Playwright, director, and composer Peter Glazer grew up listening to songs from the Spanish civil war. “In 1942 a group of folksingers, including Pete Seeger and my father, recorded an album called Songs of the Lincoln Battalion, which was the first American recording of songs sung by the American volunteers in Spain,” he says. Tom Glazer, who had been a prominent member of the New York folk scene in the 40s and 50s–“My father sang with Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly”–had learned many of the songs, like “Vive la Quince Brigada” and “There’s a Valley in Spain Called Jarama,” firsthand from veterans. “I remember him walking around the house singing those songs,” Glazer says.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Tom Glazer’s work greatly influenced his son. In the early 90s Peter Glazer wrote a show based on the life and music of Woody Guthrie–Woody Guthrie’s American Song–which was produced by Northlight and later moved to Briar Street. And in the late 90s he directed Jamie O’Reilly and Michael Smith in their concert performance of Pasiones, an evening of Spanish civil war songs. His latest show, The Heart of Spain, returns to the subject.
Woven together from eyewitness accounts, reminiscences, traditional songs, and original songs by Glazer and his collaborator, Eric Peltoniemi, The Heart of Spain is a musical history of the war. “The first act introduces the American atmosphere during the 30s–all of the social strife that was going on in the country. I want to give people the foundations of why someone might want to volunteer to help a foreign country to battle fascism.” The second act focuses on the wartime experiences of the veterans themselves, from the time the ragtag army landed on Spanish soil and began fighting the better-equipped and better-organized fascists to the moment the survivors were told to go back to the U.S. in a desperate, last-ditch effort to drum up support.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Eugene Zakusilo.
