Norman Thomas Marshall is actor and playwright, was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a Klansman and grandson of a slave owner. His New York debut was in 1965 in playing the title role in Ronald Tavel's Ridiculous classic Gorilla Queen. He has since shared stage and screen with Raul Julia, Moses Gunn, F. Murray Abraham, Harvey Fierstein, Robert Guillaume, Burt Reynolds, Barbra Streisand and Telly Savalas. He spent eleven years as the Artistic Director of the No Smoking Playhouse on West 45th Street. For more information about this play, see www.wbworks.com/johnbrown.  To view a documentary about the creation of this play see JOHN BROWN/JIM CROW: AMERICAN PARADOX which can be viewed at http://foebn.org/portfolio/index.cfm?start=1. 

Norman Marshall single-handedly brings John Brown and a swarming host of his contemporaries to vivid, full-blooded life in this powerful, passionate and richly rewarding solo work. -John Clancy, Founder, International Fringe Festival

An outstanding piece of historical theatre, powerfully acted by Norman Thomas Marshall.
I highly recomend it.  - -F. Murray Abraham, Professor of Theatre, Brooklyn College

John Brown's body is most certainly not mouldering in the grave.  Norman Marshall has magically and marvelously brought him to life. -Peter Filicia, Star-Ledger; Theatre Week

JOHN BROWN: TRUMPET OF FREEDOM is a one-man drama featuring veteran stage and screen actor Norman Thomas Marshall. It was co-written by Mr. Marshall and Director George Wolf Reily.  Marshall portrays the legendary Abolitionist and 30 other Civil War period characters.

Early in the morning of his last day on Earth, the day that he will hang by the neck until dead, John Brown writes a farewell letter to his compatriots in the Abolitionist Movement. In the letter, he registers his outrage and horror at his first seeing an African Slave, starved and naked and chained to a post and beaten bloody with an iron shovel for the offense of stealing a crumb of decent food. In the passion of that moment, he vows to God to rectify the injustice, and wage war against the government that sanctions this abomination.

He further ruminates on his guerilla actions against the pro-slavery militias in Kansas and his attack on the Harper's Ferry Arsenal with his ragged "army" of nineteen men.

The play looks deeply into the conscience of a man who commits violent acts against those whom he deems to be guilty of grave sins against God's Law. It reiterates in powerful, graphic detail the age-old question, "Does the means justify the end?", no matter how brutal the means and how laudable the end.

JOHN BROWN: Trumpet of Freedom employs an historically accurate narrative, relying largely on John Brown's own words.