Eclectic Company: Real Gone Gals

A number of years ago, before her death a few months shy of her 95th birthday, I was lucky enough to interview Lake Charles iconic jazz pianist, singer and composer Nellie Lutcher. Lutcher, born in 1912, was one of five area musicians still alive in their 90s, whose memories of their long careers in music were the first subjects documented for the archives and future exhibits of the fledgling Music Museum of Southwest Louisiana (started up by George Swift, Carolyn Woosley, and me, and of which I am currently president) by myself, Brenda Bachrack and Carrie Chrisco.

The Lake area’s nonagenarians were an especially talented bunch, the classes of 1912 and 1913 producing musician and music entrepreneur Eddie Shuler whose Goldband Records released the first Dolly Parton single (“Puppy Love,” recorded here when Dolly was 13), fiddler Luderin Darbone and accordionist Edwin Duhon, two of the Hackberry Ramblers, whose blend of Cajun music, Western swing, blues and rockabilly kept them going until they were lauded as the longest continuously operating band in the country (about 70 years of performing) and honored with National Heritage Fellowships, and long-time teacher and Good Shepherd organist George Kreamer, who personally selected the church’s pipe organ from the builder in Germany and oversaw its installation. And of course, Nellie Lutcher, who started out as a classical pianist, performing for Emma Michie’s Majestic Hotel patrons at 12 years old, and ended up as a popular singer, composer, and recording artist, the subject of a spread in Ebony Magazine, and feted on the early 1950s television program “This Is Your Life.”

I most often define Lutcher’s music as jazz, because these days young’uns don’t listen to music that can’t be neatly pigeonholed, but to tell the truth, it’s constantly spilling over that boundary into rhythm and blues (where Lutcher’s songs charted, rising to the #2 slot) and even to the GRAMMY award catchall “traditional pop” (think performers like Nat “King” Cole with whom she recorded “For You My Love” in 1950, and Ella Fitzgerald, swing and scat). Some of her best-known songs – “[He’s Got A] Fine Brown Frame,” “He’s A Real Gone Guy” and “Hurry On Down [To My House]” – were recorded for Capitol, but after Lutcher’s performing heyday gave way to her work on the board of the American Federation of Musicians, her music was recorded on smaller labels Okeh, Decca and Liberty. I just found five albums released from 1995 to 2009 available on iTunes, including a couple of “Best Of” recordings that showcase the quirky vocal style that inspired Nina Simone, and you can too.

A few years after I interviewed her and Lutcher had died, she was to be the subject of an Imperial Calcasieu Museum exhibit and various honoring events; Susan Reed of the ICM asked Carolyn Woosley if she would write one of her “Louisiana Women” solo plays about Ms. Lutcher, to be performed at the Museum as part of the celebratory programming. Which Carolyn did, and Pamela Guillory performed it one night only at Central School to the delight of the members of the Lutcher family in the audience who had come into town for the events.

And that was almost that. Every so often, either Carolyn or I would reminisce about “Nellie,” and think out loud about how it could be produced differently next time. Turns out, I watched those Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney “backyard musical” movies a few too many tines, because I decided it would be big fun to put on some of Carolyn’s “Louisiana Women” plays, including “Nellie,” right here in the metaphorical barn. Which is what I’m doing – sending two different companies out on the road around Louisiana for ten weekends of touring from September 10 through November 21. The two theatre troupes will be performing separate programs in different cities each weekend, until the tours culminate with a meetup of two characters performed by one actor from each of the touring companies at the New Orleans Fringe Festival.

Carolyn’s “Louisiana Women” plays cycle comprises a dozen monologues, each focusing on the life of a single woman of importance to Louisiana’s history. The 2010 “Louisiana Women” tours will present six of the plays in two programs of three characters each. One group of actors touring out of Shreveport under the direction of Angelique Feaster as the “Originals” Company, will portray Nellie Lutcher, along with primitive painter and Melrose Plantation cook Clementine Hunter, and Cane River matriarch of the Free People of Color, Marie Thérèze Coincoin, while the other, touring out of Lake Charles under the direction of Carol Anne Gayle as the “Visionaries” Company, will perform nature and forestry preservationist, author and artist Caroline Dormon, Presbyterian Women’s leader, civil rights advocate, and abstract sculptor Clyde Connell, and early feminist author Kate Chopin.

Most cities will see performances by only one of the companies, but Lake Charles is one of three places where audiences can see all six of the characters in the work of both companies: The Originals Company (Nellie, Clementine and Marie Thérèze) will appear October 1 – 3 at the Lake Charles Little Theatre, and the Visionaries Company (Caroline, Clyde and Kate) will play October 29 – 31 at McNeese’s Ralph Squires Auditorium.

The last time a selection of Carolyn Woosley’s “Louisiana Women” plays were performed together (in 1999), all the roles were produced and played by one actor, Carol Anne Gayle, and were directed by Adley Cormier, for the Lake Charles Little Theatre, where the works were premiered. For these new productions, Gayle will be featured in only one “Visionaries” role – Clyde Connell – which allows her to draw on both of her long and successful careers as an actor and an artist.

More information about playwright Carolyn Woosley, the “Louisiana Women” characters, the actors, and the Fall 2010 tours, including links to buy tickets for both companies’ shows here in Lake Charles and elsewhere in the State, may be found on our website, www.louisianawomenonstage.com. Updates are posted on Facebook and Twitter.