BroadwayWorld has learned that writer and director Randy Johnson (A Night With Janis Joplin -- Broadway and currently at Pasadena Playhouse) has obtained the stage rights to Gayle Wald's biography SHOUT, SISTER, SHOUT!: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ROCK-AND-ROLL TRAILBLAZER ROSETTA THARPE (Beacon Press, 2007). Johnson is currently in discussion with producers and regional theatres to present and produce SHOUT, SISTER, SHOUT! for the 2016/17 season.
Shout, Sister, Shout! is the story of the trailblazing performer Sister Rosetta Tharpe who influenced scores of popular musicians, from
Elvis Presley,
Johnny Cash,
Little Richard,
Eric Clapton and
Etta James. Rosetta Tharpe was gospel music's first superstar. A guitar virtuoso with a clear, ringing voice, she took the rich musical traditions of Black Pentecostal churches and made music for the world to enjoy. Audiences adored her and said she played guitar "like a man" -- even though men learned a thing or two from her.
Before we had the phrase "women in rock," Rosetta rocked churches, tent-meetings, revivals, dance clubs, stadiums, and concert halls -- from
Carnegie Hall to the Grand Ole Opry. Her remarkable journey--from Cotton Plant, Arkansas to an acknowledged influence on
Elvis Presley,
Johnny Cash, and a generation of British rockers--shows how a black female gospel musician was an essential player in the development of rock-and-roll. She is a pioneer and considered by many to be "The Mother of Rock and Roll".
"As a big admirer of A Night With
Janis Joplin, I'm thrilled to have
Randy Johnson working on this new piece about Rosetta Tharpe," says author Gayle Wald, "Like Janis, Rosetta was a gifted performer and a dynamo on stage. She upends a lot of our cultural assumptions of what a 'guitar god' looks and sounds like."
Randy Johnson's A Night With
Janis Joplin premiered on Broadway in 2013 to rave reviews and earned a 2014 Tony Award nomination for
Mary Bridget Davies as Best Actress in a musical and is now running through August 23rd at the
Pasadena Playhouse. A Night With
Janis Joplin enjoyed tremendous success across the country in regional theatres prior to Broadway including
Cleveland Playhouse, Portland Center Stage,
Arena Stage in Washington DC and
Pasadena Playhouse breaking box office and attendance records in almost every city. It is the highest grossing production in the history of the
Pasadena Playhouse.
Johnson's critically acclaimed work has been seen across the country and worldwide on Broadway, Off Broadway, Radio City Music Hall,
Carnegie Hall, The
Apollo Theatre, Wembley Arena, The Savoy Theatre, Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman Auditorium, Las Vegas and Regional Theatres across the United States and Canada,. As a published playwright and director he has created theatrical musical portraits of such icons as
Janis Joplin,
Elvis Presley.
Louis Prima and
Keely Smith, and Conway Twitty. He is the original producer of Always Patsy Cline. The NAACP Theatre Awards in Los Angeles nominated him in 2014 as Best Director for his work on A Night With
Janis Joplin.
