The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith

George Street Playhouse presents Angelo Parra’s The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, with Miche Braden recreating the title role. Joe Brancato directs.

Braden, who is also the show’s musical director and arranger, is joined on stage by a pianist, bassist and sax player.

The Devil’s Music opens with a voice-over by Smith’s upright bass player Pickle. The night is the eve of Smith’s tragic death in a car accident in September 1937. Bessie Smith has just walked out of an engagement at a swank supper club after they wouldn’t let her enter through the front door. She makes her way to the setting of the show – a "buffet-flat," – a den of music, gambling, food and sex, where she proceeds to regale her audience with tales from her life and her many loves – both male and female – and losses, most notably that of her son in a custody battle with a vengeful ex-husband.