Opera on the Mall: WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED Saturday, September 29, 2018 6:00 p.m. pre-show | 7:00 p.m. broadcast Independence National Historical Park

OPERAONTHEMALL.ORG #ONTHEMALL

MEDIA PARTNERS

Welcome Welcome to Opera on the Mall, an annual event that more than 30,000 Philadelphians have enjoyed since 2011.

Tonight’s broadcast exemplifies the spirit of Opera Philadelphia’s annual Festival O. We Shall Not Be Moved, by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and director Bill T. Jones, was met with popular and critical acclaim when it premiered last year at Festival O17. A blend of spoken word, contemporary dance, classical, R&B, and jazz singing, this opera embodies our company’s mission to – in addition to performing beloved traditional repertoire – bring exciting, relevant new works to our audiences and provide artists with the opportunity to create that work.

We Shall Not Be Moved had seven sold-out performances at the Wilma Theater during O17, leaving many unable to get a ticket. We felt it was important that more people see this opera through a free broadcast in the shadow of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. This setting, in the birthplace of our nation, magnifies one of the central questions posed by We Shall Not Be Moved: “For whom America the beautiful?”

This free event was also made possible by our community. Hundreds of generous individuals supported this event with gifts ranging from $10 to $5,000, joining major support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, PNC Arts Alive, and PECO. I thank all of you who helped make Opera on the Mall: We Shall Not Be Moved a reality.

David B. Devan General Director & President Opera Philadelphia

Photo by XXX

Photo by: Dominic M. Mercier

YOUR GUIDE TO OPERA ON THE MALL WE SH A L L N OT B E M OVE D PERFORMED IN ENGLISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Independence Visitor Center

S C H E D UL E Gates open Pre-show video with cast & creative team interviews Broadcast begins Intermission (20 minutes) Broadcast ends

PRE-SHOW ACTIVITIES

•S hare your Instagram photos #onthemall with @operaphila and @independencenps • Use our Snapchat geofilter to take a stylish selfie

Market Street

B

President’s House Site

Liberty Bell Center

ENJOYING THE BROADCAST • Dogs

must be kept on

D

leashes at all times

Chestnut Street

C

Independence Hall

•F ood trucks on 5th Street, between Market and Chestnut •R estrooms available in

•P ose for photos in the FREE photobooth • L iberty Bell Center open until 5 p.m. Last admittance 4:50 p.m.

A

5th Street

p.m.: p.m.: p.m.: p.m.: p.m.:

6th Street

5:30 6:00 7:00 7:55 9:10

Independence Visitor Center and

ENTRANCE LOCATIONS

along 5th Street, between Market

RESTROOMS

and Chestnut.

• I ndependence Visitor Center open until 6:00 p.m. (Restrooms open

FIRST AID

VIDEO SCREENS

PHOTOBOOTH FOOD TRUCKS

Please note the following road closures to traffic: 5th St. between Chestnut and Market Sts. and Chestnut St. between 5th and 6th Sts.

until 10:00 p.m.)

I N D E P E N D E N C E N AT I O N A L H I S TO R I C A L PA R K A visit to Independence National Historical

internationally as a UNESCO World Heritage

Park is an opportunity to celebrate and

Site because of the world-changing events that

explore our nation’s past. Stand in the shadow

occurred inside this building.

of Independence Hall or read the famous inscription on the Liberty Bell. Stop for a moment in the President’s House Site and consider the promises and paradoxes of the liberty our founders envisioned. The ideas of liberty and self-government tested here still echo through our lives today.

Constitution over the years.

This is a great opportunity to #FindYourPark.

There is so much more history to explore,

Every visit should start at the Independence

from the Georgian architecture, to the

Visitor Center. Learn more about

Portrait Gallery of the Second Bank, to an

Independence National Historical Park

18th century print office. The park’s museum

and the founding of our nation on the

collection contains 4 million historic artifacts

free mobile app, NPSIndependence,

associated with events, people and places

and by following

relevant to the park’s mission. The Benjamin

#FindYourPark.

