American actor and playwright Randy Noojin's tribute to folk musician Woody Guthrie closes out the first half of Thompson's Home Routes season Nov. 22.
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, who died from complications from Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder at the age of 55 on Oct. 3, 1967, frequently performed with the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" displayed on his guitar. His best-known songs include the working class anthems "Bound for Glory" and "This Land Is Your Land."
Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen all say they were influenced by Woody Guthrie, who travelled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs were about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." He was also the father of American folk musician Arlo Guthrie.
Noojin's solo play with music, Hard Travelin' With Woody, a one-man show, had its world premiere in the New York International Fringe Festival and has since toured the United States and Canada since 2011, and equates the conditions of Depression-era America with those of today, calling for class solidarity, protest, action and a united front against the greed and selfishness of the rich, transforming Guthrie's appearance at a benefit for striking miners in 1940 into a present day call to arms.
Noojin's Hard Travelin' With Woody show at Tim and Jean Cameron's place at 206 Campbell Dr. starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $20. For more information give Tim or Jean a call at 204-677-3574 or send them an e-mail at: cameron8@mymts.net
Before bringing Hard Travelin' With Woody out on the Home Routes' Borealis Trail, with other stops beside Thompson between Nov. 16 and Nov. 29 in Flin Flon, The Pas and Minitonas and Swan River Valley in Manitoba and in Saskatchewan, Buena Vista, Annaheim, Prince Albert, Napatak, Melfort and Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, Noojin performed at the Edge Center For The Arts in Bigfork, Minnesota on Nov. 9.
Performers typically do 11 shows in 14 days at their stops along the Borealis Trail.
Other circuits on Home Routes include the Yukon Trail; Salmon-Berry in British Columbia; Cherry Bomb and Blue Moon in British Columbia and Alberta; Chautauqua Trail in Saskatchewan and Alberta; CCN SK in Saskatchewan; Central Plains in Saskatchewan and Manitoba; Jeanne Bernardin in Manitoba, Agassiz in Manitoba and Ontario; Estelle-Klein in Ontario and Québec and the Maritimes in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Noojin began working on stage at Lake Central High School's Theatre Guild (LCTG) in St. John, Indiana. He majored in theatre as an undergraduate at Indiana State University. Noojin holds an MFA in Acting from Arizona State University and an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa's playwrights workshop, where he wrote The Knife Trick, Just Say Something and The Complaint, which won the Maibaum Playwriting Award for plays dealing with social justice issues.
After college, Noojin began a 30-year working relationship as actor and playwright with Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART) in Mars Hill, North Carolina.
On television, Noojin has been featured on Boardwalk Empire and Royal Pains. His independent films include The Bench, Evil Things and HomeJacked Productions' Die Barkley, a 20:34 short film by Tarrytown, New York's Alex Gonzalez.
Michael Giltz, an award-winning freelance writer based in New York, writing in the Huffington Post Aug. 18, 2011 about the debut of Hard Travelin' With Woody at the New York International Fringe Festival two years ago, said, "Noojin avoids imitation but captures the spirit of Woody as he describes the mouthful of a name Woody had growing up (Woodrow Wilson Guthrie), his social awakening as a boom town goes bust when the oil dries up, his witnessing of the mistreatment of "Okies" in California and his aw-shucks approach to arguing for "sticking together" via unions, even as the people trying to unionize are beaten and killed. The story is punctuated with Guthrie's many terrific numbers, which Noojin delivers with aplomb."
After Noojin's Hard Travelin' With Woody show Nov. 22, Home Routes in on Christmas holiday hiatus until Feb. 7 when it returns for the second half of season five with Darren McMullen and Rachel Davis.
McMullen is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist based in Halifax, who plays the mandolin, bouzouki, tenor banjo, whistles, guitar and bass, while Davis is a young fiddler from God's own country of Baddeck, Victoria County's shire town on the north shore of Bras d'Or Lake, who learned Cape Breton fiddle firstly from her grandfather, then at the hands of some of the island's top teachers.
