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It was music that brought Jannie Jones and Jessica Wortham into the theater world, so in “Black Pearl Sings!,” Frank Higgins’ tribute to folk songs, slave spirituals and the 1930s, both actors feel right at home.

“I feel like this show was written for me,” said Jones, who shares the stage with Wortham in the Capital Repertory Theatre production of Higgins’ 2007 work. The show begins with previews Friday night, opens next Tuesday and runs through April 7. “This is the kind of music I was raised on. It’s exactly my style.”

In “Black Pearl Sings!,” Jones is Alberta “Pearl” Johnson, a black woman who, along with being imprisoned for murder, is a walking encyclopedia in the realm of African-American roots music. Along with her knowledge of the slave spirituals, Pearl is also a talented singer and is “discovered” by Susannah Mullally, an ethnomusicologist played by Wortham.

The characters of both women are actually loosely based on real-life men, Higgins using Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, as his model for Pearl, while Mullally’s character somewhat mirrors the life and career of former Library of Congress song collector Alan Lomax.

Sharing music

“The two characters are independent in the sense that they’ve both been cut off from their families, and while they overcome a lot of the obvious differences they have with each other, they do eventually see how much they have in common, and that is their relationship to music,” said Wortham.

“Lomax went from jail to jail collecting songs, and it was he and Lead Belly that opened the door for black blues artists in the 1930s. Their story didn’t end too nice, but Frank wasn’t interested in writing a biopic. He wanted his play to be about the music.”

That suited Jones just fine. A native of Shannon, N.C., a small town just outside of Fayetteville, she grew up singing a cappella music.

“I sang the first 17 years of my life without an instrument,” said Jones, who starred as Velma in the Capital Rep production of “Crowns” last season. “My character, Pearl, is from Hilton Head and I’m from North Carolina. I connected immediately to this show. It’s fabulous, and it gives me the opportunity to sing and to act.”

Acting wasn’t always a part of her plans.

“I went to North Carolina A&T, and when I was registering for class they told me I needed to put down a major,” she remembered. “I told them they didn’t tell me that when they were recruiting me to go there and sing, but they said I needed to put down something so I just said, ‘Theater.’ I thought I would change it later.”

However, that change never happened.

“I can remember walking into the theater department, and there was somebody working on a song in one corner, there were two people dancing in another corner, and in this other area these kids were working on a monologue,” she said. “I just felt engulfed in this wonderful energy. I said, ‘Oh my God, this is where I belong.’ I had never really felt like I had fit in anywhere before, but I knew at that moment I had found something.”

Gradual involvement

Wortham, a native of Louisville, Ky., also wasn’t turned on to acting until her freshman year at Centre College, a small liberal arts school in Danville, Ky.

“I really came to theater through music,” said Wortham, who is also making her second appearance on the Capital Rep stage having performed in “Boston Marriage” in 2009.

“I sang in choir and in a cappella groups throughout middle school and high school. Then in college I auditioned for a musical because I always felt comfortable singing. But I soon realized I didn’t know what I was doing. I discovered I better learn what I should be doing on stage when I’m not singing. So, I took an acting class, got bitten by the bug, changed my major to theater and went on to get my MFA at Brown.”

While she does sing in “Black Pearl Sings!,” Wortham says it is Jones’ voice that is the star of the show.

“The play is about her singing,” she said. “My character does some singing just to share some information and give examples of songs. But Susan isn’t trying to impress anybody with her voice. The show is about Pearl’s singing and her voice.”

Jones and Wortham first did the show together in 2010 in San Jose, Calif., working under the direction of the playwright. Higgins rejoined the two stars in Virginia last month as Jones and Wortham paired up again to do a three-week run at the Virginia Stage Company in Norfolk, Va. That production was directed by Patrick Mullins, who has traveled with the cast for the show’s three-week run in Albany.

“Frank made some changes to the show in Virginia, but I don’t think there will be anything done differently in Albany,” said Wortham. “The two stages are a little different, so there will be some changes in the blocking, but I think textually the show will be the same.”

Working together

While “Black Pearl Sings!” has been a popular play in regional theaters around the country the last two years, it is only this production, with Jones and Wortham, that has worked closely with the playwright.

“It’s great that when Frank gets involved he says, ‘These are my ladies, please use them,’ ” said Wortham. “We didn’t have to audition again or anything. He’s just particularly fond of Jannie and I, and he loves what we bring to the script.”

“It was like this wonderful reunion when Frank and Jessica and I got together in Virginia,” said Jones. “It was great to see her again, and it’s so flattering that Frank requested Jess and I. I felt honored.”

“Black Pearl Sings!” made its world premiere in Houston in 2007, and when it was being produced in San Jose three years later, Higgins continued to make changes. Just last month he was still tweaking Susannah.

“She is so driven that sometimes things fly out of her mouth that sound terrible,” Wortham said of Susannah. “In the writing process Frank has been treading that fine line with the character. She’s ambitious and she’s single-minded so that can come off as abrasive. But that’s not her intent. Her only intent is to get to the song. Pearl has a long journey over the course of the play, and Susannah, who’s been mistreated by her parents, is more interested in her work and preserving all this great music.”

Higgins, who is not making the trip to Albany, is a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His other plays include “The Sweet By ’n’ By,” which was produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1992 starring the mother-daughter team of Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Women and tradition

In “Black Pearl Sings!,” Higgins decided to use female characters instead of male because “Women are the matriarchs of any culture,” he said in a press release. “They are the ones who sang the songs to the children. Women are more likely to carry on the songs of a culture.”

Capital Rep artistic producer Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill said she was thrilled to have her company serve as co-producer of this production with the Virginia Stage Company .

“I like this play,” she said. “It is so engaging even as it sheds light on a little-known aspect of American history through this dramatic story of two women who help and bolster one another through their shared pursuit of music.”

Mancinelli-Cahill is also happy to welcome Wortham and Jones back to the Capital Rep stage.

“Jessica Wortham was so memorable in ‘Boston Marriage,’ and Jannie Jones brought the house down every night in ‘Crowns’ with her rendition of ‘Eye of the Sparrow’ ” said Mancinelli-Cahill. “It’s what she does: sing her heart out.”

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