Music by SEAN HAVRILLA
Libretto by PEYTON MARION       
dIRECTION BY I-Chen Wang

WOMAN 1 — Ariadne Greif, Soprano
WOMAN 2 — Laura Virella, Mezzo-soprano
WOMAN 3 — Brittany Fowler, Mezzo-soprano

While a violent and terrifying world outside rages, time is obscured as three women from three decades in the 20th century find solace in a quiet waiting room, where they discover one another and a century's worth of reading material to pass the time.

tHE LIFE OF A LEMON

Music by DANNY URSETTI
Libretto by VAIBU MOHAN
DIRECTION BY I-Chen Wang

WOMAN IN LINE/MIDWIFE — Ariadne Greif, Soprano
ANNA — Brittany Fowler, Mezzo-soprano
ANNA'S HUSBAND/PHARMACIST — Lucas Bouk, Baritone

In the early hours of a cold morning, Anna is standing in line at the pharmacy to pick up her prescription. She is visibly pregnant but suffering a miscarriage. What follows is the breakdown of a woman who is forced to endure the unwanted opinions of others while suffering horrific inner turmoil. How can she grieve when her trauma is not visible? 

DON’T JUDGE ME

Music by TERESA LOTZ
Libretto by TROY DEFOUR
Direction by Sam Helfrich

RUBY — Ariadne Greif, Soprano
KANISHA — Laura Virella, Mezzo-soprano
BARRY — Kris Königin, Tenor

An ABDL lover shy about their kink summons the courage to share this news with his housemates, also his best friends. But... Will Kanisha and Ruby judge him?

YOUR BODY, MY CHOICE

Music by ELLA YOON
Libretto by JAMES SALEM
Direction by Sam Helfrich

THE CASTER — Brittany Fowler, Mezzo-soprano
THE MONSTER — Laura Virella, Mezzo-soprano
THE POLITICIAN — Lucas Bouk, Baritone

A young woman who has been directly harmed by a politician seeking to limit access to reproductive justice channels her rage and pain into a very particular kind of revenge. A horror-fantasy that explores the power of anger to drive action and the dangers of letting rage guide us, unchecked. 

Content Warning: mentions of unsafe abortion. 

TIN MAN

Music by ZACH CATRON
Libretto by JESSIE FIELD
Direction by I-Chen Wang

FLORENCE — Ariadne Greif, Soprano
MATTHEW — Kris Königin, Tenor
DOUGLAS — Lucas Bouk, Baritone

Matthew wakes up in an operating room to find the government has taken control of his body. Don't fret, they'll use it more responsibly than he could. A short, dystopian, horror opera, Tin Man explores the slippery slope of what happens when an everyday person can lose their bodily autonomy. 

SEAHORSE DADS CLUB

Music by Mark T EVANS
Libretto by ANDI LEE CARTER
Direction by Sam Helfrich

JANE — Laura Virella, Mezzo-soprano
ALEX — Kris Königin, Tenor
JACK — Lucas Bouk, Baritone

Two pregnant trans men meet at the LGBT Center in New York as they prepare to give birth, and maybe fall in love... Seahorse Dads Club is your typical operatic rom-com featuring pregnant transgender men and their lesbian friend, of course!

CHICKEN/EGG

Music by ERIN HOERCHLER
Libretto by ANDREW STRANO
Direction by NINA FRY

NICOLETTE — Amelia Watkins, Soprano
CARO — MaKayla McDonald, Soprano
EM — Cáitlín Burke, Mezzo-soprano

Nicolette has invited her best friends in the world, Em and Caro, over for dinner in her upper west side apartment, but it’s not until the dishes are cleared and another bottle of wine is opened that she reveals she has a secret agenda…

ONE MINUTE IN A WAITING ROOM
Music by HENCO ESPAG
Libretto by DANIelle KOENIG
Direction by NINA FRY

FRANKIE / Amelia Watkins, Soprano
POSTER WOMAN / RISKY NURSE / TWEETER 1 / CONSENT FORM VOICE — Cáitlín Burke, Mezzo-soprano
POSTER MAN / PEPPY NURSE / TWEETER 2 / REAL NURSE — Aaron-Casey Gould, Tenor

One Minute In A Waiting Room is an absurdist comedy exploring the internal struggle of one woman as she waits one extremely long minute before being called in for a termination appointment. The musical style is an amalgamation of avant garde, jazz and minimalism while also constantly crossing the borders of tonality with a whimsical, yet serious undertone as we follow Frankie’s one minute journey in the waiting room.

THE CLONE

Music by Julio Vaquero
Libretto by Clare Bierman
Direction by Francisco Rivera Rodriguez

CLONE — Amelia Watkins, Soprano
WOMAN — MaKayla McDonald, Soprano
MAN — Jordan Rutter, Countertenor

A woman finalizing her divorce meets her husband's new wife–– a clone of herself. An exploration of bodily autonomy and ownership in a future not far from our own. 

family

Music by Angelique Mouyis
Libretto by Gabe Caruso
Direction by Francisco Rivera Rodriguez

MICKEY — MaKayla McDonald, Soprano
KIT — Cáitlín Burke, Mezzo-soprano
JONATHAN — Jordan Rutter, Countertenor

A pair of sisters and their father explore the world of sibling surrogacy. When complications arise, they are forced to realize that while they may not get what they want, they already have what they need.