This national park preserves and interprets

Franklin Museum showcases the creativity,

many of the most important resources

ambition, and genius of one of our greatest

associated with the founding of our country.

founding fathers. Exhibits at the National

Independence Hall has been recognized

Constitution Center trace the impact of our

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED P L AY E R S A N D S Y N O P S I S OGs: who are spirits and thus can both move fiercely and sing like angels. The ones in the stained glass of the black church. They undoubtedly have memories of what happened here, but they *remember* much more than one historical time or place and express themselves as such. Their job is to teach those histories through movement and conjuring. They are the faculty of 62nd and Osage University.

UN/SUNG: 15 yrs. The Tubman of this railroad. The one who misses mom and dad the most.

Expresses primarily through spoken speech.

GLENDA: An officer from North Philadelphia, working in West Philadelphia. A “not a patriot, not a saint ” but still genuinely good person. Who may or may not be playing on the right side.

JOHN LITTLE: 17 yrs. Named for the label that Malcolm refused. The thrown away fruit that became the seed that fed the next.

JOHN MACK: 18 yrs. A jazzman armed with a secret stash of quotes from old bluegrass records. The preacher.

JOHN HENRY: 17 yrs. Would rather lift you physically than lift his voice. A BBoy. JOHN BLUE: 16 yrs. A trans boy who expresses in falsetto and upper register. The brother most likely to steal your things and cut you for good measure.

ACT 1 On the run after a series of tragic incidents, five North Philly teens ( John Henry, John Blue, John Little, John Mack, and Un/Sung) find refuge in an abandoned, condemned house in West Philadelphia. The home sits at the exact location of the headquarters of the MOVE organization before it was infamously burned to the ground in a 1985 police confrontation that left 11 people dead and no government officials indicted or meaningfully reprimanded. The teens are assuaged and even inspired by the ghosts who inhabit this home (who we refer to as the OGs), and begin to see their squatting in the home as a matter of destiny and resistance rather than urgent fear or precarious circumstance. Into this mix enters Glenda, a North Philly native turned West Philly cop who patrols

this quiet stretch of Osage Avenue on her regular beat. Glenda observes that the young people have taken over the home and are “hanging out” there when they are supposed to be in school. She moves determinedly to sweep the kids out of the home, threatening them with arrest and ridiculing their intentions. But in a chaotic accident, she moves too far and mistakenly discharges her firearm, injuring one of the teens. In her temporary shock, Glenda is overrun by the other young people, who turn the tables on the situation by pointing Glenda’s own gun at her and subsequently handcuffing her to a chair in the center of the house.

EVENT PARTNERS

Follow @operaphila and join the conversation #onthemall

Broadcast Equipment provided by PRG

Photo by: Dave DiRentis

ACT 2 John Henry lays bleeding in a pool of sorrow, confronted at a desperately young age with his own mortality. All parties are now frightened, disoriented, and vulnerable, and the only sense of empowerment in this bleak moment comes from the OGs who infuse the home with a spirituality that is palpably felt by the young people in particular.

Glenda challenges the validity of this ‘movement of holy ghosts,’ but cannot deny that whatever the origins, the young people, led by the sole female-identified teen, Un/Sung, are clearly operating from a place of conviction.

Still suspicious and driven by her vulnerable position, Glenda probes this conviction, intimating that the teens are not motivated by principle alone.

Finally the teens succumb to the reality of the moment: their brother has been wounded and is in need of help, and the most expedient way to help him is to leave the house. They decide to reveal to Glenda the circumstances that drove them to squat in the house on Osage. They think Glenda has something to hide (firing at an unarmed teen) and so do they, and if they come clean w ith their story, the combination of transparency and quid pro quo may grant them safe, unreported passage out of the house. However, in revealing the origins of their plight, they also realize that a young man who John Blue has killed is Glenda’s own brother, Manny.

ACT 3 The family confers feverishly about the increasingly limited options for their next move, concluding that the best “survival ” tactic is to “ disappear” from Glenda altogether. Un/Sung commits to completing the task, instructing her brothers to leave quickly for a predetermined location to avoid any further witnesses while she does “something awful.”

A confrontation between the young girl and Glenda ensues, concluding with silence, complete darkness in the theater, and the assumption of injury.

