I
PROLOG
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Laughers
SOUTH
Daybreak in Alabama (Croon)
Uncle Tom
Freedom
Merry-Go-Round (Cross)
Shoe Blues Trilogy (Bad Morning The Blues Barefoot Blues)
Georgia Dusk (Song for a Dark Girl Gals Cry for a Dying Lover Silhouette)
Still Here (Vari-Colored Song)
Migration Blues (Final Curve Bound Noth Blues Lonesome Place Po Boy Blues Homesick Blues)
NORTH
The Heart of Harlem
Harlem Sweeties
Madam and the Census Man
Chicago Blues
Harlem Night Club (City Saturday Night Cabaret)
Juice Joint: Northern City
Night Funeral in Harlem
DREAMS
Dream Deferred Suite (Harlem[2] Go Slow Tell Me Same In Blues)
As I Grew Older
I Dream a World (Dreamer)
II
WAR
Let America Be America Again
I, Too
Dinner Guest: Me
Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?
Madam and Her Madam
Little Song on Housing
The Ballad of the Landlord
Who but the Lord?
Song of Adoration
The White Ones
LOVE
The Kids in School with Me
Love Song (Love Song for Lucinda Advice)
Life is Fine
To The Black Beloved
Me and My Song (My People)
PEACE
Trumpet Player
Madam and the Wrong Visitor
Dream Variations (The Dream Keeper)
The Promised Land (There)
(Original Hughes titles are not italicized)
The Blues According to Langston Hughes
YouTube Musical Selections!
Songs from the South - Harlem Dreams
The Madam Songs - Civil Rights Suite - Love & Peace
I TOO SING AMERICA
HERE!
Shawn Cortel* Carllie Jaxen Gary E. Lawson
Adrienne Lyric John-Andrew Morrison* Christine Sanders
Stage Director: Andrea Pinyan
Music Director: Danny Ashkenasi
Stage Manager: Kelly Aliano
Concert performances Jan, 2011 at the Metropolitan Playhouse's Harlem Rennaissance Festival
"What an intense and beautiful performance! The composition is compelling and the performers are extremely talented."
- Joy Messer
"What a great show! So glad I got to see it.
I keep thinking about how viscerally it brought the mid-20th century African-American experience to life. Brought me to tears many times. A memorable evening!"
- Elizabeth Schretzman
"I loved the show, it was really wonderful to hear those marvelous voices blending so beautifully with such meaning!"
- Pat Murphy
"It seems like Danny Ashkenasi's ambition is to compose the Great American Literary Songbook, and he is up to the task.
After working with Poe, Twain, and Melville, he has more recently turned his attention to Langston Hughes: "The Blues According to Langston Hughes". While the title mentions "Blues", the music was often more complex and challenging. Divided into categories : South, North, Dreams, War, Love, and Peace, Ashkenasi's work reminded us how prescient Hughes was on internal migration, jazz, the plight of the Black soldier -- needed and applauded in the war effort but discriminated against in peacetime. The unfulfilled nature of the American Dream, the evolving nature of the concept of America, and Black is Beautiful were also among the many powerful themes."
--- Mark Savitt - Hi Drama! (MNN TV)
To many readers of African descent he is their poet laureate, the beloved author of poems steeped in the richness of African American culture, poems that exude Hughes' affection for black Americans across all divisions of region, class, and gender. To many readers who love verse and are also commited to the ideal of social and political justice, he is among the most eloquent American poets to have sung about the wounds caused by injustice. For still other admirers, he is, above all, the author of poems of often touching lyrical beauty, beyond issues such as race and injustice."
- Arnold Rampersad & David Roessel, Introduction - The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
