Experiments In Opera's 10-Part TV Series EVERYTHING FOR DAWN Begins Tonight

Experiments in Opera (EIO)-the mad scientists behind Video Operas, Radio Operas, Binge Operas, Podcast Operas-announces the launch this week of its new and free 10-episode serial opera EVERYTHING FOR DAWN. Beginning on Friday, October 7, 2022 at 10:00PM and 10:30PM ET, the TV show will be broadcast and streamed weekly on ALL ARTS, the NY Emmy-winning arts+culture hub created by The WNET Group, home of New York's PBS stations.

Everything for Dawn is a 10-part serial opera mini-series, with each episode telling the next part of a single story. It spans the 1990s in suburban Detroit, where Dawn is a teenager dealing with the impact of her father's suicide. Her personal tragedy becomes public when his paintings become celebrated as "outsider art."

Started in 2018, then interrupted multiple times by the COVID-19 pandemic, Everything for Dawn finally reaches the screen in time to celebrate EiO's 10 years of experimental opera and community building. The plot and characters were developed in the EIO Writers' Room, which brings together authors, playwrights, and librettists to collaborate on new original operas. The full opera was workshopped and rehearsed over a three-year period and recorded and shot on a soundstage in the fall of 2021. 2022 marks EiO's 10th Anniversary as a company, over which time they have produced 85 new operatic works by 55 composers.

Episodes 1-3, set in 1997, take place in a suburban Detroit home, where a college-aged daughter (Dawn) and her mother (Gloria) discover a box of paintings by their recently deceased father/husband (Mac).

Episodes 4-7, set in 1995, go back in time to the mental health facility that the father had been in prior to his death.

Episodes 8-10, set in 2001, pick up after the end of Episode 3, when the father is hailed by the art world as a star of outsider art.

Everything for Dawn is an extension of Experiments in Opera's long-standing explorations of alternative mediums for contemporary opera. Examples include EiO's podcast operas AquaNet & Funyuns and Buick City, 1:00 AM ("Jam-packed with intrigue...top-notch, gorgeously produced"-I Care If You Listen) which was released in 2018; Video Operas ("fascinating...charming"-The New York Times) in 2016; and Radio Operas ("innovative opera miniatures"-WQXR) in 2013. These programs have positioned Experiments in Opera as a perennial disrupter of opera's business-as-usual approach. "It's not a traditional opera - it's more like weird little operettas"
- Rolling Stone FROM EIO'S THREE COMPOSER-LEADERS

"When we set out to create Everything for Dawn in 2018, we couldn't have imagined the impact that this piece would have on our little, experimental company. Looking for ways to include traditionally excluded voices, we started a writers' room and embarked on a vigorous journey of collaboration, experimentation, and ultimately, a remarkable example of community art-making. At a time when so much new opera is based on existing stories or figures, we are excited to continue prioritizing original storytelling. Everything for Dawn is grounded in the reality of our world, but is also a story of intrigue and drama that could only have emerged from the unique group of artists who created it. We made an opera with 16 different composers and writers, and we did it through a global pandemic-a testament to the power of determination and collaboration," Aaron Siegel, Jason Cady, Kamala Sankaram

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