When Dorothy Stevenson met the artist Quincy Tahoma, she was a young woman and he made a big impression on her. Later, as an adult, she became a teacher at St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe and eventually wrote a musical play based loosely on Tahoma’s life.
Entitled Navajo Night Song, the musical was performed at the Greer Garson Theater at St. Michael’s school for three nights in 1977. In the play, the Tahoma-like central character was married and lost a baby son. Yet, in more than 12 years of research into Tahoma’s life, we never found evidence that he had married or had a child.
Can you shed any light on this perplexing subject? Do you know anything about the production of Navajo Night Song in 1977 in Santa Fe?
I was the producer and director of the world premiere production of “Navajo Night Song.” Dorothy Stevenson wrote the libretto and Thurman Dillard composed the music. We rented the Greer Garson Theater onn the (then) College of Santa Fe campus. St. Michael’s HS had nothing to do with it.
Allan N Pearson
Dillard’s score was piano/vocal only and the music had to be orchestrate and I hired another Santa Fe composer to do the orchestration and he, John Secina (sp.?) also conducted the orchestra and chorus.
John Scecina is the correct spelling.
In Stevenson’s book for the musical play, Tahoma was not married, but had an anglo girlfriend who was in love with him and there was no child.
Errata above:
The Greer Garson Theatre is on the(then)College of Santa Fe campus, though our production was totally independent of the College’s Drama Department and we simply rented their facility.
Dear Charnell,
many thanks for the “Navajo Night Song” materials which I received on Monday, 11/28/11. Please let me know what I owe you and I will send you a personal check.
“Thunderbird Theatre” was made up/coined by Dorothy Stevenson to make her libretto known as she tried to gather support for her work to get it produced and performed. We never used the term for the world premiere which I produced and directed.
The stapled 10 page section is actually a xerox copy of the complete original program which audience members received. It was all in blue ink/print printed on high quality white paper and designed by me.
I hope to find some people in the cast who might still have an original.
Dorothy’s complete libretto was her original, and with her permission, it was substantially edited and adapted for the production by the two of us. For example, the role of Catherine, a non-singing role, was completely removed, as were the three ballet sections. We could not afford a choreographer or five dancers and a dance ensemble. So that was all eliminated as well.
You can see in the Acknowledgements section of the program that the College of Santa Fe Drama Department, and St. Michaels High School were not mentioned because they had absolutely nothing to do with the world premiere production.
If you have questions, let me know, and again many thanks for this material. Allan Pearson