Before the Second World War, a mighty ocean liner named the Virginian sailed between Europe and America. It carried numerous people, from desperate emigrants to aristocrats accommodated in luxury cabins, and of course, such a ship had a jazz orchestra. The orchestra had many talented musicians, but none were as virtuos as Danny Boodmann T. D. Lemon Novecento, about whom it was said that he had never set foot on dry land…

Alessandro Baricco wrote the one-act one man play “Novecento” in 1994 for the Italian actor Eugenio Allegri. “Novecento,” in Italian “nine hundred,” is a term Italians use to refer to the 20th century.