Violet and Adaptation
“There’s so much you can’t save by writing down.” - The Ugliest Pilgrim
Adaptation is the process of
modifying a piece of art,
such as a short story, into a
new format. For instance,
screenplay writers often
adapt novels into movies.
Doris Betts was born in 1932 in
Statesville, North Carolina, the only child of
Mary Ellen and William Waugh. Ever the
tireless writer, Betts became a reporter for the
local newspaper, The Statesville Daily Record,
while still in high school. In 1950, she enrolled
in the Women’s College of the University of
North Carolina. Three years later, a short story
she wrote won the acclaimed Mademoiselle
College Fiction Contest.
Her family were devout church-goers, affiliated with the Associate
Reformed Presbyterian Church. Betts’s writing was heavily influenced by this
religious affiliation, and she often cited the Bible as inspiration for her fiction.
She has said that the Bible “makes you feel that the ordinary is not ordinary.”
Her stories frequently revolve around seemingly ordinary characters who inspire
us in extraordinary ways. In 1973, Harper & Row published her collection of
short stories, Beasts of the Southern Wild, which included the story “The Ugliest
Pilgrim,” on which the musical Violet is based.
Doris Betts by Miriam Berkley, 1998.
Courtesy, The New York Times.
A short film adaptation of “The Ugliest Pilgrim,” titled Violet, was produced
in 1981. Starring Didi Conn, most commonly known for her role as Frenchy in the
movie version of Grease, Violet won the 1982 Academy Award for Best Live
Action Short. It was this film that caught the attention of composer Jeanine Tesori and inspired her to write the
music for Violet.
Jeanine Tesori spoke to a friend, playwright Brian Crawley, about her idea for
turning “The Ugliest Pilgrim” into a musical in 1993. They collaborated long-distance for
months, Tesori writing the music and Crawley writing the book and lyrics, followed by
three years of workshops. Tesori traveled throughout the South,
looking for musical inspiration. She attended concerts, churches
and faith healings looking for the music that would speak to “The
Ugliest Pilgrim.” The songs in Violet are drawn from American
musical memory, intermingling gospel, blues, bluegrass and pop.
Violet: A New Musical finally opened off-Broadway in 1997 at
Playwright Horizons in New York City.
The addition of music and dance were not the only changes
made by Crawley and Tesori in the process of adapting Betts’s
story. They decided to split the character of Violet
into two: her adult self and her 13-year-old self.
Crawley and Tesori also decided not to represent
Violet’s scar and instead leave it up to the
audience’s imagination. This decision was
controversial, but as Crawley writes, “We weren’t
about to drive a bus onstage; why not leave the
scar to the imagination as well?”
Top left: 2008 Playbill. Courtesy, Western Kentucky University.
Top right: 1997 Playbill. Courtesy, Playwrights Horizons. Bottom
left: 2012 Playbill. Courtesy, UMass Amherst. Bottom right: 2011
Playbill. Courtesy, Mercury Theater.
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