Prototype Festival: Eat the Document
$40.25-$155.25
- Paul An, bass
- Danielle Buonaiuto, soprano
- Adrienne Danrich, soprano
- Amy Justman, soprano
- Michael Kuhn, tenor
- Paul Pinto, baritone
- Natalie Trumm, soprano
- Mila Henry, conductor
Eat the Document, a new opera based on the novel by Dana Spiotta, is a story of activism, sacrifice and the cost of living a secret. In the heyday of the seventies underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker—passionate, idealistic, and in love—design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see one another again.
Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, Jason, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother's generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead. Not far away, a man calling himself Nash presides over an anarchist bookstore, drawing the disaffected youth of the next generation into a series of "groups" and "collectives." Miranda, alone among the kids who frequent the bookstore, takes Nash seriously.
Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Eat the Document explores the connection between the two eras—their language, technology, music, and activism.
January 9 performance: Join us Opening Night for a special Champagne Toast! John Glover (composer), Kelley Rourke (librettist), Kristin Marting (director), and Mila Henry (music director) have been developing the piece together since 2020. For our world premiere as part of the 2025 Prototype Festival, we have assembled an incredible team of collaborators (Peiyi Wong, scenery; Rashidah Nelson, costumes; Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa, lighting; Ken Feldman, sound), and a stellar cast that includes Paul An, Danielle Buonaiuto, Adrienne Danrich, Amy Justman, Michael Kuhn, Paul Pinto, Tim Russell, and Natalie Trumm.
Donors who contribute $100 or more will receive a free digital download of a single from the show. Those who contribute $500 or more will receive a signed copy of Eat the Document, the novel by Dana Spiotta that inspired the opera. Those who contribute $5000 or more will be credited on our title page as co-commissioners. We can’t wait to share this work with you!
Click here to donate: https://ci.ovationtix.com/219/store/donations/52444
About Danielle Buonaiuto, soprano
About Adrienne Danrich, soprano
As an award winning singer, writer, composer, and educator, Adrienne Danrich is redefining what it means to be a creative performer. Adrienne is most notably recognized for winning a Midwest EMMY for her performance and narration of This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price. The show, which Adrienne created, also received a Midwest EMMY nomination. Distinctive in her talent and charisma, Adrienne is known for going places other artists have not yet ventured.
https://adriennedanrich.com/About Amy Justman, soprano
About Michael Kuhn, tenor
About Paul Pinto, baritone
Paul Pinto is a writer, composer, performer, opera-sermonizer, and multi-disciplinary dabbler who makes music, new media, micro-theatres and durational performance by himself and with his friends. Some of those friends include the collectives thingNY, Varispeed and LoveLoveLove. A few favorite projects include Patriots with Jeffrey Young, Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives with Varispeed, Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, and the cyclorama video installation Whiteness with Kameron Neal. He sang and danced on Broadway in Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, and wrote and performed in the electronic opera Thomas Paine in Violence starring Joan LaBarbara. Recent commissions and partnerships include HERE Arts, Prototype Festival, Colgate University, The Fisher Center, the Look + Listen Festival, American Opera Projects, Opera America, Culturehub, LaMaMa, Quince Ensemble, WNET All Arts, Media Art Xchange, The Rhythm Method, Yarn/Wire, Gelsey Bell, and Kristin Marting.
https://www.pfpinto.com/About Natalie Trumm, soprano
About Mila Henry, conductor
Mila Henry is a conductor, pianist and music director who maintains a versatile career, leading works spanning folk operas to rock musicals to reimagined classics. She is based in New York, and was nicknamed a "Jill of all trades" (Sullivan County Democrat) for her multi-instrumentalist work with The Opera Cowgirls.
https://milahenry.com/