DECEMBER

Music by Pablo Concha
Libretto by Momo Akashi
Direction by Francisco Rivera Rodriguez

KELLY — Cáitlín Burke, Mezzo-soprano
ANGEL — Jordan Rutter, Countertenor
DAN — Aaron-Casey Gould, Tenor

Every December a woman visits a grave yard to offer a pinwheel to her secret unborn child. One year, her teenage son follows her to reveal the reason why she always becomes sad in December. This magical realism story is about forgiveness, parentships, and spiritual brotherhood. 

TJ Rubin is a queer composer and music educator who tells stories onstage that reflect the wide variety of queer experiences and narratives the world holds. TJ’s music lives at the intersection of opera and musical theater, with melodies that are “torquing, and probing, quizzical and wonderstruck” (San Francisco Classical Voice). His works include How To Create A Young Girl (book and lyrics by Laura Barati), Ten Minutes in the Life or Death of… and I Celebrate (libretti by Marella Martin Koch), Back to the Shore: A Jersey Short Opera (libretto by Mika Kauffman) and Nightlife (libretto by Deepali Gupta), which premiered at the Stonewall Inn as part of a collaboration between NYU and The American Opera Project for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. His compositions have been performed at Opera America, West Edge Opera, St. Luke’s Theatre, Stonewall Inn, Don’t Tell Mama, the PIT Loft, Columbia University, New York University, and more. Lowbrow Opera Collective will be premiering Thirst (words by Laura Barati), a chamber theater piece, in fall 2022. TJ obtained his M.F.A. in musical theatre writing at NYU/Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and his B.M. in music theory/composition from Montclair State University. He is an adjunct professor in the music theory/composition department at Montclair State University and at NYU/Tisch’s GMTWP, where he is co-directing the NYU/Tisch Opera Lab with director Sam Helfrich for the 2021-2022 season.

Sam Helfrich BA (Russian Literature), M.F.A. (Theatre Arts) Columbia University. Sam Helfrich is an opera and theater director based in New York. He has directed opera productions at New York City Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Portland Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Spoleto Festival/USA, Virginia Opera, Opera Boston, Pittsburgh Opera, and Wolf Trap, among others. Recent opera highlights include the west coast premiere of Elizabeth Cree, by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell, at West Edge Opera, the world premiere of Permadeath, a CGI- based opera about video gaming with White Snake Productions in Boston, the world premiere of Jeffrey Smith's Why is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me at Urban Arias in Washington DC, Mozart’s The Magic Flute with the Indianapolis Symphony, a staging of Haydn’s Creation with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York premiere of Angels in America at New York City Opera, the world premiere of Dan Sonenberg's The Summer King at Pittsburgh Opera (and, recently, at Michigan Opera Theater),  Bach's St. John Passion with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Mark Anthony Turnage's Greek at Boston Lyric Opera, Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld at Virginia Opera, the world premiere of Enemies: A Love Story, by Ben Moore, at Palm Beach Opera, Embedded, by composer Patrick Soluri, at Fargo-Moorhead Opera and Ft. Worth Opera, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos at Virginia Opera, Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at Eugene Opera, Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire at Virginia Opera, the American premiere of Philip Glass' Kepler at Spoleto Festival/USA, Adams' Nixon in China at Eugene Opera, a fully staged Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the world premiere of Michael Dellaira's The Secret Agent at Center for Contemporary Opera in New York, the Armel Opera Festival in Hungary, and Opera Avignon, The Turn of the Screw at Boston Lyric Opera, Philip Glass' Orphée at Pittsburgh Opera, Virginia Opera, Portland Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera, and Anthony Davis’ Amistad at Spoleto Festival/USA. Recent theater credits include Neil LaBute’s In a Dark Dark House with Knife Edge Productions, off-Broadway productions of Owned, a world premier play by Julian Sheppard, and Tape, by Stephen Belber, a double bill of plays by Shaw and De Musset at the Franklin Stage Company, and Arthur Miller’s After The Fall at NYU/Tisch Grad Acting.

Randall Eng (currently on sabbatical) founded and leads the NYU/Tisch Opera Lab with Sam Helfrich. Under their guidance, students from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program have created more than 30 short operas. As a composer, Randall's music lies at the intersection of opera, music-theatre, and jazz. His operas Florida, Before the Night Sky, and Henry's Wife have been performed at UrbanArias, Lyric Opera Cleveland, New York City Opera's VOX Festival, American Opera Projects, Town Hall, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Center for Contemporary Opera, and Manhattan School of Music. His choral work Remain (a setting of an immigration rights pamphlet) premiered in 2018 by the MasterVoices Chorus. Other dramatic works include The Dangers of Electric Lighting (Luna Stage), Usher, Falling (Opera Vindaloo Festival), and the video opera The Woman in the Green Coat (Edinburgh Fringe Festival); non-theatrical works include commissions for Albany Symphony Orchestra's Dogs of Desire, Mirror Visions Ensemble, and Composer's Voice. Randall is a graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge University, and NYU/Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where he is now an Associate Arts Professor.