Photo Flash: First Look at Burning Coal and Only Child Aerial Theatre's ASYLUM

Burning Coal Theatre opens its 2015/2016 season, its 19th in Raleigh, NC with the world premiere of ASYLUM, a collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre. ASYLUM, concept and story by Kendall Rileigh and Nicki Miller, directed by Nicki Miller, with original song composed for this production by Sophie B. Hawkins, will run tomorrow, October 15, through November 1, 2015 at Burning Coal's Murphey School Auditorium, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Based in New York, Only Child specializes in creating poetic theatrical worlds where aerial acrobatics combine with music and other art forms to tell visually exciting and emotionally compelling stories. Only Child was founded in 2011 by Kendall Rileigh and Nicki Miller.

Kendall Rileigh, a North Carolina native, Duke University graduate, and Burning Coal company member, is an actor and aerialist now based in New York. She recently stepped in for Tovah Feldshuh as Golda Meir in the Broadway tour of the one-woman show Golda's Balcony and originated roles in the off-Broadway premieres of The Groundling and The Brightness of Heaven.

Nicki Miller (also director) is a Brooklyn based director and performer known for her theatrical take on aerial arts. Her work as aerial designer and choreographer was seen recently in Ripe Time's The World is Round at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). She is a graduate of Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Inspired by haunting photographs of an abandoned psychiatric institution and performed largely in the air, ASYLUM follows a group of people whose stories have been lost in the walls of the crumbling American institution system. Aerial, acrobatics, live music, projections, and shadows interact to create the ungrounded world of the space, its inhabitants and its memories.

ASYLUM began development in 2013 and has been workshopped in NYC with the support of the Brooklyn Arts Council, The Muse Brooklyn, Circus Warehouse, Constellation Moving Company, and Hybrid Movement Creative Lab. Following the success of ASYLUM's workshop presentations, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins has joined the creative team to write an original song for the show.

Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays, October 15 - 17, 22 - 24 and 29 - 31, 2015 at 7:30 pm and Sundays, October 18, 25 and November 1, 2015 at 2 pm. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors (65+) and $15 for students, teachers and active military personnel. Reservations can be made at burningcoal.org/asylum or by calling 919.834.4001.

Photo Credit: Right Image Photography, Inc.

To post a comment, you must register and login.