Earp About
ABOUT • GALLERY • REVIEWS • HISTORY • SONG CLIPS • COLLABORATORS
Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Josie), widow of legend Wyatt Earp, and Allie Earp, widow of Wyatt’s brother, Virgil are two of an eleven member cast in this all-women musical. It is 1943. We first meet them when Allie has come to confront Josie about a lawsuit she has initiated to block the publishing of Allie’s memoirs. Delving into their early lives concerns Josie because she fears that early tales about Wyatt will destroy his myth that she has been responsible for pertpetuating in Hollywood. Through memory fragments showing them as young women in Tombstone (in 1879), Allie wants to put an end to the pretenses that Wyatt was a great hero, and his young wife, Young Josie, was the perfect frontier woman. Allie blames Josie for her part in creating the conflicts borne out in the OK Corral shoot-out, and for the downfall of the Earp wives in their dreams to become business successes and respectable society ladies. (All of the Earp wives had been prostitutes at one time or another.) Josie has to deal with her guilt about the death of Wyatt’s common-law wife, Mattie, and her part in that death, suppressed all these years. Allie and Josie, by reflection, change and grow. Josie is forced to look honestly at her younger self and give up her illusions. Allie finally understands Josie and accepts her for who she really is, and Josie cancels the lawsuit.
In the Tombstone segments we also meet the other Earp wives, Bess and Mattie. Mattie’s (a laudanum addict) life is spinning out of control, as Young Josie encroaches on her relationship with Wyatt. Bess has her hands full with her rebellious teenage daughter, Hattie. Kate Haroney, Doc Holliday’s mistress, is friend to the Earp wives and the voice of reason to Young Josie. We learn of Young Josie’s problems with her wealthy San Francisco family, and see her rise to success in Pauline Markham’s Gilbert and Sullivan traveling troupe, the group with whom she runs away from home. Through them we come to understand more of what the OK Corral shootout was really about, and how these women figured into this American legend.
How many westerns ever show us anything about the women? Telling this story from the women’s perspective sheds a new light on the contribution of women to the development of the West, a story rarely told. It is also a look back at a period of American history where myth obscured truth, and continues to persist as myth.
The score has an eclectic theatrical flavor, with strong Western American influences, as well as a very accessible “pop” melodic strength. True to the time period, the score encompasses Victorian dance hall songs, Gilbert & Sullivan parody, theatrical/American country music, all with dramatic impact. While there is a “western” signature to the music, this is NOT a country/western show, but rather an amalgam of musical and lyrical style chosen specifically for character and dramatic value.
Historical Note
The story of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holliday has become American Legend. All of the characters depicted in ‘I Married Wyatt Earp’ are based on real people. Tombstone, Arizona was a booming town in 1879, and yet within a few short years, the entire place became practically deserted. During the heyday of the mining, Tombstone produced over $80 million dollars of silver within ten years. At the height of its popularity, Tombstone had approximately 12,000 men and only 860 women, mostly prostitutes, schoolmarms, and few assorted wives. The political and socio-economic events which led up to the Shootout at the OK Corral have been documented in over 54 movies and 13 television shows, but the story of the unconquerable, gutsy women in Tombstone who loved and lived with these lawmen and outlaws has never been told. This is an attempt to recreate their story. While the authors have taken dramatic license with time, the events recounted here are true.
Authors’ Note
I Married Wyatt Earp/the Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus by Glenn Boyer first attracted Sheilah’s attention when skimming another book called Pioneer
Jews by Harriet and Fred Rochlin. In a chapter called ‘Humdingers’ she ran across the now famous photographof Josie Marcus. Reading on, she uncovered that Josie, a Jewish girl, cultured and educated, had the gumption to run away from her well to do San Francisco home to join a traveling stage coach version of HMS Pinafore in 1879, and then she met and fell in love with Wyatt Earp---this was indeed the ‘stuff of musicals’! In researching the period and these characters, Tom and Sheilah realized how little had changed in the world for women: they are still victims of abuse and drug addiction, still live in fear of their men coming home safely. And then, of course, the time period was attractive to Michele musically, because of the enormous palette of musical colors the period offered: western, folk, G&S, saloon songs, Americana. We all set out to create the telling of a unique story, but chose to tell it through the women’s eyes only, so as not to compete with the many versions of the Earp myth that already existed. We hoped that telling this story from the women’s perspective would shed a new light on the contribution of women to the development of the West, a story rarely told.