HERE to Present Heather Christian's TERCE: A PRACTICAL BREVIARY As Part Of PROTOTYPE in January

The OBIE award-winning HERE is continuing its women-led, 30th anniversary season with the world premiere of Terce: A Practical Breviary, the latest musical incantation by two-time Obie award-winning composer Heather Christian. Presented as part of PROTOTYPE: Opera | Theatre | Now, Terce: A Practical Breviary is a radical rethinking of a monastic 9 AM mass. Composed and written by Christian, this adaptation reimagines the face of the “Holy Spirit” through the lens of the Divine Feminine. It is directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant and sung by a community choir of over 30 caregivers and makers. Running January 10–20, 2024, at The Space at Irondale (85 S Oxford St, Brooklyn), Terce: A Practical Breviary is a wild meditation and celebration of the sacred mothers alive in all of us and how that manifests in regard to the Earth, each other, and ourselves. Tickets, which start at $35, are currently on sale at www.here.org.

Inspired by ideas taken from three primary female mystics (Julian of Norwich, Hildegard von Bingen, and Robin Wall Kimmerer), Terce: A Practical Breviary is a non-narrative song cycle that blends new music, neo-soul, and gospel with traditional medieval organum. The new work is danced wildly and percussed with handmade instruments made from traditional tools of home and craft making. More of an event than an opera, it is built as an active ritual to celebrate and venerate our feminine alignment with nature and recover from living in the confines of a civilization built to control or ignore it.
 

Terce: A Practical Breviary features an ensemble of over 35 performers led by Heather Christian (piano, organ, vocals), Terry Dame (percussion, saxophone, vocals), Viva DeConcini (electric guitar, vocals), Mel Hsu (cello, bass, vocals), Mona Seyed-Boloforosh (piano, vocals), and Maya Sharpe (violin, acoustic guitar, vocals). They are joined by Rima Fand (violin, vocals), Jessica Lurie (wind, vocals), Divya Maus (vocals), and Kait Warner (vocals), along with a community chorus featuring Raquel Cion, Marisa Clementi, Ciera Cope, Nadine Daniels, Sandra Garner, Audrey Hayes, Mercedes Hesselroth, Frances Higgins, Davina Honeghan, Beau Kadir, Rachel Karp, Sarah Lefebvre, Aris Louis, Teri Madonna, Grenetta Mason, Mickaila Perry, Eleanor Philips, Avery Richards, Kayleigh Rozwat, Amy Santos, Kayla Sklar, Sharyn Thomas, Vanessa Truell, Grace Tyson, Madrid Vinarski, Jessie Winograd, and Allison Zhao.

The creative team for Terce: A Practical Breviary includes Heather Christian (composer, writer, movement), Keenan Tyler Oliphant (director, movement), Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh & Jacklyn Riha (music direction), Nick Vaughan & Jake Margolin (environmental design), Brenda Abbandondolo (costume design), Masha Tsimring (lighting design), Nick Kourtides (sound design), Terry Dame (instrument fabricator), Darlene Christian (movement), Alice Leora Briggs, Koomah, Lovie (projected libretto illustrations), Kristin Marting (creative producer), and Amanda Cooper (line producer).

Ten performances of Terce: A Practical Breviary will take place January 10–20, 2024, at The Space at Irondale, located at 85 S Oxford St in Brooklyn as part of The PROTOTYPE Festival. Critics are welcome as of January 11 for an opening on Sunday, January 14. Performances are January 10, 11, 17-19 at 7pm, January 13, 20 at 9am and 3pm, and January 14 at 3pm. The anticipated running time is 60 minutes with no intermission.

Tickets, which range from $35-$150, can be purchased by visiting www.here.org or by calling 212-647-0202. For Group Sales, contact boxoffice@prototypefestival.org. Students and seniors can access free tickets on a rush basis, subject to availability for each performance, and must be redeemed at the box office. Standard ticketing fees apply.

 

Terce: A Practical Breviary was commissioned, developed, and produced through HERE as part of PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now.

