{"id":9110,"date":"2014-10-14T12:37:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T17:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=9110"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:43:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:43:26","slug":"johnnyjohnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=9110","title":{"rendered":"Kenan Theatre Company presents restored version of \u2018Johnny Johnson\u2019 Nov. 20-24"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Johnny<\/a>The world premiere of the restored version of \u201cJohnny Johnson\u201d by Paul Green and Kurt Weill, <\/em>with text and music not heard since 1937, will be staged at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nov. 20-24.<\/p>\n

Performances will take place in the Kenan Theatre, Center for Dramatic Art, on Nov. 20 at 8 p.m., Nov. 21\u00a0at 8 p.m. (with a post-show discussion), Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. (with a pre-show symposium), Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. and Nov. 24 at 5 p.m. Tickets are $10; $5 for students.<\/p>\n

The musical play is set during World War I, and the cast is composed of UNC students, 18 to 22 years old \u2014 the same age of soldiers who sacrificed their lives \u201cover there\u201d 100 years ago.<\/p>\n

In the play, lowly tombstone cutter Johnny Johnson is persuaded to enlist in the U.S. Army both by his sweetheart, Minny Belle Tompkins, and by President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s promise of \u201ca war to end all wars.\u201d But Johnny is outraged by the absurdity of trench warfare and, by using laughing gas, fools the Allied generals into calling a cease-fire. Johnny is arrested, shipped back to America and locked up in a lunatic asylum for his \u201cpeace monomania.\u201d Released some 20 years later, he makes a living selling handmade toys as war threatens again.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny Johnson\u201d originated in the summer of 1936, when German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill visited Chapel Hill to team up with prominent North Carolina playwright and Carolina faculty member Paul Green. The play opened on Broadway on Nov. 19, but its acting company made drastic cuts before the premiere. Green and Weill restored those cuts when \u201cJohnny Johnson\u201d was picked up by the Federal Theatre Project, with productions in Boston and Los Angeles in May 1937. However, subsequent performances used the shortened text while the more complete version lay hidden in archives.<\/p>\n

Some of this archival material survives in the Southern Historical Collection in UNC\u2019s Wilson Library, some in the National Archives (College Park, Md.), and some in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. These newly uncovered sources provided the basis for the critical edition of \u201cJohnny Johnson\u201d prepared by Tim Carter, David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC and recently issued by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. The edition won the Claude V. Palisca Award of the American Musicological Society for an outstanding scholarly edition or translation in the field of musicology published during 2012.<\/p>\n

The play is directed by Paul and Elizabeth Green Scholar and UNC alumna Serena Ebhardt.<\/p>\n

Louise Toppin, professor and chair of the UNC music department, serves as musical director with Evan Feldman, also from the music department, as conductor. Heather Tatreau of the department of exercise and sport science is the choreographer. David Navalinsky, director of undergraduate productions for the department of dramatic art, serves as producer.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny Johnson\u201d is part of a year-long conversation during 2014-2015 focused on the legacy of World War I. For more on The World War I Centenary Project, visit www.iah.unc.edu\/WWI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world premiere of the restored version of \u201cJohnny Johnson\u201dby Paul Green and Kurt Weill, with text and music not heard since 1937, will be staged at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nov. 20-24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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