Photo Flash: Head Trick Theatre Presents GOBLIN MARKET

Two adult sisters return to their childhood home, where they once again come face to face with the perils and fantasies of their youth. In Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon's haunting chamber musical, adapted from Christina Rossetti's poem, the wilder Laura chafes against the limits of her ordinary life, and succumbs to the lure of the goblin fruits and the mysterious world they promise. It's up to cautious Lizzie to face down the goblins, and save herself and her sister from their darkest selves.

"Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon's musical adaptation adds so many interesting questions about memory and storytelling and female testimony to a poem that's been the subject of a century and a half of interpretation," says artistic director Rebecca Maxfield. "The sisters are choosing to tell and to re-live the story of these traumatic events many years later." Rich in symbolism and sensuality, Goblin Market explores the dueling powers of love and temptation, as Laura and Lizzie risk their lives, their bond, and the Victorian world they know for the otherworldly offerings of the goblin market.

Goblin Market concludes Head Trick's 2018-19 season, "Making a World", which asks audiences to join Head Trick's performers in creating new worlds through innovative approaches to three classics. "This season grew out of the idea of escapism and fantasy," Maxfield says. "We wanted to ask: Is there a world we're running to, when we say a play is escapist? And does that world look the same if you're a woman, or gay, or a person of color? It's really about the purpose of the stories we tell each other and ourselves."