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Crossing

Subscription Season
  • MAY 29, 2015 – JUNE 6, 2015

  • Citi Shubert Theatre

  • Run Time: 1 hour and forty minutes with no intermission.

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“Ambitiously explores the encounter between music and poetry.”
—The New York Times Magazine

A NEW AMERICAN OPERA
WORLD PREMIERE
Music & libretto by Matthew Aucoin

With the chamber orchestra A Far Cry
Directed by Diane Paulus

Inspired by the diary Walt Whitman kept as a nurse during the Civil War, this world premiere opera by the extraordinary young composer Matthew Aucoin explores how the individual experiences of soldiers are remembered and told. As Whitman listens to wounded veterans share their memories and messages, he forges a bond with a soldier who forces him to examine his own role as writer and poet. This new opera, featuring the Boston-based orchestra A Far Cry, an ensemble at the forefront of a dynamic new generation in classical music is produced in association with Music-Theatre Group.

#CrossingART    @americanrep

Need to know

This production will be in English with supertitles.

Read more

On a laptop, it may be easier to read our Guide or program by selecting fullscreen, single page view, and then scrolling to read.

Notable dates

This production will be in English with supertitles.

Age Appropriateness

Ages 12 and up/6th Grade and up

Young theatergoers without prior experience with opera may benefit from some preparation on what to expect at an opera performance. Strong images of war and its aftermath may be disturbing to young children.

Discussions

“Crossing: A Lecture/Recital,” A recital and discussion with Matthew Aucoin (Harvard ’12) about Crossing, his new opera inspired by the journals and poetry of Walt Whitman, premiering this May at the American Repertory Theater. Aucoin will address the concept of “crossing” as both transcendence and transgression, in relationship to poetry, music, and history. He will be joined by Davone Tines (Harvard ’09), one of the performers in Crossing. Presented by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard. (Thursday, Mar. 12, 6:00PM, Paine Hall, Music Building, 1 Oxford Street). Click here to watch a video of the event.


The A.R.T. is proud to be a part of the Blue Star Theatres network. US military personnel, military veterans and their families can receive up to four (4) tickets to Crossing at $5 off regular ticket price.

Photos & Videos

Press

Credits

Creative team

Music & Librettor

Matthew Aucoin

Music & Librettor

Matthew Aucoin

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. He is the newly-appointed Artist-in-Residence at Los Angeles Opera. This position fuses his work as composer and conductor, from conducting the LA premiere of Philip Glass's Akhnaten, to composing a new full-length work which will premiere in a future season, to serving as the company's advisor on new music and working regularly with members of its opera studio.

In the 2014-15 season, Aucoin conducted the premieres of two of his operas: Crossing, at Boston's American Repertory Theater (directed by Diane Paulus); and Second Nature, a chamber opera for the young, at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is currently at work on a new opera for the Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater's New Works program.

In October 2016, pianist Conor Hanick and the Alabama Symphony gave the first performances of Aucoin's first piano concerto, commissioned by The Gilmore Foundation. Last season, his song cycle Merrill Songs was premiered by tenor Paul Appleby at Carnegie Hall. Violinist Jennifer Koh commissioned and debuted Aucoin's new solo violin work resolve for the New York Philharmonic Biennale and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Aucoin has recently made orchestral conducting debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Rome Opera Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (a special event featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma); opera productions have included Music Academy of the West (The Bartered Bride, as well as his own chamber opera Second Nature); Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Juilliard Opera (Eugene Onegin). 

Aucoin is a 2012 graduate of Harvard College, where he studied with the poet Jorie Graham; and a 2013 recipient of a graduate diploma in composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with composer Robert Beaser. Shortly before he graduated from Harvard, Aucoin was hired as the youngest Assistant Conductor in the history of the Metropolitan Opera, where he worked with Thomas Adès, James Levine, and Valery Gergiev.