When the lights come all the way up, the family has vanished, and the house on Osage Avenue has burned to the ground. Glenda tells an interviewer the story of her waning moments with the family from a plane above the action, but we watch a different story unfolding at eye level. All the players are setting the house on “ fire,” not with kerosene or grand flames, but with small, glass-framed candles. The image is not of arson, but of ritual. The Family is turning the home into an altar, perhaps an instrument of forgiving, of letting go, of release, and of renewal. As the lights come down for the final time, the last remaining image on stage is of the skeleton of a house, lit up like a shrine, while the OGs move around it in holy rites.

MEET THE CAST OF WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED

LAUREN WHITEHEAD* UN/SUNG Spoken Word

KIRSTIN CHÁVEZ GLENDA Mezzo-Soprano

ADAM RICHARDSON* JOHN MACK Baritone

MICHAEL BISHOP* OG Dancer

J O H N H O L I DAY * JOHN BLUE Countertenor

AUBREY ALLICOCK* JOHN HENRY Bass-Baritone

DUANE LEE HOLLAND* OG Dancer

DANIEL SHIRLEY* JOHN LITTLE Tenor

T E N DAY I KU U M B A * OG Dancer

VOICE OF THE REPORTER / Pat Ciarrocchi*

CACI COLE PRITCHETT* OG Dancer

CALLER / Mike J. Dees*

C R E AT I V E T E A M

COMPOSER / Daniel Bernard Roumain*

STAGE MANAGER / Mike Janney*

LIBRETTIST / Marc Bamuthi Joseph*

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER / Megan Coutts*

DIRECTOR-CHOREOGRAPHER / Bill T. Jones*

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER / Anna Reetz*

CONDUCTOR / Viswa Subbaraman*

BROADCAST DIRECTOR-EDITOR / Michael Dennis

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR / Seth Hoff

ASSISTANT BROADCAST DIRECTOR / Melody Wong

ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER / Raphael Xavier*

SUPERTITLES AUTHOR / Julia Bumke

SOUND DESIGN / Robert Kaplowitz*

SUPERTITLES OPERATOR / Aurelien Eulert

COSTUME DESIGN / Liz Prince

CAMERAPERSONS / Michael Dennis, Phillip Todd, Les Rivera

SET DESIGN / Matt Saunders*

CINEMATOGRAPHER / Phillip Todd

LIGHTING DESIGN / Robert Wierzel*

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS / Kala J. West, Stormy Kelsey

PROJECTION DESIGN / Jorge Cousineau *Opera Philadelphia debut

Thank You, Philadelphia Last June, Opera Philadelphia launched its first ever crowd-funding campaign to support Opera on the Mall: We Shall Not Be Moved. While space does not allow for us to recognize the more than 200 individuals who contributed to our successful campaign, we express our deep appreciation to you all for helping us share this free broadcast with the city.

Opera on the Mall is presented through the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and PNC Arts Alive and made possible by PECO, the Mazzotti/Kelly Fund-BBH of the Philadelphia Foundation, Drs. Beverly Lange and Renato Baserga, the Virginia Brown Martin Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, the Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, and Ms. Robin Angly and Mr. Miles Smith.

Additional funding received from: Carol and Howard Lidz Rachel McCausland and Robert McClung Abigail and Mark Nestlehutt Jane G. Pepper Helen Pettit Louise and Alan Reed Drs. Richard and Rhonda Soricelli Lise Suino Vince Tseng & Geoff Mainland RJ Wallner Donna and Andy Wechsler

Photo by: Dominic M. Mercier

Anonymous (2) Mr. John R. Alchin and Mr. Hal Marryatt Marita Altman Myron and Sheila S. Bassman Michael Bolton and Peter Keleher Shannon Coulter Mark and Peggy Curchack David B. Devan and David A. Dubbeldam Jeffrey R. Jowett Ms. Caroline J. Mackenzie Kennedy Ian Kirschemann and Leslie Jones Judy and Peter Leone

Bring Opera back to the Mall Thank you for joining us this evening to share stories, celebrate c o m m u n i t y, a n d m a k e m e m o r i e s w h i l e e n j o y i n g g r e a t o p e r a i n t h e great outdoors.

Please help keep this tradition thriving for years to come.

O P E R A P H I L A . O R G / M A L L | 215 . 7 3 2 . 8 4 0 0