"Glorious": The Improbable Love Story of John Muir and Louie Wanda That Rocked the World--A Drama Musical from Muir Archives

John Muir was married? Yes, he was, and Louie Wanda will tell you all about it. In this 45-minute enactment, John Muir scholar and environmental poet Barbara Mossberg presents a version of her musical drama based on her archival research of John Muir and his wife Louie, and works as a poet to imagine their love story that she claims led to John Muir's literary and civic advocacy for wilderness preservation. We see the improbable match of a California Gold Rush ranch princess, trained as a concert pianist, in her couture silks, and the confirmed bachelor rough wilderness explorer and mountaineer. They share a love of flowers and trees. Now Louie Wanda plunks "Hold the Fort" for Grange meetings, and together they raise a family and oversee a ranch with a successful export grape business. But in what Mossberg claims is "the most noble love letter in history," Louie Wanda gives a "shove of love" and urges Muir back to the Wilderness to write the books that will convince the public and national leadership to enact wilderness protection: she knows that only back in the mountains is Muir's muse as a writer going to prompt his books and leadership.We will hear excerpts from the drama that interweave John Muir's writings with Mossberg's original lyrics. The drama recounts Muir's commitment to writing as a way of trying to save wilderness, and struggles as a writer, including his blindness, and Louie Wanda's early death from cancer. In this musical version, we see Louie Wanda at the piano, poised to play a concert for John Muir's birthday/Earth Day, her favorite Beethoven, Sonata Pathatique, as she remembers her life with Muir and brings them both back to life to reflect on their love of each other and earth as "glorious."