RAISING CAIN

Updates

INTERVIEW:  WVIA Radio
Mary Ellen Bernard visited her hometown NPR station to discuss her musical and its creation with WVIA Arts Editor Erika Funke. LISTEN HERE!

NEW TITLE: The Mountains Are Burning is now RAISING CAIN. 

OUTREACH: NEPA Theatres & Colleges
We have been seeking a creative partner to help us bring the show to its place of origin. We look forward to working with an organization in Northeast PA to present Raising Cain for an audience who will viscerally connect with the story and its historical significance. CONTACT ME to work with us or learn more!

DEVELOPMENT 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.

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. 

Further Refinement

    • 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.

raising cain

A TIMELY NEW AMERICAN FOLK MUSICAL
Book & Lyrics by Mary Ellen Bernard • Music by Paul Guzzone

   1902. Simmering discontent among Pennsylvania miners ignites into a tumultuous five-month strike. Iron-fisted coal barons meet 140,000 men roused to labor activism by fiery union organizer Mother Jones and the women who join her crusade.

At the center is a striving second-generation immigrant caught between his wife and daughter’s zeal for change and the desperate circumstances created by his reckless best friend.

With music and lyrics that draw on ethnic and American folk influences, Raising Cain weaves themes of friendship, family, love, loyalty, and loss into a compelling and ageless tale of the poor versus the powerful.

Origin Story

Raising Cain (formerly The Mountains Are Burning) 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. They arrived as immigrants in an America that held both promise and disappointment for those who sought its refuge. 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.

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.