HEARTS IN
THE WOOD
ENGAGING NEW MUSICAL
Book by Joanne B. Koch music and lyrics by Jim Lucas
“We’ll make you dance. We’ll make you jump
And if you ain’t dead, we’ll get you off your rump.”
Bluegrass songs including “So Happy I could Cry” and “Maple Stump” will get you tapping and singing along when you see Hearts in the Wood, a new musical with book by Joanne B. Koch and music and lyrics by Jim Lucas.
Hearts in the Wood follows a West Virginia dulcimer maker and once popular folksinger as he discovers he has a grown granddaughter and reconnects with life. His new found granddaughter prompts him to go to Chicago, where he brings his regional music to a place very similar to the Old Town School of Folk Music. Grandfather and granddaughter find unexpected romantic interests in Chicago and finally get past their differences, united by bonds of love and their special music heritage.
Hearts in the Wood was inspired by a folksinger and dulcimer maker whom composer Jim Lucas met while studying in West Virginia. Joanne Koch, writer of an Emmy Award winning television series and writer or co-author of 18 plays and musicals, first heard Lucas’s beautiful country ballad “I Remember Rebekkah” at the New Tuners Musical Theater Workshop in Chicago and the two decided to collaborate. The song is now one of the most memorable numbers in the outstanding score of the show.
Koch and Lucas received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship to complete “Hearts.” After several staged readings sponsored by the New Tuners musical theater workshop, a staged reading at the Stage Company in Salinas, California, and an earlier production at Northeastern Illinois University where Lucas was Professor of Music, this talented team brought “Hearts” to a series of zoom Chicago Writers’ Bloc workshops and put the finishing touches on their show.
Raunchy Little Musical—Belle Barth is Back!
For Booking of
“Raunchy Little Musical”
Contact: Producer/Director
Jimmy Ferraro
727-457-7768
Angels@pasco.org
Broadway World Review: RAUNCHY LITTLE MUSICAL
at Landmark On Main Street
by Anthony Hazzard & Scott Stolzenberg 
Comedienne Belle Barth is back in “Raunchy Little Musical,” a lighthearted hysterical show celebrating her extraordinary life. In an age where men were the kings of comedy, Belle conquered show business and made a name for herself as the female Lenny Bruce telling bawdy jokes. Despite failed marriages, the lack of support from her mother, and getting fined and arrested for her foulmouth, Belle still managed to headline the comedy clubs and make the world laugh.
“Raunchy Little Musical” is headed on tour to a city near you and luckily we were able to get a glimpse at the Landmark Theater on Main Street in Port Washington. The show features a sidesplitting book by Joanne Koch and an original catchy score by Ilya Levinson and Owen Kalt. Belle Barth was born Annabelle Salzman. The Jewish comedienne amused the patrons of hotels and nightclubs with her twisted tongue in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She recorded her comedy routine on many popular records and even played Carnegie Hall. Salzman married five times and reinvented herself more times than that.
BWW Review: RAUNCHY LITTLE MUSICAL at Landmark On Main StreetBringing Belle to life is the extraordinary actress Sara Delbeato. Ms. Delbeato commands the stage with her cartoon-like persona and weaves Belle’s life story through song and humor. Her singing voice is strong and her charm and charisma even stronger. Ms. Delbeato zings the audience with naughty one liners and makes us blush with every filthy thing that comes out of her mouth. The Borscht belt jokes are shocking and just when you think she can’t say anything worse than she already said, she does. Even Ms. Delbeato can’t help from laughing along with us at Belle’s salacious material.
The musical comedy also features the convincing David Craven as all the men in Belle’s life. Each character he creates is so vastly different that you’d think there were dozens of male actors in the show. Mr. Craven is a man of many voices and talents. Jimmy Ferraro’s direction is fast and fun full of quick changes, classic storytelling and pure comedy.
At the end of show, I’m sure the audience’s cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling just as much as ours. In fact, it was hard to keep a straight face during the ninety minutes and we never got a chance to breathe in between jokes. Ms. Delbeato seemed to be having the time of her life playing this lush character just as much as we enjoyed watching her. Belle’s trip through yesteryear is an old fashioned love letter to comediennes everywhere such as queen of comedy Joan Rivers who struggled and succeeded in a male dominated profession. Belle’s legacy will live forever and thanks to her nonstop determination for pursuing her passion, the authors of “Raunchy Little Musical” made sure that Belle’s audience gets the last laugh!
