RHYTHM DARLINGS by Vynnie Meli

A SMITH SCRIPT

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Rhythm Darlings

By Vynnie Meli

Vynnie Meli C 2019 [email protected] vynnie.com

1 Cast Size: 3w, 2m 5 actors: 3 women: 2 African American, 1 white - all in their twenties 2 men: 1 African American, 1 white - ages can vary 1 female saxophone player – optional

The “All-girl” bands of the Swing Era were the Rosie the Riveters of .

This play is inspired by true events and the true heroes that lived through them. Sexism, racism, antisemitism - the fear of ‘otherness’ runs through this play, but at its core are the inconceivable lengths people go to to pursue their passion.

“Politics and Themes aside, this is a play about music, and about people who love that music, women who will do whatever it takes to play it (wherever it takes them).”

— MAT/ METROPOLITAN ATLANTA THEATRE AWARDS

CHARACTERS

Peggy: An African American woman in her late twenties. She is a tenor saxophone player in the all female the “International Rhythm Darlings” from the Swing era.

Vi: African American woman in her late twenties or thirtyish. She and Peggy were two of the original “Darlings” when it was a school band.

Rhoda: Late twenties, early thirties. She is Jewish and the first white woman in the all female big band the “International Rhythm Darlings”.

Jerome: An African American man in his thirties or forties. A jovial, lovable sharecropper. Needs to tap dance a little and Jitterbug.

Policeman: A white man from the Jim Crow South.

Jazz Saxophone Player: Can double as Billie in prologue. The audience sees her, the characters on stage do not. She plays stylistically from ’40’s swing to contemporary improvisational jazz fusion.

PROLOGUE CHARACTERS To be double cast from above Waitress: African American woman in her twenties (can double) Billy: African American bar patron/jazz musician in his twenties or thirties (can double) T.C.: African American man, high spirited jazz musician in his twenties or thirties (can double)

Ess 2 PRODUCTION NOTES The saxophone player is optional or open to interpretation. Rhythm Darlings is a straight play, but can be performed as a play with music. A female can play incidental music in the swing style of the 40’s alongside a more contemporary, improvisational underscore. Vintage tracks from the bands of the Swing Era can also be used.

The Kit McClure Band is a contemporary jazz band performing the music of The International Sweethearts of Rhythm on their album “The Sweetheart Project”. Kit McClure has granted permission to use their music in this play with program notes attributing the band. Original Sweethearts music is also available. This music could be played with or instead of the saxophone player at points during the play.

SETTING

The prologue takes place in a dingy after hours bar in Harlem in the 1930’s. The main action of the play takes place in the make-shift dressing room of a music hall in Virginia during World War II. Used for black musicians during the Jim Crow era, the room is shoddy; a broken mirror leaning against boxes, a bare light bulb suspended from the ceiling, cleaning supplies in the corner. A vanity (a table) faces the audience. Old flyers from bands that have played there through the years are taped on the wall, along with the grime and graffiti.

AT RISE: Dim lights come up on a dingy after-hours bar in 1030’s Harlem. A lone customer nurses his drink at a corner table while the waitress chats with him.

3 ACT ONE Scene 1

PROLOGUE

(Dim lights reveal a table, a few chairs and the lone customer in an after-hours bar in 1930’s Harlem. The waitress is knee deep in conversation with her captive audience.)

WAITRESS - so she goes and pulls herself up by that tablecloth and it all went flyin’!

BILLY She didn’t.

WAITRESS Uh hunh. Plates, glasses, Sunday dinner. Lady peas everywhere for days!

BILLY Oh, Nita.

WAITRESS And her just sittin’ there like she don’t know how that happened.

BILLY What a mess!

WAITRESS She cute, though.

BILLY I’m sure she is.

WAITRESS

That beer cold enough for you?

(T.C. enters loudly, first addressing unseen bartender. He joins Billy.)

T.C. Hoo! Yeah! Ben-nay! You missed a real clambake tonight! Hoo! We were somethin'! You tell ‘em, Billy? (to waitress)

Ess 4 Hey there, gorgeous. Get me a cold one. And you take care of the best horn player north of New Orleans here yet? Man, y’all shoulda heard him tonight. Eighteen karat!! Boy got rhythm in those jaws.

BILLY Sit down, TC.

T.C. Played us some jazz tonight! Nita, you shoulda been there. We were smokin’.

(WAITRESS serves T.C. his beer.)

WAITRESS Do it look like maybe I was busy elsewheres?

