As one character notes in Atlanta playwright Vynnie Meli's "Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings," "You don't need to get wet to know that it's raining."
The line comes during an exchange between two members of a black female jazz band that's touring the segregated South during World War II. Because of laws prohibiting any form of integration, one of the Rhythm Darlings is, in fact, a white Jewish woman who's only "passing for colored" — a source of considerable tension within the group.
Reference is made to Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit," a protest against racism and the Southern practice of lynching blacks. When the women realize the song was actually written by a white Jew (Lewis Allan), it's a defining moment. Yes, there are racial and religious differences between them, but they share a universal humanity, as well.
"Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings" debuts Wednesday as part of the 11th annual Essential Theatre Play Festival, a three-show repertory dedicated to regional premieres (this year's "Food for Fish" and "Ice Glen" both opened last week), and to the work of Georgia writers. As winner of the 2009 Essential Playwriting Award, Meli banked a $600 check. "Even better," she said during a recent lunch interview, her play earned its inaugural staging.
Although Meli is relatively fresh to the trade — at 51, she's a proverbial late bloomer — the show already marks her second big splash on the local scene. In 2006, the Jewish Theatre of the South produced her contemporary romantic comedy "Chopped Liver in Paradise," the story of a middle-age married woman contemplating a cruise-ship affair.
Call it Meli's own variation on not getting wet in the rain: "That was my first major production, so, of course, I guess everybody just assumed it must've been autobiographical," she said with a smile. "It makes me laugh. I mean, nobody's asking me now if I used to be a black sax player."
As a playwright, Meli said: "People say you should write about what you know, but I'd rather write about what I don't know, something I'm curious about or want to learn more about. Coming up with the basic idea for a play, that's the easy part. I love history, researching different times and places and people. That's what's really fun and fascinating for me."
She describes "Darlings" as an "amalgamation" inspired by factual events. Initially, Meli heard a radio story about a male jazz band in the 1930s whose sole white member disguised his color whenever they toured the South. Her research eventually led her to accounts of various female bands (e.g., the International Sweethearts of Rhythm), that rose to prominence in the early '40s while many men were off at war.
"The subject matter was compelling on a lot of levels," said Essential artistic director Peter Hardy, who chose Meli's play from more than 50 submissions. "Race is just one issue it deals with. There were definite gender issues at the time, too. These women weren't really accepted in the male-dominated world of jazz music. They got their shot to play during the war, but they were expected to give it all up when the men returned."
Meli resists the idea of "female empowerment" as a common bond, but it's true that feminism factors into her plays — from a cruise ship in paradise to the Jim Crow South to the setting of her next piece, the plague-infested Middle Ages. "Plagued: A Love Story" is Meli's first musical, a sequel of sorts about Cinderella, Prince Charming and their rebellious daughter, who's less interested in marrying a prince than in manly pursuits such as studying science and curing disease.
Between Essential rehearsals, Meli has been traveling to her native New York, working with composer Casey Filiaci to prepare "Plagued" for an October opening, one of 12 new works selected for the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
"Writing a musical is different from writing a play, and yet it isn't," she said. "My goal is still to find the emotional honesty of a character or a story, only sometimes I have to express it in a song lyric instead of a line of dialogue."
It's quite a banner year, especially for someone with no formal theater background.
"I've never gone to school for [theater], but I don't feel bad about that. It would've been different if I hadn't been married or didn't have kids, if I could've just run off to grad school, but I'm OK with that. Everybody has a story, and those life experiences are all I really need to be a writer."
Were Meli the autobiographical type, her next play might go like this: Young New York woman studies sculpting and conceptual art, works as an advertising copywriter and art director, meets and marries "a nice Southern boy" (businessman Gregg Marcus), settles in east Cobb, raises two daughters (Kylie and Quinn), sends them off to college ... and then discovers a whole new calling.
With two shows premiering this year, it almost goes without saying that when it rains, it pours.
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