The Black & Tan
During the Summer of 1966, twenty year old Patty, a demure, classically trained violist falls in love with Leo, the charismatic leader of an R&B group. Caught in the middle of escalating racial tensions in the urban belly of Cleveland, their dangerous love affair comes to a crushing end and Patty must choose forgivness and courage against the backdrop of violent civil riots.
A Spec Script Written By Avery Caldwell
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WGA REGISTERED
Story Synopsis
Patty is a 20 year-old classically trained music student at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She is First Chair Viola in the student orchestra but is struggling with the new music that her strict professor has demanded she perfects. He demure personality allows fear and self-doubt to set in and Patty is demoted to 4th Chair and eventually loses her scholarship and leaves the orchestra. Wanting to break the mild depression after losing her rank in the orchestra, Patty and a group of her classmates Donna, Andy, and Thomas, decide to go into inner-city Cleveland to listen to the upbeat and soulful music of the mid-1960s. They arrive at the Black and Tan Casino, a famed club located in the Hough neighborhood of East Cleveland and known to welcome all races at time when segregation was not only still accepted but legal. Moreover, the club is legendary for headlining the most famous black groups of the sixties including Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Platters, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Supremes, Martha and The Vandellas, The Four Tops, Etta James, and many others. To top that off, Barry Gordy would often scout for new talent and would secretly showcase his next big star.
While at the club, Patty and her friends meet the house band called the Hughletts, an up-and-coming trio made of siblings: Leo, Eveleen, and Frankie. Leo is the charismatic leader of the group. He charms Patty and convinces her to visit the club again against Thomas’s objections. As the friendships grow, between the two groups, Patty and her friends form a new band with the Hughletts and play at the Black and Tan Casino. While the good times ensue at the club, high poverty and racial tensions persist in the Hough neighborhood. Patty and Leo develop a dangerous interracial relationship that comes to an end with the eruption of violence brought on by the Hough Riots and Patty’s father is killed by Frankie, Leo’s brother.
After the riots are quelled, there is a formal commission and grand jury to determine the causes of the riots and Patty appears as an eye-witness. In the end, Patty must choose to either retreat back to her safe environment or choose forgiveness and courage -- to fight against racial inequalities at the height of the civil rights era.
Characters
At twenty years of age, Patty LONGS to find her voice. She is reserved and allows others to make decisions for her…not anymore. She goes against those around her who claim to love her most and discovers powerful lessons about the love, integrity, and truth -- and as the pendulum swings from love to pain and back again, Patty finds her voice within. Patty comes from a blue-collar family but has earned a scholarship to attend the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she plays the viola.
Leo, 25, is ambitious, talented, and above all, a charmer. He knows how to exploit his charisma for fleeting moments of passion but discovers real love is sometimes born of pain. Leo is the lead singer in an R&B group called The Hughletts. He is the oldest of his siblings Evie and Frankie, who with him, form the musical trio. Leo WANTS more than anything to be a Motown artist and formulates a unique plan to achieve it – even at the cost of his own family. Leo’s Obstacles: Hubris,
At the apex of his career, Barry Gordy, 37, frequents the Black and Tan Casino to secretly showcase his new talent – he figures, if they can make it at the Black and Tan, America will love them. He also scouts for the next big Motown act and takes a special interest in The Hughletts.
At twenty years of age, Patty LONGS to find her voice. She is reserved and allows others to make decisions for her…not anymore. She goes against those around her who claim to love her most and discovers powerful lessons about the love, integrity, and truth -- and as the pendulum swings from love to pain and back again, Patty finds her voice within. Patty comes from a blue-collar family but has earned a scholarship to attend the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she plays the viola.
The Hough Riots
June 18 - 24, 1966
 Hough went from a place to be seen to a hellish slum in twenty years. Even by ghetto standards, Hough had a nightmarish quality about it. |  |
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In Cleveland, Ohio June 1966, a series of racially-charged riots occurred in the Hough neighborhood. Spontaneous outbreaks of violence characterized by vandalism, looting, arson, and sporadic gunfire. Although there had been racial disturbances earlier in the summer, these events proved to be more serious and widespread.
