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Louis Braille: The World at your Fingertips
Louis Braille The World at your Fingertips Author:Cynthia L. Cooper, Joel Vig Play Script by Cynthia L. Cooper and Joel Vig, Music by Annie Lebeaux, Lyrics by Jane Smulyan. With an uplifting story and a vibrant score, this musical shows the power of a teenaged Louis Braille's belief and determination to change the expectations of the world. This is an ambitious musical with a strong story line. Flexible staging. Period co... more »stumes 1880s. Printed piano/vocal score is available from the publisher. A CD of rehearsal tracks, with singing, is available from the publisher for learning the songs. (Recorded accompaniment tracks are not available.) Cast: 5 minimum (2 F, 3 M) or up to 26 with roles distributed. Strong roles for the individuals in the ensemble.
Young Louis Braille, blind since age three, enrolls in The Blind School of Paris hoping to learn to read and write. He dreams of becoming a diplomat. When Louis protests broom-making class and exposes a fake display of reading at the annual presentation for donors, he nearly gets expelled. Thankfully, Marie deVries, an instructor, introduces him to music and supports his creative mind by arranging a meeting with the French captain who invented a rudimentary method of nightwriting for soldiers. The method s absurdity and impracticality are clear to Louis, but it gives him the springboard for a burst of creative genius. The result? The Braille system, a code to be scanned under the fingertips, opening a world of literature and musical notation previously closed to the blind.« less