IN Series is excited to announce our 2024/25 Season - “ILLICIT OPERA”
FEATURING FOUR NEW PRODUCTIONS
THE CRADLE WILL ROCK
by Marc Blitzstein
October 2024
Goldman Theatre DCJCC | Baltimore Theater Project
This piece became a thundering work of American history when governments and unions alike tried to ban its legendary first performance. Artists defied those orders to bring this searing work that celebrates the labor movement to life from the seats of a packed theater while the work’s composer and librettist Marc Blitzstein sat alone at the piano onstage. Originally directed by Orson Welles and dedicated to Kurt Weill, this imaginative new version honors the story of this rarely heard classic’s origin with new energy, humor, melody, and a thirst for justice. The production features a cast of the area’s best young vocalists, led by the newly named Artistic Director of DC’s own Theater Alliance, Shanara Gabrielle, and IN Series Head of Music Emily Baltzer (“The Promised End”).
RIGOLETTO
by G. Verdi
new English text by Bari Biern
made possible by Dr. Nancy Miller and Walter Romanek
December 2024
Goldman Theatre DCJCC | Baltimore Theater Project
Voted as audience choice for IN Series’ 2019-20 season, this circus version of Rigoletto, complete with a circus band and bawdy new text by Bari Biern, became a victim of COVID-19, but before that, victim to 19th-century censors that found its exploration of the misdeeds of the powerful too dangerous for the public eye. The production will finally roar to life on the stage December 7-15 at the Goldman Theater DCJCC and the Baltimore Theatre Project. At once darkly devilish, toe-tappingly infectious, and horrifically funny, Verdi’s masterpiece is made intimate, in-your-face, and inescapably enjoyable under the big top, with a cast of fan favorites returning from IN Series’ 2023 production “The Promised End,” and led once more by Emily Baltzer.
POPPEA
by Claudio Monteverdi
March 2025
Dupont Underground | Baltimore Theater Project | St Marks Capitol Hill
The final part of IN Series’ Monteverdi trilogy, Poppea brings the composer’s most famous and audacious final opera of love, power, sex, and betrayal to life inspired by the performance tradition of South India, and specifically Bharatanatyam dance. This landmark production, running March 14-30 at Dupont Underground, St. Mark’s Capitol Hill and Baltimore Theatre Project, is of one of opera’s undisputed masterpieces. IN Series’ production will be a collaboration with Indian-Canadian choreographer Hari Krishnan, whose work brilliantly combines the aesthetics of this traditional dance form with contemporary movement and questions of gender norms. The work will be directed and conducted by IN Series Artistic Director Timothy Nelson and feature a cast of local favorites and international artists known for their interpretations of opera of the Baroque. The INnovātiō Orchestra, IN Series’ own period baroque band, will blend music of South India in an evening of whirling passion, music, poetry, and dance. Opening night will be a celebration of the Indian festival of Holi.
ETHIOPIA
living newspaper by Arthur Arent & new text by Sybil R. Williams
music by Janelle Gill
May-June 2025
Greenberg Theatre of American University | Baltimore Theater Project
The long-awaited world premiere of the first “living newspaper,” Ethiopia concludes the 2024-25 season. The work was banned by the Roosevelt administration and never performed, until now. Written in 1937, this production fuses theater and music to tell the hot-off-the-press story of Italy’s colonialist attack on Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia while the world stayed silent. “Ethiopia” runs May 17 – June 1 at Greenberg Theatre and Baltimore Theatre Project. This reconstruction, with vivid new texts, is the brainchild of DC writer Sybil R. Williams (“Stormy Weather,” “Alceste”) who has teamed up with DC composer and pianist Janelle Gill (“Desdemona,” “Chuck and Eva”) to imagine a new musical realization inspired by the music of Emahoy Tsege, an Ethiopian luminary artist known as “the honky tonk nun.” Williams and Gill expand the vision of the original work to explore how America’s Black and Brown communities responded to Europe’s aggression, and particularly the story of Mayme Richardson, a leading black soprano that became an activist for the Ethiopian causes. Jazz, classical, and African music blend and soar in this history-making musical moment.
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DELTA KING'S BLUES
a musical reading
JANUARY 2025
ONLY SUBSCRIBERS are invited to this first musical reading of the new opera being commissioned for our 2025-2026 season from composer Damien Geter and librettist Jarrod Lee on the blues legend Robert Johnson's deal with the devil to learn to play the blues. The performance features and all-star cast from around the country.
