The Scottsboro Boys at SpeakEasy

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In this, their final collaboration, legendary songwriting team John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago) bring to light one of the most infamous events in American history: the shocking true story of nine African American boys jailed in Alabama in 1931 for a crime they did not commit. Featuring a mix of gospel, jazz, and vaudeville, this audacious musical The Scottsborro Boys uses the construct of a minstrel show to tell the harrowing true story that provoked a national outrage and helped launch the American civil rights movement.

Click HERE to watch a video preview.

The story of the Scottsboro Boys does not fit an easy narrative arc: it is a decade-spanning struggle involving more than a dozen key players and a seemingly endless parade of trials, verdicts, appeals and Supreme Court rulings. Even when the nine men at the center of the story were released from prison, none of them were left truly “free,” as their experiences haunted them for the rest of their lives. The timeline HERE highlights a few of the many twists and turns the story took as the nation looked on.

The Scottsboro Boys will be at Speakeasy Stage Company through Nov. 26.