Meet the Characters of the Unseen Ghost Brigade

Diamond Bessie (Played by Walken Schweigert)

Diamond Bessie worked as a prostitute in New Orleans, and was murdered by her lover, Abraham Rothschild, in 1877, just west of the Mississippi in Texas. She was very successful at what she did, (her many diamonds were given to her by very happy customers), and the wealthy Rothschild was very covetous of them. He shot her in the head while they were on a picnic, stole her diamonds, and left her to rot. He was tried for murder twice; both juries were paid off and found him not guilty. She was an independent woman: she left home when she was 15 to gain power and independence in one of the only ways available to her at that time. It is widely said that she held her own against Rothschild, and that she loved him deeply, even though he was physically abusive towards her. Her story is one of true betrayal, and speaks to the misogyny and greed running rampant at that time.

John Murrell (Played by Augustin Ganley)

John A. Murrell died in Pikeville, Tennessee, in 1844, reflecting on his life as the most infamous bandit the Mississippi Valley had ever seen. Born in 1804, he spent forty years as the Great Western Land Pirate, using the Natchez Trace and the Mississippi River as his base of operations. He assembled an underground network of bandits all along the Lower Mississippi known as the Mystic Clan, which numbered 2,500 rogues before he was thirty years old, with whom he plotted a national slave-rebellion.
He knew that criminals were made, not born, and that poverty, not biology, was the condition of that making. He knew that all property is theft. Murrell also knew how to organize and unleash the power latent in the invisible men and the forbidden women of his time. In 1934 he was betrayed by Virgil A. Stewart, and spent the last ten years of his life in prison, dying shortly after his release.

A Tramp (Played by Aaron Barck)

Albert Blake was famous musician, actor and poet, who was found dead in Baton Rouge, LA in 1942. He was widely known as Blind Joe, Lonnie Chatmon, and Andrew Johnson the famous clown; Andrew Johnson was known under five other names as well. A street performer of many varieties, he was found dead in the gutter. Cause of death: alcohol

Mark Twain (Played by Chad Stender)

Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910. In his lifetime he witnessed the world going through radical changes such as industrialization and global exploitation. He gained a perspective of the human race that was critical and brutally honest and was a pioneer of truth in his response to the injustices of racism, classism, and the oppression of the natural world. He traveled the world in his later years lecturing from his perspective with an adamant honesty and a humorous inclination. His fictional stories, as well, were soaked in his objective experiences of humanity and spoke through his curiosity toward the choices people have made and continue to make in their daily lives. In this way he was able to speak to some of the most political and radical issues of his time through the joy of storytelling and comedy making them assessable to all groups of people.

Madame Costello (Played by Olli Johnson)

Madame Costello is a story teller and mystic. She is tuned into the forces of nature in a way that was threatening to the people of her time. Born in Ireland and a traveler by nature, Madame Costello came to the United States during the famine with a clan of other Irish Travelers. They settled along the Mississippi River near Memphis and she made her living telling fortunes and interpreting nature. She had a keen intuition and a profound sense of mystery about her. She was known for her storytelling and insisted on those in her presence to connect with the nature and symbols of magic around them. Her life as a traveler, an ethnic minority in Ireland was a challenge to the authorities of the time. The rights and freedoms of transient communities who have historically been marginalized have been infringed upon, but Madame's life worked in constant opposition to control and in support of the natural world. Madame was killed by one of her clients. The fortune she told was the end of hers. She has been said to haunt the Mississippi River and the communities there, warning them of the dangers of not obeying nature.