A family musical
by Mary Hall Surface & David Maddox

Production details
Reviews
Authors' Notes

For performance rights information, contact Dramatic Publishing
at 815-338-7170 or email

Sing Down the Moon:
Appalachian Wonder Tales

Conceived by Mary Hall Surface and David Maddox
Book by Mary Hall Surface
Lyrics by Mary Hall Surface and David Maddox
Music by David Maddox


Journey into the Appalachians with clever Jack, the mysterious Catskins, the Sow's three pigs and the hungry fox, and find your heart's desire in the arms of the Enchanted Tree. This new Southern musical deftly weaves traditional tales and original music into a keepsake quilt of mountain lore and wisdom for the whole family.

Six Appalachian stories adapted for the stage:
Jack and the Wonder Bean
Catskins (a version of Cinderella)
Jack's First Job (a comedy about a boy trying to earn some money)
The Sow and Her Three Pigs (a nine minutes sung-through version)
Jack of Hearts and King Marock (an epic romantic adventure)
The Enchanted Tree (a version of Beauty and the Beast, only with a crow and tree).

Length: Stories may be mixed and matched to create shows of different lengths, up to approximately 85 minutes.
Cast of nine (5 men, 4 women),
but can be reduced by doubling and (if fewer than six stories are being performed) choice of stories.
Band of four** (fiddle, bass, piano, guitar/banjo double)
(**An excellent recording of the score is available for rental).

Commissioned and first produced by Theater of the First Amendment in Fairfax, VA.

A Cast Album is available from the premiere production, from AMAZON.COM

Five Helen Hayes Award nominations! Including Best Musical, Best New Play, Best Music Direcion, and Best Direction. And starring Dwayne Nitz, 2001 winner of the Helen Hayes for Best Lead Actor in a Resident Musical.

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Authors' Notes

Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tales was created after reading over 200 folk tales, legends, ghost stories and "wonder tales" from the Appalachian region. We finally chose to adapt to the stage five wonder tales--so called because they include a supernatural character--and one classic animal tale. None of the stories in our play are direct transcriptions of authentic tales, but rather, in the folk tradition, are our retellings of those tales.

Just as the Appalachian settlers grafted together stories from their native England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany, we took elements from a number of different tellings of the tales to tap their deep archetypical resonances, as well as to have a rollicking good time. The style of the piece demands imaginative, fluid direction and staging. The world of the play is complicated and any attempt to be too realistic would sink the production. We found that the most theatrical and simple solutions were the most effective. We chose to create a giant using two actors -- one holding a giant paper-mache head above and behind an actress who manipulated giant hands coming from poles at her waist. Our beanstalk was four actors standing along a rising platform, each offering his/her hand to Jack to propel him energetically "up the bean stalk." Our giant's quilt was three pieces of fabric covered with shiny coins that were manipulated by three actors to suggest the giant's breathing. Catskins flew by standing on a four-foot platform, her viel billowing behind her, while the ghost of her adoptive mother manipulated a white bird on a pole "flying" along with her. The cow, dog and donkey in "Jack's First Job" were all created by a single actor with the addition of one simple costume piece (a cow bell, a red-tie for the puppy's tongue, a donkey-harness). In the "Sow and her Three Pigs" the houses for the pigs were 18" tall, carried by the actresses, and were "fiddy-faddied" down by the Fox pulling their rooves off, causing the walls to fall and reveal a miniature puppet-pig inside. The herd of wild horses in "Jack of Hearts and King Marock" were four actors manipulating six folk-art inspired horse heads woven with raffia. The sailboat was just a mast and sail; the canoe a prow with blue streamers. The wolves in "The Enchanted Tree" wore masks made of twisted brambles and twigs, as if the forest itself was alive.

An important note about the text: Characters speak not only as themselves but about themselves. It is crucial that the actors do not change to a "narrator's" persona in these sections. Rather, they must remain the character experiencing what he/she is describing.

Like the folk tales themselves, the traditional music of the Appalachians is evolved from the music of the settlerÕs original homes in Europe, particularly the British Isles. Appalachian dance music, called "Old-Time," sounds vaguely like Irish or Scottish music that has been boiled and combed. It is a very rythmic music that bubbles and cascades forward with fiddles, banjos, and guitars (although, oddly for its Celtic roots, no flutes). It is not Bluegrass, a later American form that among other differences employs a dramatically different banjo technique. Old recordings of Old-Time are exemplified by "Uncle Dave Macon and his Fruit Jar Drinkers," or "Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers." Modern recordings include "Highwoods String Band" and the "Horseflies." Traditional Appalachian singing, often associated with church service, is rich with harmony. Futher examples of Appalachian musicÕs roots in the British Isles are found in ballads such as "Barabara Allen" and "Little Musgrove", which are common in America and little changed from versions found Great Britain and Ireland. These are the elements that form the spine of the music in Sing Down the Moon.

While not a musical, the play contains substantial singing--every actor sings, several in featured songs--and there is music almost continously, with tight and complicated interaction with the text. The music should not be treated as incidental, since it is really another character on stage, interacting in rapid dialog with the actors. The music is not exclusively Old-Time, but draws from Old-Time and "theater music" styles to create something that serves the world of the play. There are moments of traditional dance music, song, and melodic underscoring. The band includes fiddle, upright bass, piano and a guitar/banjo double, supplemented by actors playing percussion instruments. The fiddle part is especially demanding in that it calls for the player to be strong as both an Old-Time (with its unique rythmic bowing) and lyric player--that is, the fiddler needs the right hand of an Old-Time player and the left hand of a classical player.

We are both from the Appalachian region--Mary Hall from Kentucky and David from North Carolina--and were drawn to this subject naturally. It is a rich and complicated culture, full of a dark beauty born of hardship, history, and, most importantly, people. It is full of colors and shafts of light, of music and singing and nature always ready to reclaim any new clearing. It is a mountainous region full of the paradox of limitless vistas and claustrophobic hollers. It is a place overflowing with craft and imagination.

Mary Hall Surface and David Maddox
Washington, DC

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Praise for

"Something magical."
THE REVIEW

"Excellent entertainment for all ages, offering adventure, romance, drama and comedy."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

"Best bet...absolutely delightful."
WETA's "Around Town"

"Maddox and Surface work in close harmony...The words-and-music story telling style is admirably tight and colorful."
WASHINGTON POST

"From daylight to magical darkness to moon glow, [this play] celebrates the power to transcend the problems of life and to succeed by using one's wits."
THE REVIEW

"A smartly performed, appealing new work."
WASHINGTON POST

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