Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT

For the first time in its history, Long Wharf Theatre put its home city onstage, working with Cornerstone Theater Company to adapt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan to New Haven. Local history, landscape, vernacular and beloved haunts permeated the entire production, with 24 New Haven residents as part of the cast. As a longtime collaborator of Cornerstone, I have extensive experience integrating professionals and non-professionals into a cohesive, polished ensemble, and this production was among our most successful.

The choreography reflected the diverse rhythmic palette of the city: the dynamic patterns of the morning pedestrian traffic across the New Haven Green in the opening number; a rhythmically complex and physically intricate tribute to factory work in "the Song of the Eighth Worker"; the physical comedy and stylized movement of three delightful shape-shifting angels; a salsa-infused full cast number set nimbly around and on top of the tables of a local restaurant; and an exuberant funk number set in a minimart, celebrating the virtues of junk food.

ADAPTED by Alison Carey from Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan | DIRECTED by Bill Rauch | CHOREOGRAPHED by Sabrina Peck | COMPOSED by Shishir Kurup | SET by Lynn Jeffries | COSTUMES by David Zinn | LIGHTING by Tyler Micoleau | SOUND by Paul James Prendergast | WITH: Members of Cornerstone Theater Company, residents of New Haven, and invited artists