PITCH A BOOGIE WOOGIE
TICKETS – $7 in Advance. $9 at the door.
John Warner was a self-taught filmmaker whose first film experience was freelancing for newsreel companies. He founded Lord-Warner Pictures in Greenville, NC and produced his one theatrical release, Pitch a Boogie Woogie, in 1947. Warner had entertained local blacks at his Greenville theater with his own versions of “movies of local people” as early as the mid-1930s, He had dreamed of opening a Hollywood-style studio in Greenville, but it never came to be. The film was discovered in 1975 by a musician in the abandoned Roxy Theater. ECU Professor Alex Albright who researched the film’s history, will lead a discussion about the film’s historical significance. Attendees will also get a free look at the Museums newest exhibit, REFLECTIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE.
Alex Albright is a formerly the head of creative writing at ECU (2005-2013), where he’s taught since 1981. Author of “Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the U.S. Navy,” published in 2013. Written about film and black vaudeville for American Film, Black Film Review, Good Country People, Living Blues, and other magazines. Recipient of Jack Kerouac Prize from Lowell, Mass., Historical Society; the R. Hunt Parker Award from the NC Literary and Historical Assn., the Roberts Award from ECU; and with wife, Elizabeth, the Brown-Hudson Award from NC Folklore Society.
Live in Fountain, NC, with wife, Elizabeth, & son, Silas, where they also operate R.A. Fountain, General Store.