 

Please visit https://here.org/shows/terce-a-practical-breviary/ for more information.

 

About the Artists
 

Heather Christian (Creator, Performer) is a Drama Desk and a two-time Obie Award-winning composer/performer making music-centered shows and rituals. She is a 2021 Richard Rodgers Award winner, 2022 Stephen Schwartz Outstanding New Composer awardee, and Sundance Institute Time Warner Fellow. Recent composing/performing credits include her own work Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), Animal Wisdom (The Bushwick Starr, now a motion picture) I Am Sending You the Sacred Face (Theater In Quarantine/ YouTube— Vulture's Top Theater Experience of 2020), Prime: A Practical Breviary (Playwrights Horizons' Soundstage—IndieWire's #1 Podcast Episode of 2020) in addition to being a lead artist on devised works Mission Drift (National Theater, London) and The World Is Round (BAM). She has released 11 records, teaches vocal-based music composition at NYU, owns and operates her own recording studio in Beacon, NY, and can be seen regularly in concert halls and dive bars as Heather Christian & the Arbornauts. www.heatherchristian.bandcamp.com

Keenan Tyler Oliphant (Director) is a theatre-maker and director from Cape Town, South Africa whose work is in the lineage of theatre-making and storytelling traditions of Southern Africa. As a theatre-maker, Keenan recalls his traditional Southern African storytelling lineage by simultaneously exchanging with histories and futures to create spaces of healing, investigation, mourning and celebration through performance. Selected directing credits include the US premiere of Will You Come With Me? (PlayCo 2022), the Associate Director of Hadestown (Broadway) and Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), Jay Stull's The Singularity Play (Harvard TDM; Alliance Theatre Reading) Sam Grabiner's People on Earth (Columbia University), Vivian Barnes' Intro To (Ensemble Stage Theatre), Live from Mount Olympus Podcast (The Team) and Kyk Hoe Skyn Die Son [Look at How the Sun Shines] (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks). Keenan is an alumnus of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow (2020-2021) and the Drama League Directing Fellowship (2021-2022). www.keenantyleroliphant.com

About PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now is a co-production of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE, two trailblazers in the creation and presentation of contemporary, multi-disciplinary opera-theatre and music-theatre works. The pioneering festival is the only one of its kind in New York City and is a model now emulated around the country – producing and presenting a wide spectrum of works, from intimate black-box experiences to larger chamber opera productions, valuing artistic, curatorial, and producorial risk-taking. PROTOTYPE is committed to surprising our audiences and confounding their expectations through content, form, and relevance. The festival gives voice to a diverse group of composers, librettists, performers and musicians across all genres, backgrounds, and cultures. In providing a recurring showcase of visionary opera-theatre and music-theatre pieces, the touring life of the work extends around the world. The festival also presents groundbreaking new works by International Artists and has become a global reference of artistic excellence in the field of opera and music-theatre. www.prototypefestival.org
 

About HERE
 

 

The award-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director) was named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theater by Time Out New York and is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performances viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines—theatre, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. HERE is a producer, presenter and venue for local and global ground-breaking artists.

HERE's standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Taylor Mac's The Hang and The Lily's Revenge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, and Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique, as well as works directed by Founding Artistic Director Kristin Marting including James Scruggs' Disposable Men and Kamala Sankaram's Looking at You.

 

In addition to its extensive producing work with local artists through its HERE Artist Residency Program, HERE presents work from New York, across the country, and around the globe through its Dream Music Puppetry Program (co-curated with Basil Twist), and its widely acclaimed PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre, co-curated and co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects.

 

As a welcoming venue, HERE proudly curates adventurous artists, companies and productions, whether emerging or recognized, through its SubletSeries.

Since its founding in 1993, HERE and the artists it has supported have received 18 Obies, 2 Bessies, 5 Drama Desk Nominations, 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 4 Doris Duke Awards, 7 Tony Nominations, and 2 MacArthur Fellowships.

 

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