A NYC Minute--

A Brief JB Reunion on Broadway

Actor Ian Barford flanked by
the biographers 

Author, Author!  All Step Back and Give
Me a Photo Op with EC

Last week, Michele and I had the pleasure of seeing a performance of the smash hit, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," a British play that is now doing quite well here in the States. I'm no theater critic, but the play was tremendous and really exceeded all that I had heard about it. 

What made the experience the more enjoyable was that my good friend and fellow JB enthusiast, Ian Barford, is one of the lead cast members of the Broadway production.  Ian and I strolled the streets of Harper's Ferry on the 150th anniversary of the raid, making film and talking into the night about the Old Man, his raiders, and the failure that became successful in its own way.  In a sense, that conversation has never really ended, although there was no time for such chatter following the play, when Ian welcomed us at the stage door to greet him.

Happily, we were shortly joined by Evan Carton, author of the masterful, Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America, who was also at the play with his family.  Recall that the film rights for Patriotic Treason have been purchased for a proposed movie starring Giancarlo Esposito as Fred Douglass and Ed Harris as the Old Man, and we hope that the screenplay writer will be as fair and thoughtful as Dr. Carton.