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Quilters

Full-Length Musical, Drama  /  7w plus ensemble

By Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek
Music and Lyrics by Barbara Damashek
Based on The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen

This joyous and moving celebration of American womanhood combines music, dance, movement and scenes of vivid dramatic intensity as it pays eloquent tribute to the courage and spirit of our nation’s pioneering women.

Quilters

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    7w plus ensemble
  • Duration
    Duration
    More than 120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Accolades
Accolades

  • Winner! 1984 Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival
    Nominee: 1985 Tony Award for Best Musical
    Nominee: 1985 Tony Award for Best Original Score: (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
    Nominee: 1985 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
    Quilters was also recognized by Time Magazine as one of the top ten theatre productions of the year.

Quilters

Details

Summary

The story of a pioneer woman and her six daughters, Quilters blends a series of interrelated scenes into a rich mosaic capturing the sweep and beauty, the terror and joy, the harsh challenge and abiding rewards of frontier life. Illuminating stories contained in various patches or “blocks” with music, dance and drama, the action depicts the lot of women on the frontier: girlhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness and death. But, with this, there is also love, warmth, lively humor and the moving spectacle of simple human dignity in the face of adversity. In the end, when the various patches are assembled into one glorious, brilliantly colourful quilt, the effect is both breathtaking and magical – a theatrical masterstroke that will linger in the mind and memory long after the house lights have dimmed.

History

After its 1982 world premiere at the Denver Center Theater, Quilters premiered on Broadway at the Jack Lawrence Theatre on 25 September 1984. Directed by Barbara Damashek, the production featured Lenka Peterson as Sarah, with Evalyn Baron, Marjorie Berman, Alma Cuervo, Lynn Lobban, Rosemary McNamara and Jennifer Parsons as the Daughters.

Cast Attributes
Keywords
Performing Groups

SARAH – The mother
THE DAUGHTERS – Six young women

MUSICIANS, DAUGHTERS and SONS

  • Time Period Wild West, 19th Century
  • Setting

    The American West. 19th century.

  • Features Period Costumes
  • Duration More than 120 minutes (2 hours)

Media

“Quilters is a show pieced together with love and stitched with pride… a thing of beauty, comfort and joy.” – New York Post 

“Who would have thought that quilts, quilting – quilters – had so much joy and pain, laughter and tears, so much life, beauty and drama in them?” – Drama-Logue

“An unqualified success, as bright as the colors used in the quilts themselves.” – Hollywood Reporter

“The script is divided loosely into 16 sections or ‘blocks,’ dealing with such themes as childbirth, school days, windmills, courtship, weddings, country roads, religion and even log cabins. At the start of each section, one of the actresses unfolds a piece of quilting, which incorporates that particular concern into its design.” – Washington Post

“A tender and moving theatre work, a human patchwork rippling in the breeze of memory.” – Newsweek

Music

Act I

#1. “Overture” – Instrumental
#2. “Pieces of Lives” – Jenny, Company
#3. “Rocky Road” – Woman Six
#3a. “Wagon Scene” – Instrumental
#3b. “Dugout Prologue” – Instrumental
#4. “Little Babes” – Katie, Woman
#5. “Thread the Needle” – Woman One, Sarah, Company
#5a. “Childbirth” – Instrumental
#6. “Cornelia Song” – Child One, Child Five, Company
#7. “Windmill” – Frankie, June, Blades, Sarah, Company
#7a. “Red Calico Wagon Ride” – Instrumental
#8. “Washed in the Blood/Have You Been to Jesus?” – Company, Joy
#9. “The Butterfly Song” – Nurse, Offstage Voice
#10. “Pieces of Children’s Lives” – Company
#11. “Green, Green, Green” – Lily, Cyrus, Miss Jesse, Company
#11a. “Four Doves” – Instrumental
#12. “The Needle’s Eye” – Company, Pru, Aunt Mattie, Lavinia, Molly

Act II

#12a. “Entr’acte” – Instrumental
#12b. “The Lone Star Waltz” – Instrumental
#13. “Quiltin’ and Dreamin’” – Lou Ann, Company
#14. “Pieces of Lives/Double Wedding Rings” – Company, Cowboy John, Lou Ann
#14a. “Secret Drawer” – Instrumental
#15. “Every Log in My House” – Company
#16. “Never Grow Old Prologue” – Instrumental
#16a. “Who Will Count the Stiches” – Sarah
#16b. “Never Grow Old” – Emily, Company
#17. “Crosses and Losses/The Lord Don’t Rain Down Manna” – Company
#18. “Dandelion” – Two Women, Company
#18a. “Tree of Life Waltz” – Instrumental
#19. “Everything Has a Tune” – Company, Sarah, Two Others
#20. “Pieces of Lives/Hands, All Hands Around” – Company

Licensing & Materials

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Authors

Barbara Damashek

Barbara Damashek
Barbara Damashek is best known as the director, composer/lyricist, and co-author of QULITERS, for which she received three Tony nominations in 1985. Her next music theatre work built on oral histories, WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN, was about the homeless, and was a finalist in the 198 ...
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Molly Newman

Molly Newman
Molly Newman began her playwriting career as co-author of QUILTERS, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award and a Helen Hayes Award. QUILTERS and her second play, SHOOTING STARS, have both been published by Dramatists Play Service and have been produced on the mainstages ...
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