Aucoin remains an active pianist and regularly collaborates with violinist Keir GoGwilt, as well as many of the world's leading opera singers, including Renée Fleming, Paulo Szot, Rod Gilfry, and Anthony Roth Costanzo. An accomplished writer, Aucoin's essays and poetry have appeared in The Yale ReviewThe Colorado ReviewThe Boston Globe, and The Harvard Advocate. He has served as guest lecturer for the New York Shakespeare Society and a guest host for New York's WQXR. 

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Set Designer

Tom Pye

Set Designer

Tom Pye

A.R.T.: Witness Uganda. Broadway/ West End: The Testament of Mary (Fiona Shaw); All My Sons (John Lithgow & Dianne Wiest); Top Girls, MTC; Cyrano de Bergerac (Kevin Kline); The Glass Menagerie (Jessica Lange); Fiddler on the Roof (Tony nomination); Medea (Fiona Shaw); Sinatra. Other design credits: The Death of Klinghoffer, Eugene Onegin, Met Opera; Così fan tutte, Met Opera/ENO; Thebans, ENO; High Society, Old Vic; John Gabriel Borkman, BAM; The Low Road, NSFW, Royal Court; Miss Fortune, Bregenz, Royal Opera; Death in Venice, La Scala (Premio Franco Abbiati della Critica Musicale Italiana); The Cunning Little Vixen, Glyndebourne.

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Costume Designer

David Zinn

Costume Designer

David Zinn

A.R.T.: Ajax, Island of Slaves, Orpheus X, Olly’s Prison, Highway Ulysses. Broadway: Fun Home (Tony nomination, Best Scenic Design), Airline Highway (Tony nomination, Best Costume Design), Last Ship, Rocky, In The Next Room (Tony nomination, Best Costume Design), Xanadu. Off-Broadway: The Flick, Circle Mirror Transformation, Choir Boy, Dogfight. Regional: Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Rep, Mark Taper Forum, Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf. Opera: Lyric Opera Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera.

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Lighting Designer

Jennifer Tipton

Lighting Designer

Jennifer Tipton

A.R.T.: The Birthday Party, The King Stag, Endgame. Broadway: The Testament of Mary, Broadway/The Barbican. Recent work: La Traviata, Teatro Real; Shostakovich Trilogy, American Ballet Theater/San Francisco Ballet; Richard Nelson’s Apple Family Plays, New York Shakespeare Festival. Ms. Tipton teaches lighting at the Yale School of Drama. She received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001, the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003, and in April 2004 the Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture in New York City. In 2008 she was made a United States Artists “Gracie” Fellow and a MacArthur Fellow.

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Projection Designer

Finn Ross

Projection Designer

Finn Ross

A.R.T.: Crossing. Broadway: American Psycho, Almeida, West End; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, West End; Betrayal. London: Frankenstein, Royal Ballet; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Royal Opera House; Chimerica, Almeida; Closer, Donmar Warehouse; Master and Margarita, All My Sons, Shunkin, Complicite; Top Girls, West End. Opera: The Feeling of Going, Skånes Dansteater and Malmö Opera; Death of Klinghoffer, Death in Venice, Onegin, Simon Boccanegra, The Damnation of Faust, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, ENO; Hansel and Gretel, A Dog’s Heart, The Magic Flute, Netherlands Opera; La clemenza di Tito, Mr Brouček, Opera North; Theatre an der Wien; Imago; Glyndebourne; RNT; Scottish Opera; LA Phil; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Schauspielhaus, Köln; Traverse; Gothenburg Opera; Bregenz. Ross has won two Olivier Awards, a Tony, and a Drama Desk Award. Training: Central School of Speech and Drama.

 

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Sound Consultant

Aaron Mack

Sound Consultant

Aaron Mack

A.R.T.: The Light Princess (A.R.T. and New Victory Theater), The Snow Queen, Hansel and Gretel. Recent work: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Production Manager); Santa Fe Opera Company (Titles Administrator); Brown University/ Trinity Rep (Sound Design Artist in Residence); OBERON (Head of Sound). Aaron is currently the Associate Director of Production at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, a new venue and organization on Bleecker Street in NoHo.

