num_pages: 45
description: Play script adapted by Nancy Niles Sexton, Vaughn McBride &amp; Martha Harrison Jones. John Jacob Niles, considered a pioneer of the American folk music renaissance, collected, composed and performed music early settlers brought with them to the Southern Appalachian Mountains from their native lands. This play examines the first stirrings of Niles s youthful experience in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Louisville, Kentucky that was to shape the genius destined to -sing to the earth, the mother who bore me.- The play includes some of Niles s most famous poetry and songs, such as BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR, GO WAY FROM MY WINDOW and I WONDER AS I WANDER. The play was premiered by Walden Theatre and filmed for an Educational Television special for national viewing. Simple, tourable setting. 7 F , 6 M, 3 children. (Cast size may be reduced with doubling or expanded to include a chorus, if desired.) Score is available from the publisher.From the ballads sung to him as a child by his father, Johnnie Niles learns the joy of a good story. When Johnnie goes off to school at age six, he finds education quite different from the -cultural benefits- his father provides through his soothing songs and poems. He soon finds that a cultural experience is better had by riding next to Jake on the -Honey Wagon, which carries no honey- by watching Elephant Thorpe create a toxic -elephant stew,- or by enduring an unappreciative audience at his first attempt to win a singing contest. But it is from Heidie Moore that young Johnnie Niles learns -singing is weeping in disguise.- It is his love for her that inspires some of his best poetry and songs, for she challenges him to turn out the best that is in you! Niles s heartbreakingly beautiful poetry and songs move this bittersweet story of growing up with pluck and grace to the play s lingering rumination, I WONDER AS I WANDER.
language: English
title: My Days As a Youngling, John Jacob Niles: The Early Years
titlecomplete: My Days As a Youngling, John Jacob Niles: The Early Years
publisher: Anchorage Pr