Inspired By Josephine Baker, America’s Gift To France

The Legendary Exotic Star Of The Folies Bergère

All The Action Takes Place In Paris During The 20"s and 30"s

“When you’re thrown face down in the mud for being who you are, the last thing you want to be is who you are!”

- Josephine Baker

In 1917, eleven-year-old Josephine manages to escape the riots in the black slums of East St. Louis but not before she is grabbed by the invading white hoodlums and dumped in the mud.

Determined to secure the fame and the money she believes will hoist her above the fray and make her untouchable, she crosses the ocean and becomes the banana-clad star of the ‘Folies Bergère’ in Paris.

She achieves what she’d been chasing --- including the arm of Crown Prince Gustav VI of Sweden. Onstage, surrounded by her adoring fans, Josephine is on top of the world.

The nightly ‘high’ evaporates however and each morning she once again feels like ‘that shoddy nappy-haired little black girl’ she tried to leave behind.

When the Nazis invade France, Josephine joins the French underground. Risking her life for her adopted country, she acquires the Italian codebook for the Allies and is decorated by Charles de Gaulle. (The one thing she doesn’t chase turns out to be the one thing that finally gives her the self-worth that so eluded her.)

When she sees the prince after the war, the rose-colored glasses are gone, and the spell is broken. The prince, in his ‘gilded cage,’ remains unchanged but Josephine, the once spoiled diva, has emerged as a heroic woman. She now sees what the audience has already come to realize: her ‘true prince’ was there all along --- her conductor, Jo Bouillon.