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Associate Director

Andrew Eggert

Associate Director

Andrew Eggert

A.R.T.: Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera (Associate Director). Opera: Productions at Chicago Opera Theater, Boston Lyric Opera, Guerilla Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Omaha, Gotham Chamber Opera. Training programs include Glimmerglass Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera. Education: B.A., Yale University. M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University. Eggert is currently Head of Opera at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

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Rehearsal Pianist

Adam Nielsen

Rehearsal Pianist

Adam Nielsen

A.R.T.: Debut. Performances with the Utah Symphony, Stony Brook Symphony, Windscape, Fry Street Quartet. Recitals at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Aspen Festival. Faculty: Juilliard Vocal Arts. Staff: Aspen Opera Theater, Heifetz Institute, Ravinia Steans Institute, Opera on the Avalon. D.M.A., University of Stony Brook. M.M., The Juilliard School.

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Stage Manager

Carolyn Rae Boyd

Stage Manager

Carolyn Rae Boyd

ART: Crossing, Witness Uganda, Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera, Sleep No More, Let Me Down Easy. International: Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera. Off-Broadway: Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, McKittrick Hotel; Invisible Thread, Second Stage. Many productions at Williamstown Theater Festival, Boston Ballet, Huntington Theater, Hangar Theater. BFA in Stage Management from Boston University College of Fine Arts.

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Conductor

Matthew Aucoin

Conductor

Matthew Aucoin

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. He is the newly-appointed Artist-in-Residence at Los Angeles Opera. This position fuses his work as composer and conductor, from conducting the LA premiere of Philip Glass's Akhnaten, to composing a new full-length work which will premiere in a future season, to serving as the company's advisor on new music and working regularly with members of its opera studio.

In the 2014-15 season, Aucoin conducted the premieres of two of his operas: Crossing, at Boston's American Repertory Theater (directed by Diane Paulus); and Second Nature, a chamber opera for the young, at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is currently at work on a new opera for the Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater's New Works program.

In October 2016, pianist Conor Hanick and the Alabama Symphony gave the first performances of Aucoin's first piano concerto, commissioned by The Gilmore Foundation. Last season, his song cycle Merrill Songs was premiered by tenor Paul Appleby at Carnegie Hall. Violinist Jennifer Koh commissioned and debuted Aucoin's new solo violin work resolve for the New York Philharmonic Biennale and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Aucoin has recently made orchestral conducting debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Rome Opera Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (a special event featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma); opera productions have included Music Academy of the West (The Bartered Bride, as well as his own chamber opera Second Nature); Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Juilliard Opera (Eugene Onegin). 

Aucoin is a 2012 graduate of Harvard College, where he studied with the poet Jorie Graham; and a 2013 recipient of a graduate diploma in composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with composer Robert Beaser. Shortly before he graduated from Harvard, Aucoin was hired as the youngest Assistant Conductor in the history of the Metropolitan Opera, where he worked with Thomas Adès, James Levine, and Valery Gergiev.

Aucoin remains an active pianist and regularly collaborates with violinist Keir GoGwilt, as well as many of the world's leading opera singers, including Renée Fleming, Paulo Szot, Rod Gilfry, and Anthony Roth Costanzo. An accomplished writer, Aucoin's essays and poetry have appeared in The Yale ReviewThe Colorado ReviewThe Boston Globe, and The Harvard Advocate. He has served as guest lecturer for the New York Shakespeare Society and a guest host for New York's WQXR. 

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Choreographer

Jill Johnson

Jill Johnson

Choreographer

Jill Johnson

A.R.T.: In the Body of the WorldCrossing, O.P.C. Director of Dance, Senior Lecturer in Music and Theater, Dance & Media; Artistic Director of the Harvard Dance Project, at Harvard University. Graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School; a 28-year veteran of the dance field, Johnson choreographs for film, television, and the stage; has danced in over 50 tours on 5 continents. Was soloist with the National Ballet of Canada and a principal dancer and researcher in William Forsythe’s company Frankfurt Ballet. Stages Forsythe’s work worldwide, including for Paris Opera Ballet, La Scala, Batsheva Dance Company, Norwegian National Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theater, Boston Ballet, and American Ballet Theater. Is a founding collaborator of The Movement Invention Project in New York, and has served on the faculties of and created choreographic work for Princeton University, Columbia University, the Juilliard School and NYU; and has created 12 new works at Harvard since 2011 including Paper Wing, What Moves You?, and dance installations RE: RE: RE: and LOOK UP. Recent collaborations include those with the Harvard Choruses, Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Dries Van Noten/Louvre Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

