Jim Keller, long-time New Fairfield resident and beloved Rebels and Flash track coach for scores of the town’s youth, is experiencing an exciting time for a play he co-wrote several years ago with his father, Loren Keller. “A Pitch From Satchel Paige” will kick off black history month in a one-night-only viewing at Carnegie Hall on Monday, February 2.

Jim explains that the solo play brings Satchel Paige, one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time, to life through a series of stories he relays on stage. The storytelling navigates Satch’s hardships in dealing with poverty, bigotry, and more, while delivering the tales with humor and lacing the production with baseball heights and concurrent historical events.

“I guess part of being an artist is believing in your work, and I always loved this play,” Jim remarked. Having tinkered on it for over three decades, he is thrilled that it is being enjoyed by audiences. Explaining how the production in Carnegie Hall came about, Jim shared that after the play won the New York, New Works Festival in Manhattan [in 2018], he became connected to producer Gene Fisch, who has kept the play in mind for such an event. Jim is bowled over, “obviously, it is a big thrill and honor to have Carnegie Hall decide that your play is good enough for their hallowed halls! I had thought they would give us the smaller theater, but they gave us the 600-seat Zankel Hall, because they believed we could fill it with this show.”

Jim has continued to collect important stories about Satchel over the years “and eventually had to stop trying to add more stories—it is a solo show, so there is only so much the actor can handle!” He has had several amazing encounters with both local former players and many from around the country, even some who played against Satchel Paige. Russell C. Holt, who will play Satchel in the solo performance,  “shared those duties when the show premiered in Buffalo last year,” Jim explained. He went on, “when this opportunity came up, I immediately asked him, and the director, Verneice Turner, if they would reprise these roles at Carnegie Hall. As you can imagine, they were very excited and agreed to do it.”

Jim has several other writing projects in the works and, understandably, they have all been put on hold in light of the work that was needed surrounding this performance. “I am trying to acquire the rights to the movie script of “That Thing You Do,” for which we have written a musical outline, staging, a script, and a new music score.” Ambitious, he shared, “I actually wrote to Tom Hanks himself, who owns half the rights and have my fingers crossed, since we have a producer already interested.” In addition, he is working with his sister on a ‘jukebox’-type musical tentatively called, ‘That Senior Moment,’ and I have a drama that I worked on with my father before he died, entitled ‘Whitman/Wilde’ which is a dramatic imagining of the two meetings between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde.”

New Fairfield residents who are interested in seeing the show can purchase tickets at the Carnegie Hall website or at (https://tinyurl.com/bec3836p) and there is a senior discount (sen57185) and a student discount (stu57184). “There is talk of a bus going to the city from the Senior Center, so that would be a great asset to get New Fairfielders to the show,” Jim added. Thrilled to have residents see this production in particular, he said, “because we are doing this at Carnegie Hall, we decided to take advantage of their capabilities. We will have some background music “underneath” some of Satchel’s  stories (it is a ‘music hall’ after all!); and some exciting lighting effects that cannot be done on smaller stages. We hope everyone will enjoy it.”