A jitterbug love story woven between the lives and times of legendary black entertainers, black and white thugs, and the common man in swinging 1930's Harlem. Based on my award-winning play.

SYNOPSIS:

The time is spring, 1931. The place, Harlem. BILLY RHYTHM, the quintessential American who never gives up, has returned a failure. He had been away trying to make it as a dancer on the Theatre Owners Booking Association circuit, the Negro Vaudeville, but the Depression wasn’t cooperating. He ignores his failure by dancing into the “Land of Darkness” where he has a chance encounter with a tall, beautiful woman. THARBIS will haunt his dreams until he sees her again.

First stop is the Comedy Club, a front for a gambling house, located behind the LaFayette Theatre off Lenox Avenue. He finds his old friend CANDY there and his nemesis, HERBERT WHITE, founder of his gang, the Jolly Fellows. White is furious with Billy for leaving his fold without his blessing at a time when they needed his dancing skills. He puts Billy “on ice” with the gang. Without a gang to help and protect him, life in Harlem will become even harder. But Candy secretly helps him find a place to live. MISS THELMA, the landlord who rents him a bed in her tenement, and her boarders will become a sounding board for his dreams and a compass for his heart.

In his effort to find work, he goes from one Harlem nightspot to another. He meets legendary performers such as KING RASTUS BROWN, EDDIE RECTOR, BILLIE HOLIDAY, and BOJANGLES. (In one incident, Bojangles challenges Billy to “trade fours” in the back room of the Comedy Club. This small room was known to dancers as the “Hoofer’s Club,” the unacknowledged headquarters of American tap dance from the 1920’s through the 40’s.)

With Bojangles help, Billy is sent to the Cotton Club where he lands a gig and enters a world of gangland violence and finds love. He meets an unknown 22-year-old named CAB CALLOWAY who has just replaced DUKE ELLINGTON at the club. And Billy finally finds the girl of his dreams. Tharbis is one of the “Copper Colored Gals” who dances in the chorus line. They team up to compete in a dance contest sponsored by the Cotton Club for “all of Harlem.”

But their fictional lives are touched by the ugly reality of the city and its times. Nightly funeral processions behind horse drawn carts will carry their dead friends and foretell one of their futures. Black and white gangland violence permeates the city, the only difference between the two is in the matter in which it is carried out: one chooses a knife, the other a machine gun.

Billy and Tharbis enter the contest at the Savoy Ballroom under threat from White and the Jolly Fellows. CHICK WEBB has just wiped young Calloway’s band off the double-bandstand adding electricity to the already highly charged atmosphere. The Savoy is packed. Even OWNEY MADDEN and BIG FRENCHY DEMANGE, mobster owners of the Cotton Club, have come to see the dance contest. Over 500 people have come to dance but only two couples will meet in the final showdown: Billy and Tharbis, who represent the Cotton Club and are expected by their mob bosses to win, and SHORTY SNOWDEN and BIG BEA, legendary jitterbug dancers representing the Jolly Fellows. When Billy and Tharbis start throwing in new and rarely seen “air steps,” White orders the Jolly Fellows standing on the sidelines to slash and cut Billy and Tharbis with knives and razors as they pass. Bleeding, their clothes shredded, Billy and Tharbis dig deeper and pull out dance steps that are so mind blowing that they win over not only the crowd, but the Jolly Fellows too. Still, winning the dance contest isn’t enough. Finding their exit blocked as they try to leave the Savoy, Billy and Tharbis, barely able to stand, bravely stand up one more time to White and Big Frenchy DeMange with a few well chosen words that shock and inspire the crowd to help them escape. Staggering onto the sidewalk, holding on and supporting each other, Billy and Tharbis walk unsteadily into the black night.