18 February 2021 1 NORWAY IN 3 KEYS A Musical Entertainment by Ed Weissman Cast: 1 Black woman and 1 white man ANNE BROWN MOVES TO NORWAY A Dramatic Concert performed by Anne Brown (music p.d.) Anne narrates with clippings (projected) & anecdotes between musical numbers (with surtitles).“Anne Brown’s not easy to get along with, but she’s the best person to know.” A friend 1. Anne Brown sings a Capella 1. Do It Again (Gershwin). 2. 1991, Oslo, Anne Brown (who created Bess in Porgy and Bess) is sending her papers to Tulane U. She is moving from house to apartment and still coaching singers. As she sorts through the papers and clippings, she relives her life. (Clipping 1) NY Times 1946 “Anne Brown is leaving for a European concert tour. She returns in November.” She never did! 3. Born in 1912 in Baltimore, Jim Crow kept her from the best schools including Peabody. But she is the first Black person to win a full scholarship to Juilliard. She reads (Clipping 2) “George Gershwin is composing an opera based on the play Porgy.” She writes for/gets an audition. The Audition: 2. An Die Musik Schubert - a love letter to music. 3. Jewel Song, Faust, Gounod - displays her ability to act in song. 4. George is greatly impressed but asks her to sing a spiritual. She is furious. A stereotype! George assures her it is only to hear her sing in a style he’ll use. She has no music. She agrees to sing a Capella. As she said often: "We tough girls tough it out.” 4. "City Called Heaven about a world without racism. 5. George advises her to sing it always that way. It becomes her encore. She auditions for everyone including Mama Gershwin. She gets the small part of Bess. She works with George as he composes and her role grows and grows until the opera becomes Porgy and Bess. (Clipping 3) “Anne Brown triumphs.” George promises to write a new opera for her. But Jim Crow ruled - with many doors closed and many venues segregated. (Clipping 4) “National Theatre Integrates but only for Porgy and Bess.” (Clipping 5) “George Gershwin Dies.” 6. European Tour final concert at La Scala (Clipping 6)”Concerto del soprano Anna Brown 9 Novembre 1946.” Europe’s doors open to her. 5. Vissi d’Arte Tosca, Puccini. An artist and art is destroyed by a corrupt and unjust state. 7. She settles in Oslo, Anne meets and marries Thorlief Schjelderup They have a family and she becomes a citizen. (Clipping 7)”Cover photo, Ebony, 1953.” 6. Solveig’s Sang Grieg/Ibsen - Norway’s composer and playwright. 8. She has a long, illustrious career as singer, director, vocal coach and teacher. She earns Norway’s highest artistic honor. She dies in 2009 at 96. (Clippings 8) Obituaries world-wide. 7. Do It Again Gershwin (reprise) accompanied.

