In a staged reading of this new musical, John Brown, who in 1859 became the first person in the nation executed for treason, climbs out of his grave where he was hanged, into the present, only to be rearrested and threatened with another hanging.

As his trial unwinds, the past and the present merge as Brown’s inspiring story is told through humor, music, mystery, and drama – depicting a feverishly charged moment in history that reverberates in today’s political climate. As the plot twists, Brown’s escape plans lead to an unexpected alliance between White and Black farmers hoping to save their land from the Smoke and Mirrors pipeline company and its CEO, King Louie. 

The playwright, Gene Bruskin, spent 45 years as a labor union organizer and has written three musicals for and about working-class people since his retirement, “This musical tale connects yesterday’s battles to the need to challenge the enduring destructiveness of racism today.”

The first show will debut on April 26 in Baltimore, followed by a show on April 27 in Washington, DC. The next weekend on May 4 and 5, the play will be featured at the Kennedy Farm, the Harpers Ferry, WV area location where John Brown staged his famous anti-slavery raid.