Hotseat: Don Horn

May 8th, 2014
by LAURA HANSON Arts & Books | Posted In: Theater
Jim Pepper was a Native American saxophonist who grew up in Oregon, producing music that fused jazz, pop and traditional Native music. Some of his songs found mainstream success—1969’s “Witchi Tai To” is the only song in the history of the Billboard charts to feature a Native chant—but Pepper died from cancer in 1992 at the age of 40.

Don Horn, who founded Triangle Productions 30 years ago and has been writing plays for nearly that long, is no stranger to theater that touches on local history or social issues—he’s produced plays about AIDS, the once-glamorous Hoyt Hotel and Gracie Hansen, an entertainer and eventual politician who was the queen of Portland’s nightlife in the 1960s. When he stumbled upon Pepper's story, he turned it into The Jim Pepper Project, an original show that explores how Pepper managed to meld musical styles that features a Native American cast, local stomp dancers and, of course, plenty of Pepper’s songs.
Read more: http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-31594-hotseat_don_horn.html