Joseph Reed Hayes, playwright

"My first Sunday show was Solos, a touching story about love, truth, God and jazz as religion, accompanied by an incredible jazz ensemble. Blue Miller, a working-class jazz trumpeter meets upper-class Ellie Grace who has a gift for composing scintillating music. Self-conscious Blue struggles with his inability to write the electric compositions that Ellie naturally produces. Shy Ellie battles her own monster, her performance inhibitions and the mid-twentieth century's views on women's roles. Their creative success belies their personal failures. Through their tumultuous relationship, Ellie and Blue realize that they are two parts of a whole, both as performers and lovers. A must-see performance." — Vincent Crampton, Orlando CityBeat

"A play by Joseph Reed Hayes is a welcome oasis of cultural smarts at the Fringe, which tends toward the bawdier side of the spectrum. His Solos takes as its topic the development of jazz, as revealed by the decades-spanning story of a trumpeter and his wife, who secretly pens his 'original' compositions. Music fans will have a leg up in discerning how their working relationship reflects the flow of an entire American century; no such foreknowledge, though, is required to appreciate Hayes' smooth hand with dialogue." — Steve Schneider, Orlando Weekly

"Best local playwright: Joseph Reed Hayes. Joe's Fringe play is Solos, a jazz riff about a jazz man (played by the always-interesting Jay Becker). The show features original music by Brian Groder." — "Commander Coconut", columnist, Orlando Sentinel

"I've never really got jazz, but the people involved are always fascinating. Back in the 20's Ben "Blue" Miller (Becker) runs into society girl Ellie Grace (Herrera) in the hotel lobby. He plays in the ballroom, her daddy owns the place. She's a gifted composer with no outlet for her music, and he's a Jazzbo of some limited talent. They strike up a romance that lasts a life time - she composes, he plays and takes the credit. Such a deal! After 20 years of this, Ellie longs for the spot light and by rights should get it, but Ben refuses. In retaliation, she writes progressively harder and harder music, making him one of the leaders of the progressive and modern jazz movements. But, at some point, she writes music so complex it exceeds his ability to play. Now if that isn't love, what is? There's a very cool live band playing between acts, playing songs in the style of what the couple writes. This adds a great deal of context to those of us who regard jazz as background music in a nice restaurant. Becker looks elegant in a suit as always, and Herrera is suitably outgoing and earnest, vengeful when required, and loving when not. I do have some question as to her role - sometimes the text implies she is black, and sometimes white. Would a black family own a large hotel ... in the 1920's, and would an interracial marriage occur in that time? The question provided an additional tension to the production, perhaps intended, perhaps not. (Answers: yes, they would and did, and who said they were married? - JH) But despite the loud preshow riffs that precluded chit chat, the show rolls along at a good clip, exploring the question of artistic recognition, bias in the jazz world, and long-term relationships based upon more than movie-style romance." — Carl F Gauze, Ink19

"The world of jazz has always been foreign to most of us, filled with people who speak in a strange vernacular and have longings most of us will never know. Writer Joseph Reed Hayes captures a bit of that world in Solos, an ambitious drama that tries to show the forces that have come between musicians and their music. Solos is the story of Ben "Blue" Miller, a jazz trumpet player, and Ellie Grace, who wrote his music but, as a woman in a man's world, had to keep her identity unknown. Hayes has upped the ante by using a four-piece jazz band (led by trumpet player Brian Groder) as a kind of Greek chorus." — Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Sentinel