The riots were sparked by a dispute over a glass of water at the Seventy-Niners Cafe at Hough Ave. and E. 79th St. on the evening of 18 July, which escalated until the police were unable to deal with the situation. As the crowd grew larger, rock throwing, looting, and vandalism gradually spread throughout the Hough area.
The Hough Riots lasted several days, and the Cleveland police force proved ineffective in quelling the violence. At the request of Mayor Ralph Locher, it finally took 2,200 Ohio National Guardsmen to reestablish order. Arson fires destroyed several blocks of homes and businesses in the Hough neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland. Four African Americans were killed, about 30 were injured, close to 300 were arrested, and approx. 240 fires were reported.
A grand jury assigned to investigate the riots concluded that outsiders had caused the disturbance. Another panel determined that, "The underlying causes of the rioting are to be found in the social conditions that exist in the ghetto areas of Cleveland." Many African-American residents in this part of Cleveland believed that the city, state, and federal government officials were not meeting their needs. For much of the twentieth century, Cleveland's eastern neighborhoods had lacked business development and a declining population, as many residents, especially white ones, sought better lives in the suburbs. Many remaining residents developed a sense of hopelessness as their communities declined and the various levels of government failed to assist them.
The Hough Riots and other racial disturbances in major cities of the 1960s illustrate the lack of opportunity for many people, especially African Americans during this era and were part of a national pattern of racial tension and frustration which produced violence in many parts of the country in 1966 – while the riots have lessened, racial tensions, poverty, and frustration is just as prevalent today.
The Legendary Club
Leo's Casino was a premier showcase in Cleveland for R&B and Motown artists. In 1952 Leo Frank opened his first club, called Leo's, at E. 49th St. and Central Ave. It started as a bar but expanded into a jazz room, featuring musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley. The building burned down in 1962. With his business partner Jules Berger, Leo Frank started Leo's Casino in 1963 at the old Quad Hall Hotel at 7500 Euclid Avenue. The new Leo's held about 700 people and served dinner. Admission was two dollars. The club continued to feature jazz until R&B acts quickly took over. The club usually had three shows a night, Thursday through Sunday.
Between 1963 and 1972, an illustrious entourage of musical acts performed at Leo's Casino, including Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, the Supremes, the Temptations and the Four Tops. Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin gave some of their first performances at the club while Otis Redding made his last stage appearance at the club prior to his fatal plane crash in 1967. The club also provided a springboard for numerous comedians, such as Richard Pryor, Flip Wilson and Redd Foxx.
Because of its racially mixed audiences, Dick Gregory called the place, "the most fully integrated nightclub in America.” The club served as a unique haven in the midst of the racial tensions that gripped Cleveland in the 1960s. In 1966 during the Hough riots, just a few blocks away, hundreds of people, black and white, waited in line to see the Supremes. The Supremes played two sets on Sunday night, July 24, but the police told the club's owners to cancel the third show and shut down the club. Leo's Casino shut down for four weeks and then reopened with Ray Charles.
In 1970 Frank sold his share in the nightclub to Berger. Two years later Berger closed the club. The Rock and Roll Hall of designated the club a historic rock'n'roll landmark on June 24, 1999. Two weeks after the dedication ceremony, Leo Frank died of respiratory failure and pneumonia.
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Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Patty, Andy, Donna, and Thomas study music at the Oberlin Conservatory at Oberlin College.
The college was founded as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1833 and is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, part of the college, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States.
Oberlin College's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter is historically significant. In 1835, Oberlin became the first college and first conservatory in the United States to make a cause of racial egalitarianism when it decided to educate students “irrespective of color” and regularly admit African-American students. Notable is the graduation of William Grant Still, a student who widely became regarded as the "dean of African-American composers." Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony (his 1st Symphony) performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television.
Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures such as Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, William Grant Still is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
These efforts have helped Oberlin remain committed to its values of freedom, social justice, and service. The college and conservatory were listed as a National Historic Landmark on December 21, 1965, for its significance in social progress.
Today, it continues a tradition of social justice and equity; on May 30, 2017, the Oberlin College Board of Trustees elected Carmen Twillie Ambar to become the College’s 15th president and first African American leader in the institution's 184-year history.
Concept Art
Conpetual Soundtrack
Conceptual Soundtrack