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Director

Diane Paulus

Director

Diane Paulus

(she/her) Diane Paulus is the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. A.R.T.: 1776, WILD: A Musical Becoming, Gloria: A Life, Jagged Little Pill, ExtraOrdinary, The White Card, In the Body of the World, Waitress (film available online, French-language production in Quebec summer 2024), Crossing, Finding Neverland, Witness Uganda, Pippin (Tony Award, Best Revival and Best Director), The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Tony Award, Best Revival; NAACP Award, Best Direction), Prometheus Bound, Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera, Best of Both Worlds, The Donkey Show. Other work includes Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna, Invisible Thread at Second Stage, and the Public Theater’s Tony Award-winning revival of HAIR on Broadway and London’s West End. As an opera director, her credits include The Magic Flute, the complete Monteverdi cycle, and the trio of Mozart-Da Ponte operas, as well as the upcoming Carmen (2024 Glydenbourne Festival). Paulus is Professor of the Practice of Theater in Harvard University’s English Department and Department of Theater, Dance & Media. She was selected for Boston magazine’s 2023, 2022, 2020, and 2018 lists of Boston’s most influential people, the 2014 Time 100, Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and as one of Variety’s “Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014.”

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Chamber Orchestra

A Far Cry

Chamber Orchestra

A Far Cry

A Far Cry stands at the forefront of an exciting new generation in classical music. According to the New York Times, the GRAMMY nominated self-conducted orchestra “brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied.” A Far Cry was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of 17 young professional musicians—the Criers—and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes. By expanding the boundaries of orchestral repertoire and experimenting with the ways music is prepared, performed, and experienced, A Far Cry has been embraced throughout the world with hundreds of performances coast to coast and across the globe, and hundreds of thousands of online views of live streaming concerts and YouTube archives. Dreams and Prayers and Law of Mosaics, the first albums from A Far Cry's in-house label, Crier Records, have collectively garnered a GRAMMY nomination and critical acclaim from the New Yorker’s Alex Ross. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city, rehearsing at their storefront music center in Jamaica Plain and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Collaborating with local students through an educational partnership with the New England Conservatory, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.

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Cast

Walt Whitman

Rod Gilfry

Walt Whitman

Rod Gilfry

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: World Premieres: A Streetcar Named Desire (Stanley), San Francisco Opera; Nicholas and Alexandra (Nicholas), Los Angeles Opera; Sophie’s Choice (Nathan), Covent Garden/Washington National Opera; Every Man Jack (Jack London), Sonoma City Opera; Margaret Garner (Edward Gaines), Michigan Opera Theatre/ Cincinnati Opera/Opera Company of Philadelphia; Gesualdo, Zurich Opera. A two-time Grammy nominee, Gilfry’s discography of 28 audio and video recordings includes his one-man show My Heart is So Full of You. Gilfry holds the Steven Crocker Chair in Music at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

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John Wormley

Alexander Lewis

John Wormley

Alexander Lewis

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: The Nose (The Nose), Rigoletto (Borsa), The Merry Widow (Raoul de St. Brioche), Met Opera; Moby Dick, Washington National Opera; The Magic Flute, West Australian Opera Company; Gloria: A Pig Tale, New York Philharmonic. Musical Theater: Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera Company; Sweeney Todd, Opera Australia; Titanic, Seabiscuit Productions; The Phantom of the Opera, The Really Useful Group. Concerts: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Bangalow Music Festival; Petite Messe Solenelle, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; Adriana Lecouvreur, The Opera Orchestra of New York.

