LEGENDARY Scot Andrew Carnegie is to be played by his great-great-great grandson in a musical to be staged in the philanthropists’ birth town.
The show at Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall will star 28-year-old singing teacher Joe Whiteman, who is descended from Carnegie on his mother’s side.
Carnegie:The Star Spangled Scotchman is part of a series of events to mark the centenary of Carnegie’s death next year.
Developed over the last five years by Ian Hammond Brown, co-writer of Whisky Galore A Musical, the production tells the story of Carnegie’s life from the viewpoint of a steelworker killed in the controversial homestead steel plant dispute of 1892.
Hammond Brown said he hoped the musical would raise awareness of the Carnegie story as well as the town of Dunfermline, and help support New Musical Theatre Alliance Scotland, a not-for-profit organisation set up to help nurture new musical writing talent. The aim is to raise enough to also give donations to Alzheimer Scotland and Strathcarron Cancer Care.
Plans for the two-night run in May 2019 were unveiled yesterday at the Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries which also saw the return of an 1880s portrait of Carnegie by James Archer which was put into storage during the refurbishment of the building.
Hammond Brown, who was inspired to find out more about Carnegie when he moved to Dunfermline in 2015, said he was delighted to be able to stage the show at the Carnegie Hall.
It previously enjoyed a successful run at the 2016 Fringe, with Whiteman playing his ancestor for the first time.
A new song, Mothers and Sons, has been added for the Dunfermline performance.
Whiteman said: “I’m delighted to be revisiting the role of Andrew Carnegie and cannot wait to perform in the town where my ancestor was born in the theatre named after him.”
Born the son of a handloom weaver in Dunfermline in 1835, Carnegie and his family emigrated to the USA in 1848 to seek work. Starting as a telegraph messenger he rose to become a railroad company owner, steel magnate and, eventually, the richest man in the world after selling his steel company to J.P. Morgan for $480 million in 1901.
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