Charlene Boyd, one of Scotland’s leading actors shares the story of one of country music’s most iconic voices: June Carter Cash. Directed by the multi-award-winning Cora Bissett, June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me opens at the Dissection Room Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ahead of a tour of Scottish cultural venues and festivals in August and September 2024.
June Carter Cash was a country singer, songwriter and dancer. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica and autoharp, winning five Grammy awards across her career. She came from a family of country singers and was the second wife of Johnny Cash. Their relationship was celebrated in the Oscar-winning 2005 film, Walk the Line. A new documentary about “June”, received its TV premiere on Paramount+ in 2024. This is the first stage play to premiere about June’s life and music in the UK.
More than a simple biography of June’s life and music, this play with songs, sees Charlene explore her own relationship with her musical heroine and their shared experience as performers and working mothers. A powerful, personal journey of discovery stretching across the Atlantic, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Glasgow high-rise flats, their tale is one of empowerment, endurance and perseverance.
Charlene Boyd travelled to Nashville and across the Appalachian Mountains to research this play. She visited places that held special significance in June’s life and interviewed friends and family of June Carter Cash, alongside contemporary American country singer-songwriters.
The show will feature live music and will be staged in a cabaret style setting, inspired by Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café. Charlene Boyd gets to grips with a life less ordinary in this raw yet uplifting piece of intimate gig theatre.