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Freddi Stowers

Davóne Tines

Freddi Stowers

Davóne Tines

Davóne Tines, deemed a "singer of immense power and fervor" by The LA Times and a "charismatic, full-voiced bass-baritone" by The New York Times, commands a broad spectrum of opera and concert performance as a singer and creator. Of his recent debut with the San Francisco Symphony, KQED writes, "In a just world, one in which fame was proportionate to talent, Davóne Tines would be as big as Kanye." Highlights from the past year include performances with the Dutch National Opera, Ojai Music Festival, London Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Orchestre national de France, and the Finnish National Opera in collaborations with Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, Matt Aucoin, Caroline Shaw, and Peter Sellars. Upcoming performances include engagements with the Baltic Sea Festival with Esa Pekka Salonen, the San Francisco Opera, Paris Opera, BAM, and the American Repertory Theater, as well as an international tour with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. 

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William Goforth Headshot

Ensemble

William Goforth

William Goforth Headshot

Ensemble

William Goforth

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: The Rape of Lucretia (Male Chorus), Eugene Onegin (Triquet), Juilliard Opera. Performances at the Heidelberger Frühling Festival, Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, with pianist Wenwen Du, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and Pink Martini. B.M., St. Olaf College, M.M., The Juilliard School.

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Frank Kelley Headshot

Ensemble

Frank Kelley

Frank Kelley Headshot

Ensemble

Frank Kelley

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera, The Dallas Opera/ Opéra de Monte- Carlo; Boston Lyric Opera; Florentine Opera; Opera Theater of St. Louis; San Francisco Opera Company; Teatre del Liceu; Théâtre de la Monnaie; The Frankfurt Opera; Peter Sellars’ Die Sieben Todsünden, Das Kleine Mahagonny, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro. Kelley has over 30 recordings, two of which have been awarded Grammys. A resident of Boston, Kelley sings there regularly with Emmanuel Music.

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Ensemble

Michael Kelly

Ensemble

Michael Kelly

A.R.T.: Debut. Concerts: Schubert’s Mass in G, Manhattan Concert Productions; Carmina Burana, Pacific Symphony; John Harbison’s Flashes and Illuminations, Britten in Song: A Centennial Celebration, SongFusion; Brahms Celebration, Baltimore Lieder Weekend; David Del Tredici’s Dum Dee Tweedle, Detroit Symphony; Handel’s Messiah, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

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Ensemble

David Kravitz

Ensemble

David Kravitz

Baritone David Kravitz has been widely praised for the "power, character" and "resonance and fluency" of his singing (Boston Globe; Opera News), his "brilliantly natural" acting and "perfect comic timing" (Boston Globe; St. Louis Post-Dispatch), his "eloquent" and "superb" diction (Boston Phoenix; Boston Herald), and his "drop-dead musicianship" (Boston Globe) on both the operatic and the concert stages. In the 2010–11 season, Mr. Kravitz sings the Businessman in Intermezzo for his debut at New York City Opera, and appears as the United Nations Delegate in the world premiere of Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers at Opéra de Monte-Carlo, with subsequent performances of the work that season at Chicago Opera Theater and in Boston in a production by the American Repertory Theater. He also returns to Opera Boston as the Provost Marshall and Gold Merchant in Hindemith’s rarely performed Cardillac, sings Handel’s Messiah for his debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, covers Matthias Goerne in Britten’s War Requiem led by Seiji Ozawa and appears as Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress with Emmanuel Music. He closes the season as Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri with Boston Midsummer Opera.

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Matthew Patrick Morris Headshot
Matthew Patrick Morris Headshot

Ensemble

Matthew Patrick Morris

A.R.T.: Debut. West End: Candide. Bouffes du Nord, Piccolo Teatro, International Tour: Peter Brook’s Une Flûte Enchantée (Papageno, Molière Award Best Musical). Off-Broadway: La Périchole, New York City Opera; Hello Again (Soldier), Manhattan Theater Source. National Tour: Scrooge the Musical (Young Scrooge). Regional: Les Misérables (Marius), Amarillo Opera. Film: The Producers! TV: “Law & Order SVU”. B.M., The Juilliard School; M.M., Bard College Conservatory. Thanks to Mom, Dad, & Edwin.

