Philippa

PHILIPPA is a full length, two-act musical about Harlem Renaissance-born child prodigy Philippa Duke Schuyler. We highlight her struggles as a mixed-race pianist, composer, author and journalist, and her internal war with herself around owning her blackness. The themes are otherness, in-between-ness, and self-acceptance. PHILIPPA will have a unique sound, blending Schuyler’s original music (we obtained the rights from the Schuyler Family Estate to use her music and correspondence, and scanned hundreds of archived materials from the Schomburg Institute in Harlem) with our own original music and contemporary styles. While we’ll honor her compositions and ensure we present her work authentically, we’ll enhance her music to bring it to modern audiences. We may use her melodies or chords and write lyrics to complement them. We’ll also write brand new songs as needed, resulting in a vibrant cross-genre, cross-generational mashup score. While we intend to share Philippa's struggles as a mixed race celebrity, we also want to share a story of resilience, tenacity and hope. In spite of her challenges, she overcame adversity and reinvented herself numerous times - from pianist and composer to diplomat and journalist. She excelled in everything she put her mind to. That said, her life ended in tragedy when she drowned in Da Nang Bay, Vietnam after her military helicopter crashed during a war mission rescuing Vietnamese orphans. We begin her story with her drowning, then rewind to the past to let her story unfold to the present moment. The goal is to have a full production by the 100-year anniversary of Philippa’s birth in 2031.