Interview: Director Kevin Newbury On the 10th Anniversary Tour of FELLOW TRAVELERS at Glimmerglass

Glimmerglass Festival is presenting Kevin Newbury's acclaimed production of FELLOW TRAVELERS, the Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce opera set during the 1950s "Lavender Scare," as part of a 10th Anniversary National Tour. Based on Thomas Mallon's acclaimed novel, recently adapted as a CBS/Paramount+ limited series, the opera follows two men whose romantic involvement becomes a dangerous secret in an era of government surveillance and fear. Recognized as one of the most widely performed new American operas of the past decade, the production comes to Glimmerglass under the baton of Kelly Kuo.

Newbury is an opera, theatre, film, and television director who has directed over 100 projects across all mediums. His career highlights include three PBS Great Performances broadcasts, dozens of world premieres including the GRAMMY-winning THE (R)EVOLUTION OF Steve Jobs and the Pulitzer Prize-winning LIFE IS A DREAM, and five operas with composer Gregory Spears, among them FELLOW TRAVELERS, which the New York Times named to its "Best of 2016" list. A co-founder of Up Until Now Collective, Newbury is directing and co-producing the 10th Anniversary National Tour alongside Jecca Barry, with recent stops at Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, and San Diego Opera.

BroadwayWorld spoke with Newbury about why this decade-old opera feels more urgent than ever, The Lavender Names Project that has grown alongside the tour, and the independent producing model reshaping how opera travels across the country.

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What was it about FELLOW TRAVELERS that made you want to revisit this production for a 10th Anniversary National Tour?

In the decade since our premiere at Cincinnati Opera in 2016, FELLOW TRAVELERS has now had twenty productions from America's biggest cities to her heartland. The opera has become part of the operatic canon and served as a catalyst for connecting thousands of audience members from many disparate backgrounds, across many generations, all across the country. Without fail, dozens of audience members congregate in the lobby after each performance, hugging, crying and sharing their stories until the theater's curfew. We began building the 2026 10th Anniversary National Tour in 2023 and we never could have imagined that history would be repeating itself three years later under this current administration. We also knew that there would be renewed interest in the opera after the 2023 premiere of the extraordinary Showtime mini-series adaptation. The Fellow Travelers Project coincides with our nation's Semiquincentennial and the work has become a symbol of resistance to the moment we are in, as we see a dramatic rise in systemic attacks on the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and deliberate attempts to erase our history. Conservative federal and local governments are policing gender expression and free speech, abandoning HIV research, challenging the ban on conversion therapy and hijacking our cultural institutions in Washington D.C. Our country needs this opera and this story more than ever.

How does bringing FELLOW TRAVELERS to Glimmerglass feel different from the other stops on this tour, given the festival's reputation for championing new American opera?

Glimmerglass has a long history of presenting new American work and we are so honored to be sharing FELLOW TRAVELERS with an audience base that has always embraced new opera. Glimmerglass also fosters a wonderful sense of community and family. We have enjoyed a full rehearsal process for the opera, featuring both veteran cast members and members of the Glimmerglass Resident Artist Program who are new to the work, and now new members of our FELLOW TRAVELERS family. It's a really special feeling to share this wonderful opera with the next generation of artists. It feels like passing the torch in many ways.

The term "Lavender Scare" isn't widely known outside of historical circles. How does FELLOW TRAVELERS serve as both an artistic and educational experience for audiences?

The opera FELLOW TRAVELERS is based on Thomas Mallon's seminal 2007 novel, a powerful gay love story set against the backdrop of the 1950s McCarthy-era Lavender Scare, which banned homosexuals and other "sexual deviants" from working for the United States government, leading to humiliating investigations and the purging of thousands of LGBTQ+ people from government service. I had never heard of the Lavender Scare until I read Mallon's novel and it has been an honor to share this history with audiences across the country. As we continue this next chapter in our FELLOW TRAVELERS journey, I have been reflecting a lot on my values as a Queer artist and activist making work during these uncertain times for our community. I believe in the power of history. I believe that we stand on the shoulders of the people that came before us who fought so hard and sacrificed so much for us to have the rights we enjoy today. I believe in the power of art to build community. And I believe in the power of a good love story. And FELLOW TRAVELERS is, first and foremost, a good love story.

You've spoken about the parallels between McCarthyism and today's political climate. How do you navigate making those connections feel organic rather than heavy-handed within the production?

