Licensing

Getting plays produced is hard. Getting them licensed for amateur performance can be even harder. That's why I'm glad to announce that Keep On Walkin', the musical I wrote together with Lavell Blackwell and Joshua H. Cohen, is now available to be performed by schools and community theatres.

The musical's licensing agreements are being handled by Plays for New Audiences, a division of Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. The company has done a lot of fine work over the years, and it would be a shame to see original work developed there not continue to have a life elsewhere. Keep On Walkin' wasn't developed there, but they are helping other works for young audiences connect to schools and children's theatres looking for material.

Keep On Walkin' weaves together history, humanity, and hope to tell the unforgettable story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott through the eyes of two teenage pen pals. One, May, lives on Staten Island, and the other, June, is in Montgomery. As their letters cross regional and racial divides, both girls come of age against the backdrop of one of the most pivotal movements in American history. The play was performed at schools on Staten Island and later won the Anna Zornio Memorial Children's Theatre Playwriting Award.

This is the first time a musical I worked on has been licensed, though a number of my plays are published and licensed for production. In fact, I recently received a check from Brooklyn Publishers for royalties for my play The New Mrs. Jones. Given that royalty rates for amateur and educational productions haven't gone up much in the past fifty years, no playwright in America can make a living this way, but it's nice when someone acknowledges that your work has value.