S Y N O P S I S :

Tootie Pie, adapted from C. Rosalind Bell's short story, First Friend, tells the story of a pivotal day in the life of two young friends in the American South of the 1960s.

In a time when Rock n' Roll and Nat King Cole crackled from the kitchen radio and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was still our president, Tootie Pie and Claressa spent their days biking around town, singing at the top of their lungs, sharing secrets, and blessing themselves for having found a best friend.

Claressa, well-schooled and protected, of middle class means, lives enthralled in her friendship with Tootie Pie. Tootie is the bold and feisty one, the soldier, the risk-taker, the one who stands up defending her place in the world, except when it comes to facing the woman who brought her into the world.

Raised by her Aunt and Uncle because her mama gave more of her time to holding a bottle then she ever did to holding her child, Tootie Pie disavows a mother who has that title only because she once gave birth. Tootie longs for Claressa's stable life, a life which revolves around the perfect mother who leaves behind the scent of Chanel, rather than the smell of whiskey.

On the way home from a scary movie at the Dixie, Claressa talks Tootie into walking past The Raven, the local juke joint. Tootie hoped to quell Claressa's fascination with the mysterious nightclub, one of her mother's favorite haunts, and not go near it. But Claressa yearns to get a peek inside and hear just a snatch of music and whispered conversation, and her desire to know what lies behind those doors prevails.

As they pass The Raven, Tootie Pie's mama, drunk and disheveled, is ejected from the club. All too quickly this sets in motion the rift which has lurked beneath the surface, exposing the chasm of class, of legacy, and the irreconcilable differences between the two girls.