Dick Hyman
MUSIC ADVISOR
Dick Hyman
MUSIC ADVISOR
Dick is an NEA Jazz Master, is a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. With over 100 albums under his name, he was among the first to record on the Moog synthesizer; his Minotaur hit Billboard charts. Dick has won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and two Emmy awards. He was music director for Benny Goodman’s final TV appearance, In Performance at the White House, and orchestrator of Broadway’s Sugar Babies. In addition, Dick was composer/arranger for twelve Woody Allen movies, Moonstruck, Scott Joplin and other films. He was also artistic director for Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y for twenty years. A member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society, Dick has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Juilliard School of Music and Wilkes College and the Satchmo from the Jazz Club of Sarasota.
Dick is an NEA Jazz Master, is a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. With over 100 albums under his name, he was among the first to record on the Moog synthesizer; his Minotaur hit Billboard charts. Dick has won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and two Emmy awards. He was music director for Benny Goodman’s final TV appearance, In Performance at the White House, and orchestrator of Broadway’s Sugar Babies. In addition, Dick was composer/arranger for twelve Woody Allen movies, Moonstruck, Scott Joplin and other films. He was also artistic director for Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y for twenty years. A member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society, Dick has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Juilliard School of Music and Wilkes College and the Satchmo from the Jazz Club of Sarasota.
Playwright/producer Jo Morello created and developed LIL & SATCHMO (originally titled LIL & LOUIS) at Sarasota’s Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe (WBTT), where founder and artistic director Nate Jacobs and executive director Julie Leach graciously gave the play its artistic home and the benefit of their experience. From the play’s inception, she worked closely with SDC director Chuck Smith of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and WBTT and consulted with NEA Jazz Master Dick Hyman. To create LIL & SATCHMO, she further drew on her award-winning playwriting background and her decades-long experience as public relations director for both the Jazz Club of Sarasota and its Sarasota Jazz Festival. To produce the play, Jo called on her years as a producer and her experience as founder and producing artistic director of a small theater company in Florida.
JoMo Productions, Inc.
The JoMo Board of directors (clockwise from left): president Jo Morello, special advisor Michael Treni, secretary/treasurer Alan Blair, and vice president Nancy Roucher.
Morello formed JoMo Productions, a Florida nonprofit organization, in 2018 to help create and develop LIL & LOUIS and stage a production from January 21-25, 2020 at First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, Florida. Besides Morello (president), the irreplaceable members of the JoMo board of directors are Nancy Roucher, vice president; Alan Blair, secretary/treasurer; and Michael Treni, special advisor.
As Morello created the script, she selected songs for the play. In early 2019, pianist Z. Mike Moran arranged, performed, and recorded the music, accompanied by Randy Sandke on trumpet. In March 2019, Chuck Smith directed a workshop production—a book-in-hand staged reading with music—as part of 38th Annual Sarasota Jazz Festival.
Morello continued to develop the play with Smith, added more songs, and worked with musician Randy Sandke, who arranged the music, assembled a band of professional jazz musicians, composed three songs exclusively for this play, and also played trumpet and cornet as Louis Armstrong for the .mp3 recordings that are available with the script.
By December 2019 all preparations were underway, but just as rehearsals began, a serious illness forced Chuck Smith to withdraw. Fortunately another Black director, Harry Bryce of WBTT, stepped in and mounted the production, which played to enthusiastic audience response and positive critical reviews. Photos from that production appear in the Gallery. For additional details of the January 2020 production including bios of that cast and company, please click HERE.
Major grants based on the project's merit helped to underwrite the production. These included financial awards from Florida's Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs; Venice-based Caldwell Trust Company; and Sarasota's The Exchange. Contribution from individual donors also helped with funding.
Production History
Mar. 4-5/10, 2019: Workshop production: Sarasota, FL.
Three performances as part of Sarasota Jazz Festival: staged script-in-hand with music, dance. Written feedback. At WBTT and St. Paul Lutheran Church, Sarasota. Director: Chuck Smith. Producer: JoMo Productions.
Brian L. Boyd and Jai Shanae rehearse for a workshop production of LIL & LOUIS (March 2019).
Jan. 21-25, 2020: Production: Sarasota, FL.
Six non-Equity performances. First Presbyterian Church. Directed by Harry Bryce, WBTT, after serious illness forced Chuck Smith’s withdrawal during the first week of rehearsals. Producer: JoMo Productions. For information, reviews, production photos, see LILandLOUIS.com.
Frankie (Andrea Coleman) sings "Darktown Strutters' Ball," accompanied Lil Hardin (Marta McKinnon) while Jelly Roll Morton (Donovan Whitney) enjoys her rendition in LIL & LOUIS, an earlier version of LIL & SATCHMO, in Sarasota, FL, in January 2020.
Jan. 28-Feb. 27, 2022 Production: Fort Worth, TX.
Jubilee Theatre. Twenty-four performances for Black History Month. Producer: Jubilee Theatre. Director: Khira Hailey.
Ron Johnson (ensemble), Sydney Hewitt (Lil Hardin), Davian Jackson (Lois Armstrong), Crystal Williams (ensemble), Jason Hallman (ensemble), Kris Black Jasper (ensemble).
“ ... a grateful audience enjoyed seeing the drama unfold.”
–Venice Gondolier-Sun
Playwright Jo Morello and director Chuck Smith (August 2019).
“A Good Man is Hard to Find”—but not at this rehearsal for LIL & LOUIS, where vocal coach Steven Phillips (left), and director Harry Bryce (right), rehearse with actor/singers Andrea Coleman and Marta Mckinnon (January 2020).