Alongside the national tour we have launched The Lavender Names Project, a collaboration with the American LGBTQ+ Museum, which officially opens in New York City in 2028 in a collaboration with The New York Historical. The Lavender Names Project is a grassroots archival research and community outreach initiative, which aims to uncover and collect photos and stories of victims of the LGBTQ+ community who were systematically discriminated against and fired by federal and local governments, from the beginning of the "Lavender Scare" in 1953 to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the 1990s, to today. The photos themselves have become part of an ever-growing visual archive that appears onstage at the end of each performance as a living memorial to the many Queer people who suffered, and are suffering, this decades-long persecution. It has been incredibly meaningful to host trailblazers from the LGBTQ+ community who have spoken out against this discrimination and continued to fight for our rights. We have had nearly a dozen people whose images are featured in the Lavender Names Project onstage attend a performance. Our distinguished guests have included Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer and Tom Carpenter, who were both on the front lines of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and Col. Bree Fram and Sam Rodriguez, members of our trans and non-binary community who have been forced to retire or separate from the military due to the current administration's anti-trans policies. Hosting post-show discussions with these real-life victims, alongside our cast and creative team, has been one of the moving experiences of my career. If you or someone in your family, including chosen family, have ever been fired from a Federal or local government job for being LGBTQ+, including the United States military, we invite you to share your story, or your loved one's story, alongside a photo that will be included in our archive and our onstage photo installation.

You are co-producing this tour with Jecca Barry through Up Until Now Collective. How has that independent producing model shaped the way this production has traveled across the country?

Jecca Barry and I co-founded Up Until Now Collective, along with our third co-founder Brandon Kazen-Maddox, in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. One of the core tenets of our mission statement is to challenge the status quo and build new structures for artistic creation. We want to bring FELLOW TRAVELERS and the Lavender Names Project to as many cities across the country as possible, sharing this vital story with thousands of people while simultaneously lifting up our struggling opera industry. Our model is based on a theatre touring model which is relatively rare in opera. We are delivering to each city a cast that has performed the show dozens of times, creating a rich, cohesive ensemble that we usually see more in theatre than in opera. We are also saving each company money and helping to build a more sustainable business model. We hope the model serves as a prototype for how opera companies, LGBTQ+ and veterans organizations, historical societies, archivists, universities and libraries can collaborate, both locally and nationally. We hope to inspire other civic-minded artistic projects to adopt a similar model that builds an efficient touring model coupled with archival research endeavors, allowing vital pieces of art that speak to our moment to reach wider audiences with economic efficiency. We are preparing for a New York City revival in 2027 and a presentation in Washington D.C. in collaboration with Washington National Opera in 2028. We also hope to tour the opera internationally and eventually bring the opera to Broadway, and it has been galvanizing to feel the momentum building across the country all year in preparation of these big next steps.

State-sponsored persecution of the LGBTQ community is at the heart of this story. How do you approach staging that kind of institutionalized violence with both honesty and sensitivity?

I believe in the power of opera as an art form to express emotions, both epic and intimate, and to enter the rich, complicated psyches of these characters. Gregory Spears' gorgeous harmonies, melodies and orchestrations take audiences on an emotional journey that is perfectly in sync with Greg Pierce's witty, moving libretto. The opera feels more like a play set to music. Our team's staging, design and acting choices keep the action moving like a political thriller, animating a sense of pervasive surveillance and paranoia. It is also incredibly important to us to portray Hawk's physical and emotional intimacy in an honest, visceral way. I want to give a shout-out to our intimacy director Sara E. Widzer. One of my favorite quotes of the year came from Queerty, which wrote that the opera is as hot as the mini-series. This intimacy, romance and honest sexuality serves as a poignant counterpoint to the violence and discrimination swirling around these characters.

What do you hope audiences leave Glimmerglass thinking or feeling after experiencing FELLOW TRAVELERS this summer?

Our goal is to strengthen LGBTQ+ communities locally and nationally while raising awareness about our government's systemic persecution of LGBTQ+ people from WWII to the present moment, encouraging empathy, playing a role in the resistance, and ultimately helping to affect policy changes in this country. I hope audiences feel inspired to be more empathic, to learn more about our history and to continue to show up on the front lines of the culture wars, as advocates, allies and leaders.

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