The Scarlet Letter Musical is a musical retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic story. The story begins when Grown Pearl finds a woman in need and begins to tell the story of her mother, Hester. Hester was a woman caught in adultery in a puritan town and was forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her chest for the rest of her life. Trouble ensues when her husband Chillingworth, long thought of as dead, arrives. Hester is busy trying to raise her child Pearl, all the while watching her forbidden love and beloved preacher, Dimmesdale, wither from guilt. However, the story is one of transformation. Hester Prynne the Adulterer becomes Hester the Able. Pearl, the embodiment of her parent's transgression, becomes a woman in her own right. Hester the Able becomes a beacon of hope for all women caught in shame. All are welcome.

Bios:

Christine Hand Jones is a singer-songwriter and a lecturer in English at Southern Methodist University, where she teaches rhetoric and writing. She is interested in the intersections of music and literature, and her recent work has focused on Bob Dylan, The Band, and Paul Simon. She has a PhD in literary studies from the University of Texas at Dallas, which she earned largely by writing about the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan. Christine also teaches songwriting at Dallas Baptist University. When she's not in the classroom, she performs her original soulful folk-rock music around the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Her most recent album, Standing on the Shoulders, is a tribute to family, in all its messy beauty, and it wraps its intimate story-telling in a combination of bluegrass instrumentation, lush strings and ethereal vocals. Christine has also written original settings of Shakespeare’s lyrics for The Stolen Shakespeare Guild in Fort Worth, TX, and she is active in local community theatre.

KENADY SEAN (lyricist, composer, bookwriter, and owner of Kenady Sean Productions) holds a strong proficiency in many aspects of musical theatre. Kenady is currently working on three musical projects other than the Scarlet Letter: Beyond Perfection, a dystopian, sci-fi musical, a children’s musical, and an all-women show set in World War II. Both Beyond Perfection and The Scarlet Letter Musical were featured at the MusicalWriters Festival. The Scarlet Letter Musical was a SheFestival Finalist and was presented in an honors symposium at Dallas Baptist University. Beyond Perfection was a Rave Festival Finalist as well as an Imagen New Musicals finalist. She was the community manager for MusicalWriters.com in 2021-2022, a site that offers advice and community to musical theatre writers. Kenady’s most notable performances include an Off-Broadway appearance as Samantha in the production of Circle of Friends in New York, playing Alice in Alice in Wonderland at Casa Mañana, a regional professional theatre, and playing Sally Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown at DBU. In addition, Kenady has recorded two EPs: “Let’s Get Real” released in 2016 and “In the Dark” in 2022. Kenady graduated with an MBA and a BS in Music Business from Dallas Baptist University where she received the Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholarship.