Downtown Art premieres The Waistmaker's Opera, an original rock musical based on the shirtwaist workers strike of 1910, to be performed along the streets of New York's former garment district and the Lower East Side, May 8-30, Saturdays and Sundays.
One hundred years ago, on November 23, 1909, sparked by events at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, more than twenty thousand garment workers, most of them young women in their teens and early twenties, launched an eleven week general strike in New York. The strike drew together an unlikely coalition - working girls, middle-class progressive women, female college students, and even women leaders of New York society. Dubbed the "Uprising of the 20,000", it was one of the first successful major strikes of female workers in American history.
The story of the strike has long been overshadowed by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which took place almost a year after the strike settled, the worst workplace disaster to have occurred prior to 9/11, in which 146 workers died within 30 minutes, most of them teenage girls. The waistmakers have often been remembered as victims of that fire- in our opera we intend to focus on them as they lived - their accomplishments, their courage, their extraordinary determination.
Act 1 of The Waistmaker's Opera will begin at the original site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and move through several sites until concluding in Cooper Square Park. Audiences will listen to the score on individiual MP3 players while witnessing live dance and movement by the performers. Act 2 will be staged in a vacant lot on East 3rd Street (with seating) and will be performed live. The company is comprised of seventeen teen girls (singer/dancers) and a live band made up of compower Michael Hickey and three teen musicians (guitar, bass, percussion/keyboard, violin.) The Waistmaker's Opera was written, directed and designed by Ryan Gilliam, Downtown Art's Artistic Director, and composed by Michael Hickey.
This project is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional support was received from the Emma Shaefer Charitable Trust and from the Nancy Quinn Fund at ART/New York.
All outdoors - set in the streets they walked, worked, and lived on.
THE WAISTMAKER'S OPERA
May 8 - 23
Raindates May 29 & 30
Saturdays & Sundays
12pm & 2:30pm
$15 Adult
$10 Students & Seniors
For info and tickets:
www.downtownart.orgDowntown Art
Act 1: Starting at Washington/Greene Streets ending at Cooper Union
Act 2: 19 East 3rd Street (seated)
COMPANY
Lily Abedin * Doris Alcantara * Ari Anderson * Hans Bilger * Alyssa Burgos * Lauren Burgos * Olivia Cabrera * Zach Crumrine * Lena Feliciano Hansen * Michela Garabedian * Lili Gehorsam * Gal Gelbard * Eli Greenhoe * Izzy Jenkins * Jeanne Kessira * Alice Quinn Makwaia * Mariana Quinn Makwaia * Claritza Quezada * Isabella Sullivan * Lindiana Timmons
Music by Michael Hickey
Direction & Libretto
by Ryan Gilliam
