Cedar Rapids playwright bringing heartfelt musical to CSPS

Without even realizing it, we have a lot in common with a little girl who may or may not be of royal lineage and was shipped to a lumber camp in Oregon in 1904, where her spirit somehow survived.

Believed to be 7 at the time,  the child with no birth certificate kept a diary during her first year in the rugged camp, writing with crayons on butcher paper and paper bags. A few years later, a foster sister tore it up, but young Opal Whiteley gathered up the scraps and as an adult, spent nine months painstakingly piecing together those fragments of her life.

The Atlantic Monthly published the diary in serial form in 1920.  So popular, it was immediately turned into a book and hailed as a masterpiece of American primitive literature.

Cedar Rapids composer and playwright Robert Lindsey-Nassif has set that long-ago chapter of Whiteley's life to music in his award-winning off-Broadway play, "Opal." He's bringing this musical of his heart to the CSPS stage from Friday (1/31) to Feb. 8.

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