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Ensemble

Miles Mykkanen

Ensemble

Miles Mykkanen

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Eugene Onegin (Lensky), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Almaviva), La finta giardiniera (Belfiore), Le donne curiose (Florindo), Le nozze di Figaro (Basilio). Concert and opera appearances with Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Caramoor Music Festival, New World Symphony. TV: American Voices (PBS Great Performances). B.M. and M.M. from The Juilliard School (Toulmin Foundation Scholar) under the tutelage of Cynthia Hoffmann.

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Daniel Neer Headshot

Ensemble

Daniel Neer

Daniel Neer Headshot

Ensemble

Daniel Neer

A.R.T.: Debut. Broadway: Coram Boy; Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème. Opera: Numinous City, Royal Opera House (ROH2); Strange Fruit, New York City Opera/ Harlem School of the Arts; Séance on a Wet Afternoon, American Opera Projects; Four Saints in Three Acts, BAM; Mata Hari, HERE. Regional: The Iliad/ The Odyssey, The Lensic. Concert: A Composer’s Journey with Diedre Murray, The Apollo; Many Many Women, Ostrava New Music Festival; Historia di Job, Aspen Music Festival. Workshop: Arjuna’s Dilemma, Music-Theatre Group.

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James Onstad Headshot

Ensemble

James Onstad

James Onstad Headshot

Ensemble

James Onstad

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: The Crucible (Rev. Parris), Boston Opera Collaborative; Candide (Candide), Lowell House Opera; Le Docteur Miracle (Silvio), Street Scene (Sam), Spring Symphony (Tenor Soloist), University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Concerts: Vespers, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra; St. John Passion, Boston Baroque. Upcoming: Hopscotch (Orfeo), The Industry. Education: Harvard College (A.B. ‘09, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology), University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (M.F.A., Vocal Performance).

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Ensemble

Edward Parks

Ensemble

Edward Parks

Baritone Edward Parks is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in the 2009-2010 season as Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia. He since appeared at the MET as Schaunard in La bohème, Larkens in La fancuilla del West and returned this season for La Bohème, Don Carlo, and Die Zauberflöte. He sang Valentin in Faust at the Atlanta Opera; the Count in Le nozze di Figaro at Central City Opera, Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at the Michigan Opera Theater, Marcello in La bohème and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at PORT Opera, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Laurent in the Chicago Opera Theater and Long Beach Opera’s co-production of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin, and Ford in Falstaff and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. Concert credits include a recital with Susan Graham for the Marilyn Horne Foundation, Schubert’s Winterreise at both the Schubert Club in St. Paul and in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Prague Proms International Music Festival and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Future seasons will see his debut with Virginia Opera and a return to the Metropolitan Opera.

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Jorell Williams Headshot

Ensemble

Jorell Williams

Jorell Williams Headshot

Ensemble

Jorell Williams

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Blue Viola (Vernon Addams; World Premiere), Artisphere; L’elisir d’amore (Belcore), Kaye Playhouse; H.M.S. Pinafore (Captain Corcoran), Caramoor Festival; Candide (Maximilian), Globe-News Center; Lear on the Second Floor (Nurse/Lawyer; World Premiere), Conrad Prebys Music Center; Die Fledermaus (Falke), American Ballet Theater; Street Scene (Henry Davis), Norton Hall. Off-Broadway: Lost in the Stars (Villager), Encores!. Workshops: Two Boys, Senna, Met Opera. Film Shorts: Business Romantic/T.Leberecht. Film: Spider-Man 3 (Boom Operator), Columbia Pictures. Concerts: Dooryard Bloom (Jennifer Higdon), Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey.

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Gregory Zavracky Headshot

Ensemble

Gregory Zavracky

Gregory Zavracky Headshot

Ensemble

Gregory Zavracky

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Almaviva), Townsend Opera; Once Upon a Mattress (Prince Dauntless), Chautauqua Opera; Il barbiere di Siviglia (Ufficiale), Boston Lyric Opera; Gianni Schicchi (Gherardo), Opera Saratoga; Don Pasquale (Ernesto), Opera in the Heights; Così fan tutte (Ferrando), Cape Cod Opera; Le nozze di Figaro (Don Basilio/Curzio), Connecticut Lyric Opera; Messiah, Rhode Island Philharmonic; Bach’s Magnificat, Back Bay Chorale; Britten’s Les Illuminations, Aurea Ensemble. D.M.A. in voice performance from Boston University.