“Raunchy Little Musical—Belle Barth is Back!” received rave reviews at performances in Tampa, described by Deb Kelley in Broadway World as:
“an incredible love letter to the woman who had the balls to act like a man, in a time when women were expected to be prim and proper. . .
“There’s no doubt—after laughing on and off for 100 minutes, people will be talking about this show. . .
“Sara DelBeato IS Belle. She’s a prettier, voluptuous, powerhouse embodiment of the comedian, an exuberant force of nature. . .
“This isn’t just a story about a little-known female comedian’s rise to face; it’s a woman looking for love—love withheld by a disapproving mother, love freely given by a father lost too soon, love from men who always disappointed, and love from an audience who always came through.”
“The play is expertly crafted, and the actors were amazing to watch as they brought Joanne Koch’s words to life in a flawless production.”
(formerly titled “Belle Barth: If I embarrass you, tell your friends”)
With book by Joanne Koch, music by Chicago composer Ilya Levinson and lyrics by Owen Kalt.
Background
Before Joan Rivers, Roseanne, Lisa Lampanelli or Sarah Silverman,
Belle Barth was the original, totally irreverent woman comic.
Dubbed “the female Lenny Bruce,” Belle Barth—with her bawdy
nightclub act and records selling in the millions— became the
forbidden fruit of the fifties.
The great success off-Broadway and on the East Coast of the musical
“Sophie, Totie & Belle” and the New York Times review singling out
the appeal of the Belle Barth character inspired this evening of jokes,
songs, wild but true anecdotes and a few poignant moments of truth.
Composer Ilya Levinson and lyricist Owen Kalt, working with Joanne Koch
created ten original songs that capture the fifties double standard
concerning sex and the unique appeal of a woman who would boldly unveil
America’s “dirty little secrets.”
“Belle Barth: If I embarrass you, tell your friends” ( also the title of
one of Belle’s hugely popular joke records), debuted at Chicago’s Theo
Ubique Theatre where it was recommended for a Joseph Jefferson Award and
called “funny, tuneful and touching.” Staged readings and
workshops in L.A. starring Lainie Kazan gave the show further
development.
” Belle” is an invitation to laughter for adult audiences, a
perfect offering for an intimate theater, commercially viable and highly
portable, with a cast of two plus piano
Cast requirements: female singer-comic-actor & versatile male character actor, piano.
© 2025 Joanne Koch. All rights reserved.
Joanne Koch
Playwright
Joanne Koch has had eighteen of her plays and musicals produced around the country. “Stardust” won the 2007 National Nantucket Short Play Competition, was produced in the Turtle Shell Summer Shorties Festival in New York City, published by Dramatic Publishing Company, produced at the Pine Crest School in Ft. Lauderdale and later published in Stars: Nantucket Short Play Competition Winners. “Mammaries” was produced by the Turtle Shell Summer Shorties in New York and at the Nantucket Short Play Festival directed by Eve Messing.
Joanne Koch has received three Illinois Arts Council grants, a Midwest Emmy Award, First Prize in the Piscator Foundation Eighth International Playwriting Competition, the Chicago Patrons’ Award, and numerous other grants and fellowships.
Dr. Koch’s plays and musicals, including “Haymarket,” “Nesting Dolls,” “Sophie, Totie & Belle,” “A Leading Woman,” “Teeth,” “American Klezmer,” and “Saul Bellow’s Stories on Stage,” have been produced off Broadway and in theaters in Albany, Queens, Philadelphia, New Hope, Boston, Miami, Boca Raton, Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago, Milwaukee, Akron, Carbondale, Champaign, Kalamazoo, Los Angeles, San Diego.
Joanne Koch’s teleplays and educational films have garnered numerous prizes, including a Regional Emmy and the American Film & Video First Prize.
Dr. Koch is the co-editor of Shared Stages, the ten-play anthology that includes “Fires in the Mirror,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Medal of Honor Rag,” “I AM A MAN” and “Soul Sisters”. She is the co-author of nonfiction books, magazine and newspaper articles, and previously a column syndicated to 200 papers around the country.
