Sweets songhouse - A play with music

Sweets Songhouse is located at the end of a narrow alley on the island of Galveston in Texas. The island was a bustling port in 1865, laying in the Gulf Coast, equidistant between New Orleans and Mexico. It was full of foreign born seamen and businessmen from all over. Sweet's songhouse features his “Spices”, girls he introduces as being from the four corners of the Earth, in shows in the evening. The girls are then auctioned to the highest bidder for time in the “cribs”, in the back of the songhouse. 

Through the play we spend a few days with the women, and become familiar with them, their friendships and relationships. They are representative of the creole and mestizo Americans that naturally inhabit these borderlands. We see their craftsmanship, as they make balms and tonics, design costumes, write and practice songs, and choreograph for the evening’s shows. 

Galveston was one of the last stands of the Confederacy. During the days we spend in Sweets Songhouse the women become aware that legal slavery has ended, though unsure of their legal status, they are sure of their desire to be free. Life at Sweet’s is the only life most of them have known, but they realize together that if they desire to truly live their freedom must be taken. 

The play was developed with actors in a workshop format at The New L.A Collective space in Hollywood, California. The play was also developed with feedback from industry audiences after two staged readings. In the latest draft, as an intentional way of focusing attention on the female relationships and inner lives of the characters and away from their exploiters, the male characters in these positions are now represented by puppets on stage. Carmen is currently seeking funding and grants to hire a composer and songwriter to complete the musical components of the play.