© 2020 and 2021 Edward Joseph Herling Weissman 18 February 2021 2 SONDRE NORHEIM MOVES TO AMERICA A Fantasia on Sondre Norheim, Skiing, and Winning WW II. New lyrics/old folksongs. Actor plays Sondre Norheim and Joachim Rønneberg. 1. Sondre ski jumps on and sets up the play with verses of Sondre Skis (based on Eirik Jarl) It recurs, once with an audience sing- along. Sondre, born in 1825, goes on to create new ways to ski and jump. He was poor in very poor Telemark County. It snowed a lot. There’s not much to do and so he lost himself in skiing, making his own skis, own poles and jumping over anything that stood in his way including his own house. Skiing, however, was the preserve of gentlemen and officers. He was so much better; his skis are so much better - curved, designed to flow, and he invents ski poles. He faces huge obstacles set up by his ‘betters.’ Only some of them! He has great support from those who see what he can do and what he is creating. Others see the military import of his new skiing. The skiing society is “the Central Association for the Propagation of Body ︎︎︎ Exercises and Warfare” 2. 1868. The Association is holding jumping and skiing competitions. Those who do well will be invited to the national competition in Christiana. Sondre, though twice as old as his competition, triumphs. He amazes everyone by jumping 33.01 meters. So amazing that reporters say no one will believe it. He is forced to accept an ‘official’ 19.5 meters. Even that is a sensation and he is invited to Christiana. But amateurs cannot accept free train tickets. He skis 200 k to Christiana. 3. While he skis to Christiana, he sings more “Sondre Skis” about skiing and winning wars. As this is a play, Sondre can play with time. He jumps ahead 75 years to WW II and 1943. He becomes Joachim Rønneberg who parachuted in and skied with his commandos to the heavy water plant in Rjukan, Telemark. He and his men blew it up (with no casualties on either side) preventing the Germans from developing the bomb. His men got safely away - some to join the resistance. Joachim with four others escaped by freeskiing 400 kilometers (250 miles) to Sweden. He pauses for a moment though he is being chased. Were it a platoon of German soldiers, it would be dangerous. It is ridiculous because they are being chased by 2,800 German troops. They made it to Sweden! Joachim Ronneberg died in 2018 at 99. He called his escape “the best ski weekend ever.” 4. 1868, Sondre triumphs in Christiana - more of Sondre Skis describing his victories over men half his age. 5. Back home, the county government, unwilling to support the poor, pays them to emigrate. Eventually poverty forces him and his family to emigrate to the US. 6. North Dakota. Sondre’s skis live at his front door, but he never skied again. Coda is Sondre Skied © 2020 and 2021 Edward Joseph Herling Weissman 18 February 2021 3 ON A SUNNY SPRING MORNING IN OSLO A musical in one act. Book and Lyrics by Ed Weissman Music? an original score (Based on a play by the Quinteros) Oslo: a park, spring, 1925. Cast: Solvi and Erling, both 70s and beautiful. 1. Solvi enters walking with a cane. She feeds the birds and talks to them as old friends. She realizes she’s cliché - little old lady feeding birds. She doesn’t feel spring-like on this perfect spring morning. She sits on a bench. 2. Erling harrumphs into the park complaining about students stealing “his” bench. He sits next to Solvi scaring “her” birds away. She’s angry when he says “I care nothing for birds.” He sees an empty bench (off), exits. “The bad tempered old man must be half blind to think those workmen are students.” 3. He returns, beaten to the bench. They trade insults - about age, rudeness, vision, weakness. He takes out huge glasses and begins to read from an old poem about lost love. He reads: “All love is sad…but it is the best thing we know.” They agree that’s not Ibsen. They laugh; he offers her a chocolate. She takes it and the book from him and amazes him by reading without glasses (She knows it by heart.) He claims knew Ibsen when a youth in Kristiansund. She startles! She spent a few summers there at a Villa Tahiti. He startles! They realize they were once lovers separated by class, but neither will admit it thinking they’re ravaged by age. 4. The Villa Tahiti’s star crossed lovers were so famous there that they cannot deny knowing the story. They say they heard it from a cousin/a friend. In fact, she married a skier and he ran off with a soprano from the Danish Opera, They spin increasingly outrageous stories of the lovers’ sad fate. 5. His cousin told him that Erling joined the French foreign legion, got rich, went to America, got caught in the SF earthquake, went to Argentina not dying and getting richer each time. But he sailed on the Titanic and drowned crying “Solvi, Solvi, Sol…glug.” Solvi baits him ”how did you know?” Molly Brown told his cousin. “Of course, dear Molly and your unfettered cousin.” 6. Solvi’s friend told her that Solvi went down to the beach every day to write Erling’s name in the sand even shovelling snow and braving high tides. Over many years, her tears turned his name to concrete. With a now permanent memorial, she drowned herself. The lies become a challenge of ‘can you top this?’ 7. Erling exits promising to return tomorrow if it is sunny as does she. They both quote from what was “their” poem. She doesn’t use her cane and seems to be the young lover - “It’s finally spring.”

The two actors sing an encore, a Capella, City Called Heaven.

© 2020 and 2021 Edward Joseph Herling Weissman