The Mountains Are Burning
Updates
Over the past several years we have received feedback on The Mountains Are Burning from theatre professionals, conducted readings to test the piece and gauge audience response, and reworked the book and music. (See our development chronology below.) We are now …
- Seeking theatre companies, university theatre departments, and other creatives to partner with us on further development.
- Exploring outside-the-box options for presenting the material and investigating grant opportunities.
Contact me to work with us or learn more!
DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES TO DATE
Initial Development
- Song presentation at a local cultural center. Positive audience response encouraged us to continue work on the project.
- Dramaturgical feedback on first draft.
- First table read with eight actors using song demo recordings.
Continued Refinement
- Revisions of book and music based on feedback from first table read.
- Second table read, again with eight actors and using song demo recordings.
- Script consultations with director/dramaturg over six months.
- Additional book reworking; three new songs added.
Public Presentation
- First staged reading to the public at a local cultural center (2024) with post-show audience talkback.
- Directed by Laurence Ruth with cast of ten actor-singers and piano and guitar accompaniment.
Current Progress
- Extensive revisions based on feedback from Fall 2024 staged reading.
- Third table read to test revised script and additional lyrics with ten actors (including author and composer) reading the latest script and singing live.
The Mountains Are Burning
A Musical Theater Piece Inspired by Historical Events
Book & Lyrics by Mary Ellen Bernard
Music by Paul Guzzone
The year is 1902. The simmering discontent among Pennsylvania miners is about to ignite into a tumultuous five-month strike. On one side: the iron-fisted coal barons. On the other: 140,000 men roused to action by a fiery union organizer.
Caught in the middle is a striving family man forced to battle with his conscience; his wife and daughter, who learn the power of their own voices; and a reckless maverick whose actions place his best friend in desperate circumstances.
The Mountains Are Burning is a timely and ageless tale of the poor versus the powerful. Brimming with high energy and a dose of black humor, it brings to life a community of American immigrants who toiled to make their way in a country that held both promise and disappointment.
With music and lyrics that draw on ethnic and American folk influences, this new musical weaves themes of friendship, family, love, loyalty, loss, and betrayal into a story that is compelling, emotionally moving, and all too reflective of our times.
principal Characters
- Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, the audacious labor activist and electrifying speaker who descends upon the area to organize for the nascent United Mine Workers of America.
- Ziggy Boyarski, experienced miner, uneducated but innately intelligent. A no-nonsense, hard worker who plays by the rules, he is forced into a battle for his soul and his conscience.
- Zosia Boyarski, Ziggy’s wife, an elegant woman making the most of her crude surroundings while longing for the idyllic life of her childhood in Poland.
- Magda Boyarski, their smart and strong-willed daughter, who shares both her mother’s romanticism and her father’s sense of justice.
- Seamus “Riley” O’Riley, Ziggy’s best friend, mining buddy – and his opposite – he is gregarious, high-spirited, and unrestrained, with a strong militant streak.
- Patrick O’Riley, Riley’s younger brother, a dreamer and a charmer, newly emigrated from Ireland.
The Mountains Are Burning: Origin Story
The Mountains Are Burning, a musical theater piece, is loosely based on historical events in and around my hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania – namely, the immigrant experience and the labor activism among coal miners and their families at the dawn of the 20th century.
I was first inspired by a visit to Eckley Miners’ Village Museum in Weatherly, PA, which brought back stories I had heard as a child. While walking the exhibits filled with everything from pickaxes, head lamps and sign-in boards (to keep track of who went into the mine – and who came out), something clicked. I had seen some of these objects in my father’s cluttered garage without understanding their significance.
I suddenly understood that I had grown up on hallowed ground. The sweat and blood of those who came before, including my grandparents, was – and is still – in the soil. As immigrants who traded one brand of misery for another, they worked harder than we could ever imagine. They built a country that often gave them little in return. And they did so with determination, humor, and grace. Only after several generations were the fruits of their labor to be enjoyed. I felt that their story should be told – and that it was a story that could sing.
A secondary source of inspiration was Bruce Springsteen’s joyous Seeger Sessions Tour, in which he performed raucous arrangements of songs made famous by that iconic folk artist and activist as well as other classic Americana songs. Hearing music from these earlier eras arranged and played with a gutsy 21st-century energy was in my mind as I left Eckley Village with the thought of putting these miners and their families into a piece of musical theater.
When we left the museum, I told my husband Paul that this would make a great musical. He responded: “So, write it.” And here we are.