THE CELLO PLAYER to be Presented at The Adams Theater in September

The Adams Theater will present The Cello Player on Friday, September 19, 2025 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased online here.

The Cello Player is a dance-music piece produced by American Modern Opera Company and led by cellist Coleman Itzkoff and dancer/choreographer Or Schraiber. It excavates the complexity of ancient relationships: the tortured conception of friendship as a messy amalgam of love, hatred, insecurity, and neediness. Joined by dancer Jeremy Coachman, the three performers attempt to share their tales, the scarring curiosity of the unknown, and the haunting sensations that come as a consequence of their actions.

This performance is a part of a fundraising evening at The Adams Theater, preceded by a dinner at the nearby Revival House, and followed by at Q&A at The Adams Theater.

Cellist Coleman Itzkoff was going to come do a Bach program, but the plans ran AMOC*.

In this case, that's great news-members of the American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC, will present "The Cello Player," a new dance theatre work with Itzkoff on cello, Or Schraiber and Jeremy Coachman dancing, and dramaturgy by Bobbi Jene Smith.

It comes to the theater straight from Lincoln Center in NYC, where it was presented at Run AMOC* Festival, a bold array of opera, dance and music activating different areas indoors and outdoors on the center grounds. It'll be the centerpiece of The Adams Theater's annual fundraiser, and will include an artist Q&A following the presentation.

"The Cello Player" is a duet that becomes a trio with the addition of Itzkoff, who enters the space with a custom-built cabinet, worn like a backpack, that holds his cello, an instrument built in 1692 by the legendary Italian Guarneri family of luthiers.

The performance is about the complexity of ancient relationships: the tortured conception of friendship as a messy amalgam of love, hatred, insecurity, and neediness. Performers attempt to share their tales, the scarring curiosity of the unknown, and the haunting sensations that come as a consequence of their actions.

"This is a nebulous, dynamic relationship," says Schraiber, choreographer and dancer who conceived the work with Itzkoff at Orsolina 28 Art Foundation's residency program in Moncalvo, Italy. "They can be ancient friends, enemies, they can throw elbows at each other and at the same time embrace...all these things that nonverbal communication can convey."

In contrast to other productions, the theater will see Itzkoff's character enter first and ponder what to do before the dancers come to change the space with their story. "It's a totally new context and an opportunity for us to expand the opening of the piece," he said. "Why don't we see what the cello player was up to before this little glimpse into their lives? I'm sort of in this liminal space. My purpose hasn't arrived yet. What would the cello player play for the audience?"

AMOC, made up of 17 of today's most sought-after composers, choreographers, directors, vocalists, instrumentalists, dancers, writers, and producers, is well-known for its approach to collaboration and collective authorship. Lincoln Center touted the group as "a leading force among today's most innovative and visionary interdisciplinary ensembles-recognized for producing deeply resonant and boundary-pushing art." Both Coleman Itzkoff and Or Schraiber are founding members of AMOC.

As an artist, "this is the kind of work I search for," Itzkoff said. "AMOC, and Or, really changed everything for me about the context and purpose of why I make music."

AMOC recently performed "Seven Scenes" at The Amph at Little Island. In this new evening of dance and music, two boundary-breaking duos-choreographers AMOC member, Bobbi Jene Smith & Or Schraiber, and composer/musicians Caroline Shaw & Danni Lee Parpan (known together as Ringdown)-collided, conversed, and created. They also recently presented Mathew Aucoin's "Music for New Bodies" at Tanglewood, part-opera, part-song cycle, part-vocal symphony based on poetry by Jorie Graham.

Adams is actually the first traditional theater to host "The Cello Player," which Schraiber says will influence the performance. "The information of the space shapes the piece itself. The moment we start performing it, another creative process starts."

Before premiering "The Cello Player" at The Ojai Music Festival in 2022, AMOC members had the opportunity to work on the piece at a private residency only a few miles from the Adams Theater. "There is creative magic here," said Schraiber.