Pastiche Operas

2018

The Cow Country Bachelor dating competition in small town America tests the limits of the contestants in their search for love. The opera examines the pressure to conform, inspired by the questions "How far would you go to be adored, accepted, or loved?” “What would you give up or change about yourself to be popular, famous, or rich?”

2003-2016

Our format of voices and bodies in motion was conceived in 2003 to unify opera arias, art songs, improvisation and movement in one singular theatrical experience. Each year, music was arranged and performed into one continuous stream without break, allowing the director, choreographer and performers to create evocative stage relationships.

2016

In this three-act journey we meet current and former employees of the Trump Organization, paintings that come alive but are prevented from escaping their boundaries by Satan, and finally Trump and entourage at a campaign rally. Unsavory photos are discovered online and Satan scolds Trump for not following "the plan." (Performed pre-election.)

2015

“Singed” (as in burned) is comprised of three one-act pastiche operas centered around loneliness and the quest for connection and love. The acts were set in a Speak-easy, a women's prison, and a family reunion. Each character worked to find connection and love amid obstacles that were both interior and exterior, real and imagined.

2014

The Mezzo Family plans one last heist and as The Family gathers for a celebration, arguments interrupt the proceedings. This opera takes us through the family reunion, a bank robbery at the Hi-Ho Silver Bank, and a chaotic Emergency Room where Papa Mezzo says good-bye to his mortally wounded bank- robber daughter.

2013

This production explored a new non-linear ensemble story arc developed from randomly assigned allegiances, social rank, and relationships. Instead of a sole protagonist with a linear narrative, we opted instead for a latticework of individual stories tied together in the common theme of “Exposure.”

2013

How has the internet affected our lives? These questions are posed in an opera that begins with a NYC subway platform, on to an abandoned wax museum, and finally to the impersonal world of the internet Cloud. This opera explores Real vs. Synthetic, the breakdown of Human Connections, and the rapidly changing perceptions of Tradition, Morality and Identity.

2011

In the Espagna Valley, lonely singles looking for true love meet at the Zombie Apoco-Lips Bar for a speed-dating event. Some move on to a wedding where former fiancées has a nervous breakdown and is taken to a mental institution where we learn about the secret longings for love that the patients and the medical staff share.

2010

The Shady Willow Pines Mobile Home Park is where a local boy is discovered and whisked off to Hollywood to become the star of the award-winning soap opera “Confessions”. But he encounters star-struck women and men, and jealous co-stars. It takes his hometown girlfriend to remind him how far he has strayed from who he is.

2009

This story of pain, hope and courage, shined a light on the dangerous world of human traffickers, runaways, and refugees desperate to escape poverty and strife. Poverty and danger is juxtaposed with the opulence and party atmosphere of a New York penthouse.

2008

In the high stakes world of Las Vegas, the Candy Casino invited clients to a special event to risk all or nothing! “I Candy” challenged us all to ask if we would gamble everything to make a dream come true, and which would we choose: selfishness or selflessness.

2007

Andrew suffers from multiple personality disorder and his therapist is trying to identify the personalities who haunt him. We meet his different personalities in each act until, in the final scene, his therapist helps him understand that the man in jail is him.

2006

The Femme Fatale asks detective Trey Veet’s to help end a terrible curse. Their journey ends on an all-female pirate ship where the blind captain has forbidden any man on the ship after her heart was broken.

2005

At a high school reunion, three couples realize their children were all born on the April Fools Day and they flashback to the wedding reception where the best man had a fling with the groom's mother, the bride is pregnant with another man’s baby, and finally the “Labor of Love” Birthing Center.

2004

Nika Magadoff, former world-famous singer-dancer and now director of the Fully Fantastic Funeral Emporium and Mortuary, runs his business with an unusual flair. In his line of work, he meets some interesting characters including a narcoleptic bodyguard, an hysterical IRS agent, and a mailman with an “interesting” hobby. ​

2003

While attending a Star Trek Convention, real aliens from Spaceship No. 2 escape their doomed planet and arrive on Earth through a porthole in the Women’s Restroom at the convention. Trekkie fans at the convention mistake the aliens for Trekkies which frightens the aliens until their Queen arrives and takes her subjects back to their planet.

2002

​Pastor Tim has developed nuptialedophobia [nup-tial-edo-pho-bia] a fear of performing marriage ceremonies. He suffers catastrophic consequences every time he recites the wedding vows as he is haunted by treacherous demons, desperate brides, and lost grooms.

2001

A dysfunctional family reunion is interrupted by misguided participants in a Murder Mystery game who mistakenly shoot the family patriarch. In the three acts, we meet a kleptomaniac aunt, cross-breeding cousins, a disgraceful Dr. Love and his perennially pregnant nurses in the ER, and cable star Geri Springer.

2000

Jay Wadd, the popular host of the “Jay Talk” talk show, becomes the target of a wager between God (as a homeless activist) and Satan (as a female philanthropist). Jay is whisked away to the cruise ship SS Purgatory where he is sorely tempted by an accomplice of Satan. But he is saved and transported to a cable TV psychic show where he is saved by God.

1998

A bride is mistakenly arrested at the altar by the INS. This is the story of her wedding day: from the church, to jail, to court. Characters included double agents, hookers, inept lawyers and a rodeo-style judge. The action runs the gamut from a fight in the jail between the bride and hookers, to the courtroom with dueling lawyers, and finally a reunion of bride and groom.