Ask Bill Clause, of good-hearted nonprofits KKFI 90.1 and CrossCurrents Culture, how he came to write 1937: A Helluva Year, a musical steeped in the history of Kansas City and the labor movement, and he can't help but start time-lining. "When you look back at history, there are certain watershed years," he explained to The Pitch this week.
And then there's 1937, when the watershed was here.
"It's not as well known, because labor history is not as well known," Clause says. "But in 1937 A. Philip Randolph -- the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters - came to the Paseo Baptist Church to sign the first collective bargaining agreement with an all-black union. Randolph would later be a significant organizer of Martin Luther King's march on Washington that led to the 'I Have a Dream' speech."
The surprise success of an all-black union after a 12-year strike is just the first of the great labor victories chronicled in 1937's stories and songs by a cast of almost 20. (Judy Clause directs.)
"That same year, at the Winchester plant on Winchester Avenue, Kansas City saw the first sit-down strike against the Ford Motor Company. That was Local 249, which just last week voted down an agreement to give up yet more concessions, and it was the beginning of what became the UAW sit-down strikes. Ford swore that he'd never recognize them, and it wasn't until '41 that he did."
Now, the Local is considering a strike -- perhaps an action that could be set to music in 2089.
Clause adds, "We portray how deadening and dehumanizing the assembly line was. But our job as entertainers is to tell this with songs and humor. I don't think the show comes across as didactic."
Back in '37, theater folk were, like Clause, concerned with the quandary of accurately presenting workers' lives onstage while still putting on worthy shows. That brings him to a third piece of 1937 history: the New York debut of Pins and Needles, a musical worked up by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and starring rank-and-file workers. "Everybody thought it couldn't succeed," Clause says, "but it ran for four years."
Clause's show runs just two weeks. It includes songs from Needles and Pins as well as inspiration: first-time performers onstage beside seasoned veterans, real people presenting real life.
The show runs at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through November 21 at Just Off Broadway Theatre (3051 Central). Tickets are available here or at the theater.
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