d stays away from gambling and John Henry’s place—until a fellow comes around selling sweepstake tickets. Joe refuses at first, but in the end, breaks down and buys just one ticket. Meanwhile, he’s watched over by the ever-vigilant Petunia, who takes John Henry (Harvy Blanks) and his men on to “settle” a craps debt—by beating them at their own game with the loaded dice they tried to switch on her! With Petunia keeping her eye on Little Joe on behalf of the Lord, he’s still stalked by Georgia Brown (Carly Hughes), a gold-digging vamp who learns that the sweepstake ticket Joe bought is a winner and, on the side of the Devil, tempts Joe to go off to live the high life with her.
Petunia returns from an errand just at that moment and thinks that Joe has brought Georgia into her house to cheat on her. Petunia never lets her husband explain how the woman came to be there and Petunia sends both of them packing. They head to John Henry’s club, stopping on the way to acquire some sharp duds—Joe enters in black tie and a topper! Who else should arrive at John Henry’s but Petunia herself, come to drown her disappointment in Joe. Domino Johnson, who’s just been let out of jail for carving Joe up in the first place, shows up to finish the job. Domino’s finished his sentence of six months—exactly the length of Little Joe’s reprieve. When Domino makes for Joe, Petunia intercedes and pushes Domino away. But the assailant turns, pulls out a pistol and shoots both Little Joe and Petunia.
No one doubts that Petunia’s bound for Heaven, but once again, the Lord’s General and the Head Man vie for Joe’s soul. The Head Man expects to take him because he slipped, and the Lord’s General, reading from a ledger, seems to say that Joe’s tally comes out on the Devil’s side. But there’s a flag on the play because Georgia Brown, the cause of Joe’s downfall, felt so bad about her part in Joe’s death (time has moved faster on Earth than in Heaven, so it’s many years later now), that she joined the church, opened a school for orphans and spent the rest of her life doing good. Since that’s down to Little Joe, the Lord’s General explains, Joe’s soul is saved and he gets to accompany Petunia to Heaven.
I included a brief description of Encores! and its mission in my report on Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella (10 April 2014). The series’ home since it’s inception in 1994, New York City Center at 131 W. 55th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), was built in 1923 as the Mecca Temple of the Shriners. Replacing a movie house on the site, the current building is in the Neo-Moorish style with myriad polychrome tiles both in the interior decor and on the exterior façade forming mosaics. The tiled roof dome is 54 feet tall. The association met at the temple until the stock market crash of 1929 made it impossible for the Mecca Shriners to pay the taxes on the building.
In the 1940s, the building became the property of New York City and, threatened with demolition, it was converted in 1943 by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia into the city’s first performing arts center. The main stage seats 2,257 patrons and on the lower level there are two smaller theaters which seat 299 and 150 spectators each; there are also four studios in the center. Today, New York City Center is home to a number of performing arts troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Flamenco Festival, and the Martha Graham Dance Company, among others. (MTC occupies the two lower-level houses.) Encores! Off-Center, a spin-off of Encores! that focuses on Off-Broadway shows, was launched at City Center in the summer of 2013 under the artistic directorship of composer Jeanine Tesori. In 2000, the American Theatre Wing awarded Encores! a Tony for Excellence in Theatre.
The show has the reputation of having a terrific score but a weak book, and that turns out to be accurate. (In New York’s Daily News, Joe Dziemianowicz judged it: “Score, 10; book, 3 — or maybe 2 in this case.”) That fact, however, makes it perfect material for a concert presentation, which dispenses wit