Beethoven and Misfortune Cookies at Open-Door Playhouse

            Open-Door Playhouse continues to present plays in podcast form. As one of its shows for Black History Month, it is spotlighting and rereleasing one of its earliest podcast plays, Beethoven and Misfortune Cookies, beginning February 28 online at http://opendoorplayhouse.org

              Beethoven and Misfortune Cookies is the true story of Kabin Thomas, a musician and, for eleven years, a Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas. The show begins with Thomas teaching a lesson about the struggles of Beethoven, the composer of mixed European and Moorish ancestry who coped with hearing loss in his later years and creating his Ninth Symphony while deaf.

            Thomas later runs into trouble with the university authorities subsequent to his teaching a lesson about Abel Meeropol and his song made famous by Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit, about the lynching of Blacks in the Deep South. Thomas accompanies the lesson with a famous photograph of lynching victims.

            Relieved of his teaching position, Thomas subsequently comes to Hollywood and is cast on a reality TV show. Becoming aware of his father’s early demise related to mental illness, Thomas must overcome his own personal inner demons if he is to survive and attain any lasting measure of happiness.

            Devereau Chumrau directs. Amir Abdullah stars.

            Joni Ravenna is the playwright.