Diamond and the North Wind
Florida Festival of New Musicals
Book by Jeffrey Haddow
Lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow & Thomas Tierney
Music by Thomas Tierney
Directed by Michael Edwards
Musical Direction by Christopher Leavy
Starring Monica Titus, Fletch Working-McDaniel, and Michael Colavolpe
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park, FL
These comments are based on a developmental reading. The final script may be significantly different.
Sara (Titus) finds herself widowed and working for the nearly broke Coleman (Benjamin Walton). He’s on the edge of losing his horse farm to the evil Tobias Blunt (Michael Colavolpe) who want to wipe out the horse a replace them with motor cards. She and her son Diamond (Dworkinn) exist on the edge of starvation; she allows him to spend the night in the frigid horse barn where he meets “The North Wind” (Patrece Bloomfield), a spirit guide. She takes him on flights to see the other poor Londoners, and then she destroys a ship and kills all the sailors for no clear reason. Is this a magical Uber ride with no moral compass? Or am I missing something subtle? Still, while we only see the first act of this story, it feels complete and might stand on its own. Part of its charm comes from the strong cast, but it also leads us through a child’s view of making the painful transition from mom’s care to acting on his own. The show is technical complex but gripping, and there a great comic sequence when Blunt’s thugs do a Three Stooges-style comedy act. This show promises a great second act but requires clever or expensive technical work that may be out of reach to small theaters.
