THE STRIDE logline Defying racial barriers in 1950s Jim Crow South, 16-year-old piano prodigy Frances "Frankie" Trumbull, reeling from the recent death of her beloved brother, finds healing in the music of African American stride piano player James "Honeybear" Powell.

Action,Adventure,Drama,Family,Political,Young Adult

A rusty freight train rolls into a small Alabama town. Among the itinerant labourers is one James 'Honeybear' Powell ..,. not a labourer but rather an iconic stride piano player fleeing his violent past.

Against a backdrop of small-town racial tensions, Honeybear becomes the unlikely and, at first, unwilling mentor to Frankie, a young girl yearning for redemption. Together these two unlikely soul mates rekindle in each other all that is important in their lives.

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Internal Journey/Rebirth

Coming of Age,Happy Ending,Meaningful Message

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Name: Frances 'Frankie' Trumbull

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Role: Antagonist

Key Traits: Adventurous,Aspiring,Badass,Complex,Desperate,Engaging,Insecure,Outspoken,Skillful,Secretive

Name: James 'Honeybear' Powell

Age: 65

Gender: Male

Role:

Key Traits: Badass,Charming,Complex,Confident,Empathetic,Engaging,Educated,Honorable,Underdog,Masculine,Blunt,Outspoken,Skillful,Funny,Sarcastic,Lone Wolf

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Why Stride? I feel Stride, a story of redemption, will appeal to a wide cross-section of young adults as well as the general population. I’m often quite surprised, in speaking with today’s crop of teenagers, how much they don’t know about the history of America’s long struggle toward racial equality. That’s why I set my novel in the early 1950s, at the birth of the civil rights movement. So much needed to be done … so few had yet taken up the struggle. In the piano man, “Honeybear" Powell, I feel I have created a complicated, damaged and yet loveable character … a gifted musician who, due to the color of his skin, has had to ply his musical genius in smoky, beer stained “buckets of blood” … the juke joints that dotted the landscape during the days of the “Chitlin Circuit," reserved exclusively for poor blacks in dire need of a bit of joy. I also believe that potential audience members will identify with Frankie Trumbull, a 16-year-old white girl who is struggling with the recent loss of her beloved brother. Like so many teenagers, even in this modern era, Frankie must struggle with the complexities of teenage-dom and all of its uncertainties as well as her own personal search for spiritual salvation. Stride its the story of one young girl's journey - and her fortuitous meeting with the one person who changed her life forever.

Rick Whelan is an award-winning playwright and journalist. He began his professional life as an actor, appearing as Charlie Brown in the U.S. national company of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. He also appeared in Jean Stapleton’s production of Hello Dolly and a production of South Pacific starring Ricardo Montalbán. He was a member of the acting company at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for four seasons. His plays have been produced in theatres all across the U.S. and Canada, including the Stratford Festival, the Barter Theatre (Virginia), the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville and Ottawa’s National Art Centre. His play Heaven Sent was a winner at Barter Theatre’s Appalachian Plays and Playwrights Festival. His adaptation of Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which premiered at the Stratford Festival, has been widely produced at theatres and campuses across North America. He has co-written two documentaries for Ballinran Entertainment. Death in Canada was nominated for four Gemini Awards (Canada) and an Irish Film and Television Academy Award. He also co-wrote New Dawn in the Desert, a film detailing the Canadian footprint on the economic miracle of Dubai. Mr. Whelan received his BA degree from Columbia University.

Age: 13-17,18-34,35-54,55+

Target Gender: Universal

Jim Crow Alabama; Chicago's South Side

Status: No

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