T.C. You shoulda called in sick and come and seen us.

WAITRESS Bennie'd a loved that.

T.C. You wouldn't be liein'. You come out sometime to hear us and you'll catch somethin' for sure! Jazz, it's a disease. And it's spreadin' like a fever! Take my tempature, beautiful. Go 'head, touch me. I'm a man in flames.

WAITRESS I brought you somethin' cold to put out that fire.

T.C. You come out and see for yourself. C’mon out tomorrow night.

WAITRESS I take off a here to come see you, you’re gonna have to give me a job with that band ‘cause I won’t have this one anymore.

T.C. Ha! Yeah, and whachoo gonna do in our band?

WAITRESS Maybe I play an instrument.

5 T.C. Ha! Yeah, sure you do, sugar.

WAITRESS What do you know? Maybe I do.

WAITRESS You want another one, too, Billy?

T.C. 'Course he do. Bring it, sugar.

BILLY No, thank you, Nita. I'm fine.

T.C. Go ahead, just bring him one. And a rye back for both of us.

BILLY No thanks, T.C., I got to -

T.C. And tell Benny, don’t be stingy.

BILLY No, I’m done.

T.C. Man, you was fast tonight. Chasin' me on that horn like a jealous husband! Better than sexual relations, man. Like you knew where I was goin’ before I knew myself!. Like we was building somethin'. We come from New Orleans to – surrounded by all these tall buildings –and we here buildin' somethin’, too. Jazz, it's architecture, man.

BILLY Save somethin' up for tomorrow night.

WAITRESS Here you go, T.C..

T.C. Billy tell you we gonna start our own band?

Ess 6 BILLY Now don’t go startin’ up with that again.

T.C. We can be the Jazz Architects. No, more like with our own hands. The Jazz Carpenters.

BILLY Carpenters?

T.C. Like Jesus. Buildin’ something with this gift we got from God.

BILLY Drink your beer.

T.C. We’re ready, Billy. It’s time. (sips) Mmm, you sure lookin' good, Nita. . Mm mmm.

WAITRESS Let me get that ashtray for you.

T.C. You the best lookin’ woman in here.

WAITRESS I do believe I’m the only woman in here this late.

T.C. Even so. Now, he gotta let you off sometime, let you get outta here and have some fun.

WAITRESS This don’t look fun to you?

T.C. This little flower just aching to get out and open up her petals sometime. C’mon, Nita. Sit with us awhile. Ain’t nobody here but that drunk asleep on that table, and he sure don’t need anymore. Do ya, Cap? Go back to sleep, old man. C’mon, Nita, pull up a chair. Hell, you don’t need a chair. C’mere -

(T.C. grabs her wrist.)

BILLY Leave her alone, T.C.

7 T.C. She don’t mind. Do you, sugar?

BILLY She’s working. Let her be.

T.C. Do me again, then. Just the whiskey. And ask Benny if he’s this tight with his money. (WAITRESS walks to bar.) Why you always do that? Spoil it like that? You sweet on her or somethin’? (yelling towards bar) And bring another one for my partner.

BILLY It's late. I'm going up to bed.

T.C. That must be it. You sweet on her yourself. That’s probably why you stay upstairs in that dank room instead of staying with the rest of the band. She is somethin' though. I don’t blame you. Mmm.

BILLY You wear on me, T.C.

(BILLY gets up to leave.)

T.C. You never just hang out and have a drink with me.

BILLY I’m tired, I’m going to bed. But, you watch yourself here. And, watch those C notes, too. I don't know as you hit 'em all tonight.

T.C. Oh, I hit ‘em. Don't you worry yourself about that.

BILLY G’nite, Nita.

T.C. We’re ready, Billy. The Jazz Carpenters.

Ess 8 WAITRESS 'Night, Billy. (BILLY exits. T.C. yells after him.)

T.C. The Jazz Carpenters! (pause) … It’s time.

