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| Vol. 17, No. 20 | Feb. 19, 1998 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 20 | Feb. 19, 1998 |
Delaware's Railroad to Freedom is a celebration of the Delaware Underground Railroad, which conducted fugitive slaves to freedom in the North.
Scheduled for performances at schools throughout the state, the musical will be performed on campus at 8 p.m., Friday, March 13, in the Bacchus Theatre of the Perkins Student Center.
The musical production, commissioned by the Delaware Humanities Forum in honor of its 25th anniversary, has been written, compiled and directed by Scott F. Mason, Trabant University Center, and Joyce Hill Stoner, art conservation.
The talented UD duo has collaborated on several other musicals, including First Vote, a documentary musical on women's suffrage in the First State, also for the forum. This past summer, their musical, Roswell Follies, was accepted for the New York International Fringe Festival and played again off-Broadway at the Triad Cabaret Theatre.
The new documentary musical focuses on Thomas Garrett, Wilmington's Quaker underground railroad "station master," who aided more than 2,700 slaves in their flight to freedom. Garrett was the model for Simeon Halliday for Harriet Beecher Stowe-who also is portrayed in the show-in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Harriet Tubman, who escorted family members and other fugitives to freedom in the North, is another major character.
Tubman could follow the North Star while leading her charges through the forest at night and sings Stoner's song "The Eye of God Is in the Northern Sky."
Other characters in the show include William Still, the "father of the Underground Railroad"; Henry "Box" Brown, who had himself crated and shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia; the notorious Patty Cannon, who murdered slaves and slave traders alike and others.
Other public performances for Delaware's Railroad to Freedom, all free and beginning at 8 p.m., will be given in Wilmington on Feb. 27 at Howard High School; Feb. 28 at the Historical Society of Delaware; March 7 at Cab Callaway School for Arts; in Dover on March 6 at Delaware State University; and in Georgetown, March 14 at Delaware Technical and Community College.
For further information, call 633-2400 or 1-800-752-2060.
-Sue Swyers Moncure