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Hiroki Ichinose Headshot

Dancers

Hiroki Ichinose

Hiroki Ichinose Headshot

Dancers

Hiroki Ichinose

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Santa Fe Opera. Dance: Awa’a, Aszure Barton & Artists; Watershed, When the Wolves Came In, Kyle Abraham/ Abraham.In.Motion; Performance, Light Years, Rashaun Mitchell; Do You Like This Title, Wendy Osserman; Fernando Melo’s Shadow Waltz, Tom Weinberger’s BenLeBen, Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters, Springboard Danse Montreal. Training: B.F.A., New York University.

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Dancers

Jehbreal Jackson

A.R.T.: Debut. Dance: Limbs Theorem 1, Confirmed Dances, Various Works, The Francesca Harper Project; Agon, Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, The Lark Ascending, Glinka pas de Troi, Pas De Dix, Far But Close, Contested Space, Gloria, Return, Dance Theater of Harlem; Lyrical Male Suite, City Center; Nutcracker (Cavalier/Snow King), Ohman School of Ballet; When Love, Rudolf Nereyev Gala/Vail Festival. Training: B.F.A., The Juilliard School.

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Waldean Nelson Headshot

Dancers

Waldean Nelson

Waldean Nelson Headshot

Dancers

Waldean Nelson

A.R.T.: Debut. Dance: Camille A. Brown & Dancers (2014 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production, for Mr. Tol E. Rance); Jose Navas/Compagnie Flak; The 605 Collective; Kate Wallich/ The YC; Ronald K. Brown/Evidence. Education: B.A., Haverford College (Growth & Structure of Cities, conc. Architecture).

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Jenna Polack Headshot

Dancers

Jenna Polack

Jenna Polack Headshot

Dancers

Jenna Polack

A.R.T.: Debut. Opera: Two Boys, Prince Igor, Eugene Onegin, Met Opera; Images of Sappho, Ballet Opera Pantomime. Dance: Dancing The Grimm, Lincoln Center Education; A Type of Translucence, Preferred Project(ion) (Co-Producer and Dancer), Juilliard Center for Innovation in the Arts; Delectable Body, Artificial Paradise, Dau al Set Productions; Grazing Gracefully, The Equus Projects; A Place Where Something Flourishes, Bryan Arias; Make Brilliant Campaign, Pantone; Works by Fernando Melo and Aszure Barton, Springboard Danse Montréal. Dance Performance B.F.A., The Juilliard School.

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Additional staff

Assistant Director

Allegra Libonati

Assistant Director

Allegra Libonati

A.R.T.: The Pirate Princess, The Light Princess, Hansel and Gretel (Director); The Snow Queen (Director/Adapter); The Donkey Show (Resident Director); The Tempest, Prometheus Bound (Associate Director), Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera, Best of Both Worlds (Assistant Director). OBERON: Once In Hell: Dante’s Inferno in 10 Dinner Courses; Matchmaker, Matchmaker, I’m Willing to Settle: A Musical Guide to Internet Dating. Broadway: HAIR (Assistant Director, Tony Award-winning Revival). Summer Theater of New Canaan: South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, H4 (an original adaptation of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2).

 

 

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Assistant Choreographer

Clifford Williams

Assistant Stage Manager

Leeann Lisella

Assistant Stage Manager

Leeann Lisella

A.R.T.: The Donkey Show, Sleep No More. Broadway: The Country House, The Snow Geese, Manhattan Theatre Club. Off Broadway: Sleep No More; Red Eye to Havre De Grace, New York Theatre Workshop; Choir Boy, Manhattan Theatre Club; Forces and Ascension, Streb Extreme Action Company. B.F.A. Stage Management, Emerson College.

