BLUESMAN - NEVER GET OUT OF THESE BLUES ALIVE

Cleveland Treatment Center has been honored with an opportunity to proudly present the world premiere of a theatrical adaptation of Novelist Rob Vollmar and Artist Pablo G. Callejo’s highly acclaimed graphic novel “Bluesman”.  The award winning team of Playwright Michael Oatman, MFA and Director Eric Schmiedl, MFA bring years of experience and proven success to this project.

The story follows African American blues musician Lem Taylor’s harrowing journey across Arkansas of the late twenties, hunted for a crime he didn’t commit. He and his blues companion find a gig in a “juke” outside a small town. Their music takes it by storm leading to a well-connected man offering a recording session. However, that night, they accept the invitation of two ladies to go home with them, a fatal mistake, as one of the ladies’ lover, a white man who happens to belong to a powerful bootlegging family, shows up unexpectedly. The result is a triple murder with only Lem and his lady friend left standing.  Accused of murder he escapes, dogged by law hoping to expose the true killer.  Lem’s actions in  Blues Man are very similar to other wrongfully accused  characters:  Richard Kimble in the Fugitive, Bruce Banner the Hulk ,Tom Rawlings Robinson in To Kill a Mocking Bird and Jason Bourne in  Bourne Supremacy; where  encounters with  bigotry and accepted social norms of lawlessness form a” thin line between love and hate”.