Deeply troubled by our country’s polarization, MacArthur Fellows Taylor Mac (librettist) and Heather Christian (composer) have created a rabid tongue-in-cheek quasi-baroque oratorio where a concerned citizen confronts an imagined version of Clarence Thomas—in front of a wildly imagined version of a Supreme Court (full of justices past, present, future and dreamed). The work is a consideration. It’s a prayer for understanding, through the act of wondering. And, in the face of increasing political attack, it reaches for radical empathy.
Ancram audiences are invited to a listening party to experience a selection of songs from the work. After the concert, Taylor and Heather will lead a dialogue about ideas and themes raised in the piece, and teach a song from the show; the purpose being, to leave the room having de-escalated the rhetoric of our polarization to the tempo and poetry of song.