Felix Jarrar & B L Foxley’s Stardust tickets now on sale

By in News Stage

Tick­ets for the forth­com­ing mul­ti-for­mat pro­duc­tion Star­dust are now on sale, ahead of its debut online this December.

The pro­duc­tion, by com­pos­er Felix Jar­rar and fan­ta­sy writer B L Fox­ley, explores soci­ety from a mul­tira­cial per­spec­tive. Four screen­ings have been announced so far, start­ing on Decem­ber 4, and each one will be fol­lowed by a live post-show dis­cus­sion led by a spe­cial guest.

Helios Opera, the com­pa­ny pre­sent­ing the project, is cham­pi­oning greater inclu­sion in per­form­ing arts with this new pro­duc­tion, which has a cre­ative team from a vari­ety of eth­nic back­grounds. The com­pa­ny also intends to donate 10 per cent of all pro­ceeds from tick­et sales from the pre­miere to Col­or of Change, and sub­se­quent screen­ings will also have a por­tion donat­ed to a char­i­ty cho­sen by the spe­cial guest.

Star­dust explores per­son­al and racial iden­ti­ty, self-crit­i­cism, and the pow­er of self-actu­al­i­sa­tion in a mul­ti-lay­ered pro­duc­tion. It draws inspi­ra­tion from Greek mythol­o­gy, con­tem­po­rary fan­ta­sy, and even Andy Warhol. The con­cept is inspired by the three Moirai (or Fates); divine women who spun the thread of mor­tal­i­ty and deter­mined the span of birth to death.

Speak­ing about the pro­duc­tion, Jar­rar said: “I am a first gen­er­a­tion Amer­i­can. My late father was descend­ed from indige­nous Pales­tini­ans on the West Bank and grew up in Jor­dan, while my moth­er is from Sri Lan­ka. B L Foxley’s text imme­di­ate­ly caught my eye because it is writ­ten from a mul­tira­cial perspective.”

Describ­ing her own per­son­al con­nec­tion to the work, African-Amer­i­can sopra­no Vic­to­ria Davis said: “Star­dust in 2020 is espe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful to me due to the cli­mate of our nation and the entire world. There has nev­er been a time before where those who have his­tor­i­cal­ly been oppressed or unseen have been heard or seen on such a clear and mean­ing­ful lev­el of under­stand­ing. These pieces show­case both inter­nal and exter­nal bat­tles that we all have.”

Poet and writer BL Fox­ley said the pro­duc­tion is a “trib­ute to her love of the fan­ta­sy genre,” par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en that peo­ple of colour have his­tor­i­cal­ly been under­rep­re­sent­ed in it.

The pro­duc­tion was direct­ed by John de los San­tos and shot entire­ly on smart­phones, in accor­dance with social dis­tanc­ing guide­lines, before under­go­ing pro­fes­sion­al editing.

TICKETS FOR STARDUST

All per­for­mances will be fol­lowed by a livestreamed post-show dis­cus­sion with mem­bers of the cre­ative team and a spe­cial guest mod­er­a­tor. The dura­tion of the entire event is one hour.

Star­dust stream­ing showtimes:

  • Fri­day, Decem­ber 4, 2020 at 8pm EST – Melin­da Lopez (spe­cial guest)
  • Sun­day, Decem­ber 6, 2020 at 3pm EST – Chay Jones
  • Fri­day, Decem­ber 11, 2020 at 8pm EST – Jas­mine Rice LaBeija
  • Sun­day, Decem­ber 13, 2020 at 3pm EST – Mal­colm Hansen

Tick­ets are $20 and are on sale through Eventbrite via Helios Opera’s web­site: http://www.heliosopera.com/projects/stardust

Image: Helios Opera

Tags: , , , , ,