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LE COMTE NOIR

a movie musical
manhattan school of music

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filmed amid the uncertainty of the COVID19 pandemic

in the fall of 2020, the production & design team devised new ways of collaborating, rehearsing and filming the new musical.

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Le Comte Noir is a new musical about

the man who changed the face of the French Revolution, and the son who struggled to keep that legacy from being erased. It follows famed novelist Alexandre Dumas’ attempt to finish his latest novel while suffering crippling writer’s block. To complete it, he must reconcile his father’s history as a Haitian-born son of a French nobleman and a slave, and his journey to become a leader of the French Revolution and rival to Napoleon.

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The musical fuses classical influences

and Afro-Haitian music and dance, while exploring the author Dumas’ unresolved questions of identity, democracy, and legacy.

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credits

music and lyrics by Charles Vincent Burwell
book and lyrics by James D. Sasser
directed by Catie Davis
choreography by André Zachery
costumes by Martin Lara
video production by: Super Awesome Friends
additional videography by David Givens and André Zachery

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