I left the theater feeling thankful and hopeful about what theater can accomplish with wonderful material.” —Constance Congdon, Playwright in Residence at Amherst College

“Turpentine Jake is a breakthrough play that highlights the social milieu surrounding a forgotten chapter of American life … a 21st century warning to all of us when we consider the ongoing balancing act of business needs versus the dictates of morality and ethics.” —Valencia E. Matthews, Ph.D., Director of Theatre at Florida A&M University

“Turpentine Jake is that rare synthesis of history and theatre that stuns us with its authenticity, and shakes us with its dramatic charge. Through sweat, music, laughter, and pain it draws us into a deep examination of race and our national character. This play will live in your heart for a long time after you have experienced it.” —Kevin Lawler, Producing Artistic Director of The Great Plains Theatre Conference, Omaha

“Turpentine Jake is an evocative and authentic glimpse of life in the Turpentine camps. A labor of love carefully researched and artfully told.” —Laurie Kay Sommers, Ph.D., Folklorist and Director, Traditions of Turpentine Project, Valdosta State University

“Turpentine Jake is a compelling account, written in a richly textured language, that distills an historic disgrace into compelling action, spiced with humor and American magic realism.” —Ron West, Ph.D., Prof. Theatre, Metropolitan Comm. College, Omaha

Productions of Turpentine Jake

Turpentine Jake was performed Aug. 1 –24, 2008, at the Del Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, CA.

Additional Information

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