May 3, 2012

"Scottsboro Boys" Gets Its West Coast Premiere

Coverage here of a San Diego production of the musical Scottsboro Boys, an interpretation of the trial of nine black teenagers accused (and eventually convicted) of the rape of two white women in 1930s Alabama. The production, at the Old Globe in Balboa Park, is the West Coast premiere of Kander and Ebb's musical; it premiered world-wide in 2010 in New York.

Scottsboro Boys is not the first interpretation of the real life story of these nine young men's trial and condemnation. In 1976, NBC broadcast a docudrama, Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys, which starred Arthur Hill as Judge Horton, who set aside the verdict against the defendants. The film generated a famous defamation case by one of the complaining witnesses, Victoria Street.

More on the Scottsboro case from Douglas Linder of UMKC Law here and here.

No comments: