Retired union member offers original play about Joe Hill

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_5250

By Steve Share
29 May 2012

ST. PAUL - The song, “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night,” popularized by folksinger Joan Baez in the late 1960s, stuck with Keith Reed. Reed, now a retired union member, will direct six performances in June of his original play, “The Murdered Minstrel of Toil: The Joe Hill Story.”

“Probably about four years ago, I started wondering, who is this Joe Hill? … So I read several books,” Reed said. “I was very intrigued by his life.”


Keith Reed

Born in Sweden in 1879, Hill emigrated to the United States and became a union organizer for the radical Industrial Workers of the World — the “Wobblies.” Hill gained renown as a songwriter for his tunes poking fun at the bosses and celebrating workers. The songs circulated widely in the IWW’s “Little Red Songbook.” In 1915, Hill was executed by the State of Utah after he was unjustly convicted for murder.

Reed’s play, performed by a cast of 15 in two acts, tells Joe Hill’s story through Hill’s songs and through actual transcripts of his court proceedings.

FULL story at link.