?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
DISCUSSING PROPOSAL FOR FRENCH PRODUCTION OF HIS MUSICAL "SIMPLY HEAVENLY" HUGHES, LANGSTON. Small archive of 4 items, each Signed, "Langston," to Léo Sauvage, in green ink: Typed Letter * Two Autograph Notes * Reprint of "Sorrow for a Midget," with Autograph Note. The letter, reporting having sent a copy of Simply Heavenly, and suggesting some possible alterations and casting for a French production. 1 page, 8vo, personal stationery; horizontal folds. With the original envelope. The notes, together 11 lines, in green ink, inquiring about progress of a French production and expressing excitement about a television advertisement for Simply Heavenly, written in the upper or lower margins of typed letters to him concerning a legal matter arising from the similarity of the names of the character Jess Simple in Hughes's play and a living playwright Jesse B. Semple. Each 1 page, 4to, onionskin paper. The reprint, signed twice at lower edge of first and terminal pages, additionally inscribed, "For Leo," on first page and on terminal page: "What's happening with 'Simple' a la francais? . . . / Hazel Scott says she'd love to do it." 4 pages, 8vo, folded sheet; horizontal folds. New York, 8 June 1959; Np, circa November 1959; circa 1960
8 June 1959: ". . . I posted you a printed copy of the Dramatists Play Service version of SIMPLY HEAVENLY c/o FIGARO. Of course the additional songs used in the Broadway version may be re-inserted, if desired. Or the play may be done as a straight comedy with no songs at all, as it was originally written . . . since the lyrics are a translation hazzard [sic]. . . . ". . . Hazel Scott might be a good Paris casting for Mamie, the role that brought Claudia McNeill to fame here, and a piano number or two could be especially inserted for Miss Scott, who now lives in Paris. Jimmy (Lover Man) Davis (who lives there, too) might play one of the singing men's roles. June Richmond and other good colored artists also live in France now, so the play should not be too difficult to cast with French speaking artists of color: the Peters Sisters, for example, and Babe Wallace, . . . Ines Cavanaugh; plus the various French Caribbean and African artists who are about." With--(Langston Hughes.) Group of 13 printed items with a few scattered underlines or other markings likely in Hughes's hand, including his biography and bibliography, brochure featuring listing of his audio recordings, reprint of a newspaper article by him, and sheet music for his "Six Shades of Blue." Together 22 pages, mostly 4to. 1960s.