Dr. Koch directed the graduate writing program of National University, Chicago, the Master’s in Written Communication. She won the NLU “Excellence in Teaching Award,” initiated their annual literary anthology Mosaic, and their Writers’ Week Workshops.
Now Professor Emerita, Joanne Koch continues to collaborate on her own plays and musicals, including “Motherland,” with Fern Schumer Chapman, based on Chapman’s award-winning book, and “Good Trouble,” the play recently presented at National Louis University Undergraduate College and set to tour other high schools and Colleges in 2025. In this powerful play teenager Jamal meets unsung civil rights champion Fred D. Gray and encounters Rosa Parks, young Martin Luther King, Jr and young John Lewis. Fred D. Gray at 93 was honored by President Joe Biden with the Presidential Freedom Award, the highest honor an American Citizen can receive. He is alive and well, still practicing law in Alabama and fighting segregation where ever he finds it.
Through her work with the Chicago Writers’ Bloc, a not-for-profit playwright development group celebrating its 30th anniversary (www.writersblocfest.org), with partial funding from the Dramatists Guild Foundation, Inc., Joanne Koch has helped to bring over one hundred new plays to audiences in Chicago, with many of these new plays going on to other productions and publications.
Joanne Koch is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.
SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE: “It’s an R-rated act made in heaven.”
That’s what they called the musical “Sophie, Totie & Belle” created by Joanne Koch and Sarah Blacher Cohen. This imagined meeting of the late, great entertainers Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields and Belle Barth is chock full of great music–including Sophie’s theme song “Some of These Days,” and delightful, bawdy originals by composer/lyricist Mark Elliott like “I Call ’em like I see ’em.”
But when “Sophie, Totie & Belle” opened off-Broadway at Theater Four The New York Times critic found:
“Belle Barth, Miami’s answer to Lenny Bruce is “the star of this occasion with her defiantly-funny audience-winning material.”
Sophie, Totie & Bell went on to have productions in New York City and Forest Hills at the Queens Theatre in the Park–then at the Egg Theatre in Albany, NY, the Forum Theatre in New Jersey, a 4-month run in Philadelphia, a 6-month run in Miami Beach, Florida on to Ft. Lauderdale and 10 other productions in Florida.
Though Belle Barth Flourished in the Fifties and we’ve had wonderful women comics from the 1960s to the 2020’s, Belle still leads the way in “Sophie, Totie & Belle” now ripe for a revival.
“SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE” TAKES OFF AND SOARS!” raves <Michael Nowacky of the Philadelphia Times. The musical went on to run in Philadelphia for six months. This excursion into theatrical heaven” could be just the answer to escaping from our current more complicated times.
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Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields & Belle Barth, with their lively songs and timeless jokes, show us that humor is one of the most reliable antidotes for anxiety. This is what made The New York Times reviewer Alvin Klein find Belle Barth the star of this show where these late, great entertainers show us how to laugh even through pain.
The cast is small but demanding:
SOPHIE TUCKER: A large woman with a big voice and a magnetic personality
TOTIE FIELDS: A short chubby, lovable woman with engaging, self-deprecating humor.
BELLE BARTH: A middle-aged, bleach-blonde woman delivering shockingly funny material in a sweet, friendly voice.
MALE AGENT/ANGEL Utilizing the afterlife setting this only moderately successful agent is thrilled to discover that he has landed with clients who might finally bring him fame and fortune.
CONTACT JOANNE B. KOCH to learn more: joannebarbarakoch@gmail.com
You could be part of the “SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE” REVIVAL!
Go to Produced & Published Plays and Musicals for the following:
| “Raunchy Little Musical” | “American Klezmer” |
| “Danny Kaye: Supreme Court Jester” | “Motherland” |
| “Saul Bellows Stories on Stage” | “Soul Sisters” |
| “A Leading Woman” | “Stardust” |
| “Courage like a wild horse” | “Safe Harbor” |
| “Henrietta Szold: Woman of Valor” | “Shared Stages” |
Go to Other Produced Plays For:
| “Nesting Dolls” | “Teeth” |
| “Haymarket: footnote to a bombing” | “Sandburg Among the Goats” |
| “Flying Feathers” |