HERE & Back

A Practical Breviary: Terce weaves together classic monastic texts, the artist’s own adaptations, and passages from “Revelations of Divine Love”— a medieval text written by one of the first female theologians who describes a revelation of spirituality through a feminine view of Christ. This mass pays homage to God as the mothers that live within us. Its lyrical score is built for an all-women ensemble with a percussive underscore of traditionally female medieval home crafts being made. The composition blends contemporary, soulful rock and gospel with layered acapella harmonies traditionally found in Christian church services.

Suzi Takahashi

Written and performed by Suzi Takahashi and directed by Kristin Marting, The Story Box explores the importance of safeguarding our civil rights through the lens of Japanese-American identity, using traditional Japanese storytelling elements, like kamishibai, along with Takahashi’s own family history. Representing the relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII, the audience will receive a suitcase and a tag, inside of which is a wireless headset and a family photo album. Each unique family photo album documents an account of the problematic history of Asian people in the U.S., and more recently, the rise in anti-Asian violence during the pandemic. Inspired by the events of writer/performer Suzi Takahashi’s own life and delivered through her own words performed live & transmitted via the headset, The Story Box asks audience members to reflect together on the stories in each suitcase, and they are invited to leave a story of their own behind for future audiences.

Taylor Mac joins HARP as HERE’s first full-time resident playwright, thanks to support from the Andrew W. Mellon National Playwright Residency Program. Taylor will mentor other HARP artists, earn a full-time salary with benefits for three years, and develop/produce new plays including Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, now playing on Broadway; Prosperous Fools, a response to Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme; Clarence, which is set in the mind of Clarence Thomas and imagines what he thinks about from the bench; and/or A Crooked Smile, an exploration of the radical ideas tied to queer activism that may have disappeared when many activists were lost to the AIDS epidemic. Taylor is also developing The Hang: This world premiere adaptation of The Apology of Socrates and Satie’s Socrate is part of the playwright’s continued quest in navigating the evil forces of the world with beauty and contemplation.

The Hang imagines the last moments of Socrates’ life as a transcendental centuries-long jazz-music-theatre hang. Essentially we’re creating a party: one out to inspire consideration of virtue through music, metaphorical and phantasmagorical aesthetics, celebration, philosophical debate, and queer romps. After more than a year and a half of global isolation, we will invite audiences to join us in answering the Socratic questions, “How is time, in its ephemeral nature, spent ‘together’,” and “How do we live a virtuous life in an unvirtuous world?”

Created by the long-time collaborative team Nature’s Darlings (24-Decade History of Popular Music, The Lily’s Revenge, and Holiday Sauce), The Hang is written by Taylor Mac, with music by Matt Ray, direction by Niegel Smith, choreography by Chanon Judson, costume and scenic design by Machine Dazzle, dramaturgy by Morgan Jenness, and lighting design by Jeannette Yew (who is new to our collaborative). The show features a diverse company of performers, including a band of 7 musicians, a chorus of 6, and 4 featured performers, including Taylor Mac, Queen Esther, and Graham Garlington. The project has been in development at HERE since late 2018.

At the end of Plato’s Apology, Socrates, having taken his hemlock, insists there is still time for a gathering of friends, and in that, time to consider virtue. The Hang imagines this final gathering as full of all styles of jazz, dance, food, and play. A true jazz-musical where words are sung throughout, the show moves through humorous flirtations between historical and ahistorical characters, modern political discourse, choreographed and spontaneous dances, and joyful excess.

The show starts with a historical icon and his philosophical wonderings, but as the performance progresses, we deconstruct the concept of an individualized experience into a group event. The arc of the piece, as we have discovered, is from the singular to the communal, from the death of Socrates to a musical, philosophical hang where different characters in history — Greek and otherwise — ponder the meanings of queerness, virtue, political action and convening. This communal nature extends from the performers to the band of musicians, who are often in the background of happenings on stage, but will be brought to the foreground and around the audience as the performance goes on.