Passing Through Fire and Water (2001).  Book and Lyrics.  Music by Mel Nelson.  Staged Reading in February, 2001, Santa Clara, California.  This one-woman musical show is based on the story of Harriet Jacobs, an escaped slave from Edenton, North Carolina, and an autobiographer who published Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl in 1861. Jacobs was pursued by her master, Dr. Flint, from the age of fifteen, and in order to prevent him from making her his unwilling mistress, she began a relationship with a young white lawyer in town, Samuel Sands, who would soon be elected to Congress.  They had two children who were owned by her master.  When Dr. Flint threatened to send her and the children to his son's plantation, Harriet decided to escape to her grandmother's house and hid in her attic for seven years (this is the African American Anne Frank) until she escaped to the North.  This show has the actress playing multiple roles, including Harriet Jacobs (known as Linda in the autobiography), Dr. Flint, Aunt Marthy, Betty (a slave in a neighboring kitchen), Mrs. Flint, and in one scene Bennie, her son.  It uses such song forms as traditional gospel, ballads, the African Bomba dance, and a rap by Bennie which draws from the nineteenth century roots of the rapping tradition.