South of Broadway

BY JACK MCCRAY
Of The Post and Courier Staff

The 2004 North Charleston Arts Festival opened Saturday with one of its highlight events, "Take the A Train to Broadway". About 300 people at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center gradually warmed, to what amounted to a not-so-sneaky preview of "The Duke and the Duchess," a multi-media production based on a little known relationship between the legendary Duke Ellington and Eleanor Roosevelt scheduled to open locally in September.

The centerpiece of the show was Gary Keys, who co-wrote with Bob Judson and narrated the text.

Ellington told Keys about his working with Roosevelt as the two traveled together in the '60s. Keys set up the vignettes of the two-hour production, which also had an 18-piece band called the New Washingtonians. Ellington's first band was called the Washingtonians, and this band is actually the jazz band from the Duke Ellington School in Washington.