NY City Opera Announces Initial Casting And Ticket On Sale Date For STONEWALL

The New York City Opera has announced that Andrew Bidlack, Liz Bouk, Lisa Chavez, Michael Corvino, Jessica Fishenfeld, Mark Heller, Brian James Myer, and Jordan Weatherston Pitts have been cast in its world-premiere production of the new opera STONEWALL, with music by Iain Bell, libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Campbell, and direction by Leonard Foglia. STONEWALL will open Friday, June 21 and run for five performances only through Friday, June 28 at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (in the Time Warner Center at Broadway and 60th Street).

STONEWALL, which will be the first opera to feature a transgender character specially created for a transgender singer, will be conducted by Carolyn Kuan. Richard Stafford will choreograph. Additional casting and design team will be announced at a later date.

A moving and explosive new American opera, STONEWALL captures the rage, grit, humor and, finally, hope of the nascent LGBTQ movement. On one hot night in 1969 a cross-section of characters including Maggie (to be sung by Lisa Chavez), a proud lesbian who is harassed on the subway and mocked by the police; Carlos (Brian James Myer), a Dominican-American English teacher recently fired from a Catholic school; Renata (Jordan Weatherston Pitts), who by day is known as Maynard, an African-American city clerk; Larry (Mark Heller), an NYPD deputy inspector; and Sarah (Liz Bouk), a transgender person celebrating the first year anniversary of her transition; find themselves thrown together in a Greenwich Village dance club with explosive results that give birth to a movement.

STONEWALL continues New York City Opera's Pride Initiative of producing an LGBT-focused work each June in commemoration of Gay Pride Month. It will be preceded by a new production of Laura Kaminsky's As One, a co-production with American Opera Projects, opening Thursday, May 30 and running for four performances through Saturday, June 8 at Merkin Concert Hall (129 West 67 Street).

STONEWALL will be performed Friday, June 21 at 7:30pm; Saturday, June 22 at 2pm and 7:30pm; Thursday, June 27 at 7:30pm; and Friday, June 28 at 7:30pm. Tickets, priced from $25 to $300, will be available beginning Friday, February 22 online at nycopera.com and jazz.org; by calling Centercharge at 212-721-6500 (10am - 9pm daily); and at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office at the Time Warner Center on Broadway at 60th Street (Monday-Saturday, 10am-6pm; Sunday, 12pm - 6pm).

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