The Lydian Gale Parr: an oratorio by Alaina Ferris & Karinne Keithley Syers
April 5-20, 2024 at Target Margin Theater
Produced by The Tank and Amanda + James
The Lydian Gale Parr is a surreal and poetic chamber oratorio with dances: a child emissary is sent from a city under siege to deliver a letter to the attacking general. But the emissary cannot find him; at every place of arrival, the general has just left. Traveling through space and time, the emissary begins to shapeshift, to manifest freely: as boy, as girl, as man, as woman, as the Lydian Gale Parr, who journeys from ancient cities to container ship ports on an infinite errand to ask for an end to violence. They slip in and out of disparate webs of belonging, yet hold fast to their quest: a ghost child of war.
creative team
Alaina Ferris (composer) is an interdisciplinary composer, poet, and performer who specializes in choral works, opera, and contemporary theater. She is one half of the indie-folk duo, Physical Kids, alongside Matt Schlatter. She is the recipient of fellowships, grants, and residencies from Hermitage Artist Residency, NYC Women’s Fund, New Music USA Creator Development Fund, Cité International des Arts residency in Paris, The American Opera Project, and National Sawdust. Her composing credits include: The Blind or Les aveugles, Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play about 12 blind people lost on a forested island (HERE Arts Center); Joshua William Gelb’s adaption of The Black Crook, the first American Musical (Abrons Arts Center), The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, a humorous indictment of American foreign policy in Iraq, told through the true story of Hitler and his dog, Blondi (The Connelly Theater); and The Kioskers, which follows two young city dwellers as they escape urban life via a floating kiosk (St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab).
Karinne Keithley Syers (librettist) is an interdisciplinary artist and teacher whose work spans writing, film, sound, song, dance, animation, bookmaking, game design, scholarship, and points in between. She won a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Production for her chamber opera & museum, Montgomery Park, or Opulence. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies at New Dramatists, the MacDowell Colony, St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab. Her libretto for The Lydian Gale Parr was shortlisted for the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Writers. As a performer and designer she has collaborated with Big Dance Theater, David Neumann, Sibyl Kempson, Young Jean Lee, The Civilians, Talking Band, Chris Yon, Sara Smith, and many others. She is the founding editor of 53rd State Press.
Meghan Finn (director) is the Artistic Director of The Tank. Her directorial work has been seen at the Tank, the V&A, Serpentine Galleries London, The Wexner Center, SCAD, The Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, Museo Jumex Mexico City, The Power Plant, Canadian Stage, Clubbed Thumb, HERE, The Brick, The Bushwick Starr, Soho Gallery, CSC, 3LD, PS122, Dixon Place, Soho Rep, Ars Nova, Montclair State, New Georges, The Flea, The Brooklyn Army Terminal for Creative Time, The Roes Theater Athens Greece, and the OnStage! Festival in Rome and Milan. BA Theater USC, MFA Directing Brooklyn College.
Katy Pyle (choreographer) is a non-binary genderqueer lesbian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Pyle has been dancing professionally in NYC since 2002, performing in the works of John Jasperse, Jennifer Monson, Faye Driscoll, Ivy Baldwin, Xavier Le Roy, and Young Jean Lee, among others. Pyle founded Ballez in 2011 to push ballet towards an inclusive future. Pyle has choreographed multiple large-scale ballets for Ballez, been awarded grants from NYSCA, Harkness, Mellon Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, United Artists, and the Hodder fund, and received residencies at BAC, Gibney, MTA, BAX, Abrons, and La Mama. They have brought Ballez classes, artist talks, and repertory to Princeton, Sarah Lawrence, Yale, Bowdoin, Whitman, Tisch/NYU, Slippery Rock University, Rutgers, ScenSverige, Swarthmore, and Berea College. Pyle currently teaches ballet at Eugene Lang College and Marymount Manhattan, and professional dancers at Gibney Dance.
Eamon Goodman (spatial instrument designer) is a composer, sound artist, and designer based in Brooklyn. After studying classical flute and dance, he worked as a sound designer and multi-instrumentalist for off-broadway theater. The Lydian Gale Parr will include a continuation of his thesis installation, Sound Suspension No. 2, advised by Luisa Pereira at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Recent projects include The Whitney Album (Soho Rep), A Jury of our Queers (Exponential Festival), and Noise (Dartmouth/Northern Stage). wp.nyu.edu/eamon_goodblog
FEATURING
Gelsey Bell, soprano, Celtic harp
Lacy Rose, soprano
Alaina Ferris, alto, piano, Celtic harp
Aviva Jaye, alto, Celtic harp
Chad Goodridge, baritone
WITH
Yoshi Weinberg, flute, clarinet, pedal harp
Eamon Goodman, flute, bass clarinet, steel guitar
Leah Shaw, bassoon
Alina Eckersley, French horn
Charlie Reed, viola da gamba
AND
Jay Beardsley, dancer
Cove Barton, dancer
Arzu Salman, dancer
MJ Markovitz, dancer
Direction: Meghan Finn
Choreography: Katy Pyle
Music Direction: Alaina Ferris
Spatial Instrument & Sound Design: Eamon Goodman
Associate Music Direction: Simone Allen
Associate Sound Design: Tristan O’Shea
Assistant Direction: Nicolas Browne
Set & Costume Design: Patricia Majorie
Lighting Design: Yang Yu
Projection Design: David Pym
Stage Management: Mika Kauffman
Tank Production Fellow: Alejandra Venancio
Illustration: Wesley Allsbrook
Copyist: Michael Genese
Music Assistant: Sam Kaseta
The Lydian Gale Parr is commissioned by The Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, with support from: The NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts, and additional support from New Dramatists, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, National Sawdust, and The Movement Lab at Barnard College.