(T.C. grabs NITA and pulls her to him. She doesn’t resist. They flirt as music plays. Lights go down on the bar and up on BILLY entering his dark, sepia room. A melancholy SAX plays as BILLY slowly takes off his hat and jacket and drops his suspenders to his waist. HE turns on a dim little lamp on a dressing table and empties his pockets. He picks up an old photograph and stares at it for a moment before putting it carefully down. He continues to get ready for bed, slowly unbuttoning and removing his shirt. He takes off his frayed t-shirt to reveal large binding wrapped around his ribs and chest. With his back to the audience, he slowly removes the long bandage to reveal the hint of a naked female torso. The man is, in fact, a woman in disguise. Hiding her gender is the only way for a female musician to be able to play in a jazz band, any band, at this time. Lights go down on “Billy”, a blue spotlight comes up on the woman playing the somber saxophone. She is dressed like Billy. She is Billy. She wears a man’s baggy trousers with suspenders dangling at her side. Her man’s shirt is unbuttoned, sometimes revealing her bra underneath. This Saxophone Player will reappear throughout the play as a memory or a muse - of Billy or the countless other women who had to pass as a man in order to play their music. She recedes as the vintage track of a full swing band playing for a boisterous Apollo-like crowd loudly overtakes her song.)

Scene 2

(A bright, neon Apollo Theater sign appears. “Showtime at the Apollo”. An African American man, the BAND MANAGER, is talking on a backstage wall phone, yelling over the band onstage. Lively swing music plays.)

BAND MANAGER Killer diller, no jive. I can’t hear you! What?… Yeah, the Apollo Theater! I know, with all them cats overseas, the gals are getting some fly gigs. Hah, maybe it was the Darlin’s bombed Pearl Harbor….. What? … Well, you don’t hear ‘em booing, do you? Listen…

(He holds phone out so the band in the background can be heard.)

9 BAND MANAGER cont’d You hear that? They’re burning! My gals in the pocket out there or Sandman Sims would yank ‘em right off the stage. Probably send old rubber legged Geech right down the aisle like he’s looking for his girlfriend again - hah, ‘Hesterrr? Hester where are you girl?”… Yeah, them hangin’ out over the stage in the Buzzard’s Roost’d throw their drinks at ‘em if they was -… Yeah, these Apollo audiences are fierce, but if they like you they love you and they let you know that, too. Last time Bean’s band was here three girls that been here all day passed out. And some fool jumped right off a that second balcony!… Hah, yeah I don’t think the Krauts give ‘em that warm a welcome where they is now… Okay, okay, look, I need an alto sax TNT! No, right away! We’re going on tour tomorrow and, what?… I know, tomorrow! Can’t help it, this chick starts doubling over. Doc says it’s her apprendix and - … Yeah – what? Alto. Come on, man. And don’t send me no stinkeroos, either. None of this angel o’ the hearth shit that’s just gonna stand up front and sing. I ain’t looking for harps and canaries. I need an alto sax that - Sure, she gotta look good in those fancy ballgowns, but the gal’s really gotta have the chops. She got to read music, and she gotta be able to fake, too. It’s swing, man, she’s really got to take off, not just play the notes that’s there. My gals bounce!.…Yeah, like - What? The U.S.O. Center? Cool, well - … Really, she is? Damn… You know we’re going on tour. Tomorrow.… She that good? Well, I guess that’s copacetic if she got the balloon lungs you say she do. Thanks, man. Hey wait, you sure she good lookin’?

(Lights go down on band manager in limbo. Swing music fades or morphs into the simple strumming of a banjo.)

Scene 3

(The shoddy dressing room for black musicians in a Virginia dance hall in 1943. One of the aged and torn posters or flyers on the wall is for a previous performance of the Jazz Carpenters. The affable white security guard on duty is checking in on Vi, the first member of the all-girl African American touring swing band to arrive.)

VI Yes officer, this afternoon as soon as we drove in. They searched our bus real good.

POLICEMAN A right nice bus, I heard.

VI Them and their dogs.

POLICEMAN And all a yous gals, too.

Ess 10 VI Yes, sir.

POLICEMAN (condescendingly amused) The Rhythm Darlings.

VI Yes, sir. The International Rhythm Darlings.

POLICEMAN A big bus, too.

VI We just got that bus. Second hand, for this tour. Another band gave us a good price ‘cause they didn’t need it anymore – with most a them overseas fightin’ the war and all. And we need a big bus ‘cause we cook and eat and we sleep on the bus and -

POLICEMAN The “Darlings”. Ha, you sure songs is all you gals are sellin’ outta that bus?

VI (quickly) We’re not breaking any laws, Officer. We’re just passing through and tomorrow we’re headed to Emmitsburg. Be playing another dance hall there. Then we’re on to –Oh, where we going after- ?

POLICEMAN Settle down, settle down now, I’m just havin’ some fun with ya.

VI Yes, sir.

POLICEMAN I know what it’s like. I’m somewhat of a musician myself.

VI Really?

POLICEMAN No horns now, nothing' like that. I play the dobro.

VI That’s nice.

11