KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A new musical with Broadway ambitions inspired by the life of writer James Agee could hardly be more Knoxvillian.
It's called "Knoxville". It was funded by a generous grant from arts philanthropist Roy Cockrum, a Knoxvillian. And it focuses on Agee, one of Tennessee's most poignant literary voices.
But to producing artistic director Michael Edwards of the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Fla., it is also a truly American story.
"I feel that it is an instant American classic," Edwards told WBIR. "People are going to want to have memories of this."
The world premiere begins previews Friday at the Asolo. It opens April 23.
It's hard to imagine a project with more promise and potential.
Frank Galati, a Tony Award-winner and Academy Award-nominee, directs and wrote the book. Lyrics and music are by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, whose work includes "Anastasia", "Ragtime" and "Seussical".
Half of the cast is Tony-winning or Tony-nominated, according to Edwards. The Asolo has put together what is essentially a Broadway cast, he said.
"There aren't many opportunities that come along to you as a musical theater performer where you get to create something extraordinary and something brand new, so they know that their names will forever be attached to the creation of this Galati-Ahrens-Flaherty musical," Edwards said.
SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC
The musical is based on Agee's autobiographical novel "A Death in the Family," about the death of Agee's father in a car crash in the early 20th century in Knox County and how it forever impacted the writer's life.
It's also based in part on the play "All the Way Home" by Tad Mosel.
Agee, who also was a respected screenwriter and film critic, was born in Knoxville in 1909 and died of a heart attack in Manhattan in 1955. "A Death in the Family", which he'd been working on for some time, was published posthumously and received a Pulitzer Prize.
The original film "All the Way Home" was shot in Knoxville and debuted in 1963 here.
"Knoxville" the musical quietly has been in the works since 2018.
Edwards said Roy Cockrum's foundation, which discreetly helps theaters and companies across the country, informed the Asolo, a highly respected company in the Southeast, that it would be getting a grant to do any kind of production it wanted -- with no interference or direction from Cockrum or the foundation.
A 2014 multimillion-dollar Powerball winner, Cockrum locally has been a benefactor of the Clarence Brown Theatre on the University of Tennessee campus.
WBIR sought comment without luck from the Knoxville-based Cockrum Foundation; Cockrum is notoriously private.
The invitation to do whatever you want without the nagging worries of a budget is a dream for any artist.
"The Cockrum Foundation has stood by us every step of the way," Edwards said. "For me, they are a model of how a foundation should work."
Galati, an associate artist at the Asolo and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, was intrigued by Agee's story.
The Asolo production grew from there, empowered by Cockrum's generosity. Every effort was made to assemble the very best team possible, Edwards said.
COVID-19 hit in early 2020 just as the cast and crew were ready to start technical rehearsals.
It could have been a crippling blow. The theater world was particularly hard hit by the virus because it robbed plays and musicals of an essential element -- the audience.
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The pandemic, however, ended up offering unexpected benefits, Edwards said. Cast and crew grew closer, determined to see the project through. And Ahrens and Flaherty, among others, had a chance to tinker with songs and characters, burnishing what they already had.
AN AMERICAN STORY
Edwards, a native Australian who became an American citizens, thinks "every American" should read "A Death in the Family".
"I can tell you Knoxville, Tennessee, is a big part of what it is to be an American," he said. "And this story really uncovers from the point of the view -- it seems from the point of view of a child but it's the writer's point of view -- when he was a little boy going through a major family trauma and realizing who he is, where he comes from, why he feels compelled to tell this story.
"And I just know that everyone's going to feel it when they see it."
"Knoxville" runs at the Asolo through May 11.
The cast includes Jason Danieley, who has been on Broadway in shows such as "Pretty Woman" and "The Visit", as James Agee, and Hannah Elless, who starred on Broadway in "Bright Star", as Mary Follett.
Other cast members include Paul Alexander Nolan as Jay Follett, Ellen Harvey as Aunt Hannah Lynch and Jack Casey as young Rufus Follett (representing Agee as a boy in the novel).
Edwards thinks the tunes are highly accessible and the story eminently relatable.
The pandemic has been hard on the nation and the world. But there's hope, Edwards said.
"It feels incredibly right that our response to getting through the pandemic as a community and as a country is to create this brand-new, American musical, which reminds us of everything that is good and decent about what it is to be an American," he said.
"I feel we need it at this moment, so thank you, Knoxville."
Edwards said it's hard to predict what will happen to the musical after Asolo. Some "very big producers" are coming down from New York to see the show, he said.
"We all hope it will have a life beyond this. What that life is we don't know. It is certainly going to have a life beyond this, but as regards what happens to this production, this particular one that we're producing, I don't know.
"But fingers crossed, it could come to Knoxville."