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Dramaturgy

Ryan McKittrick

Dramaturgy

Ryan McKittrick

Ryan McKittrick is the Director of Artistic Programs & Dramaturg at the American Repertory Theater. He received a Master of Theater Arts in Dramaturgy from the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theater Training and a B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard College. He is Lecturer and Head of Dramaturgy in the Theater, Dance & Media concentration at Harvard and Assistant Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University. At the A.R.T., he has served as dramaturg on numerous plays, operas, and musicals, over half of which were world premieres.

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Music Preparation

Julia Bumke

Dialect Coach

Dawn-Elin Fraser

Dialect Coach

Dawn-Elin Fraser

A.R.T.: 1776, Waitress, Crossing, Finding Neverland. North American Dialect Coach: Hamilton. Broadway: Parade, 1776, Macbeth, Slave Play, What the Constitution Means to Me, Once on this Island, Waitress. Off-Broadway: Sojourners, Her Portmanteau, An Ordinary Muslim, The House That Will Not Stand, american (tele)visions, How to Defend Yourself, NYTW; Richard III, Merry Wives, The Public Theater. MFA, American Conservatory Theater. NYTW Usual Suspect.

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Production Assistants

Chaterine Agis, Nina Goodheart, Lily Haje

Assistant Conductor

Benjamin Vickers

Contractor, A Far Cry

Jason Fisher

Contractor, A Far Cry

Jason Fisher

A.R.T.: Evita; 1776; Moby-Dick; We Live in Cairo; Jagged Little Pill; The Black Clown; Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812; Crossing. Founding Member, A Far Cry; Principal Viola, Boston Baroque; period viola with Handel and Haydn Society, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, ACRONYM Ensemble, The Thirteen, Seattle and Portland Baroque Orchestras, Teatro Nuovo, Opera Lafayette, Relic, Sarasa Ensemble. Carnegie Hall Fellow and Peabody Singapore Fellow. Tours of Europe, Asia, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. Performances with Pink Martini, Jake Shimabukuro, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Kiri Te Kanawa, members of the Florestan Trio, and Æolus, Brentano, Cleveland, Emerson, Mendelssohn and St. Lawrence String Quartets. Concerts at Vienna Musikverein, Singapore Esplanade, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Awards: Grammy nominee (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance). Director of Chamber Music Lab, Rivers School Conservatory.

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Supertitle Preparation

Brenna Nicely

Projection Programmer

Matt Houstle

Follow Spot

John Borecki, RJ Lamura

Light Board Operator

Kevin Barnett

Props Craftsperson

Lisa Guild

Costume Crafts

Jen Bennett, Tyler Kinney, Chelsea Kerl

Producing Director, Music-Theatre Group

Diane Wondisford

COVERS

EDWARD PARKS Walt Whitman, MILES MYKKANEN John Wormley, IAN POMERANTZ Edward Parks, SHARIN APOSTOLOU Messenger

 

A FAR CRY

1st Violin — Mika-Sophia Cloud (Concertmaster), Annie Rabbat, Charles Dimmick

2nd Violin — Liesl Doty, Megumi Stohs Lewis, Andrew Eng

Viola — Jason Fisher, Sarah Darling, Amelia Hollander-Ames

Cello — Michael Unterman, Jacque Lee Wood

Doublebass — Karl Doty, Erik Higgins

Flute — Rachel Braude, Vanessa Holroyd

Oboe — Miri Kudo

Clarinet — Rane Moore

Bassoon — David Richmond

French Horn — Hazel Dean Davis, Clark Mattews

Trumpet — Paul Perfetti

Trombone — Gabe Langfur

Percussion — Nicholas Tolle, Robert Schulz, George Nickson

Piano — Adam Nielsen

 

SPECIAL THANKS

Brian Zeger; The Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at the Julliard School; The John Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival; Virgina Symphony Orchestra; Phillip Bauman, M.D.; Isaac Gerwitz, Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Poetry; Phillip Rothman; Stephen Zinner, M.D.; Russell Nauta, M.D.; Deborah Weisgall