In the Midst of Things: In Medias Res
This production publicly screened May 28-June 7, 2021. Thank you to all who watched!
Composed by Robert Elhai
Libretto by Christina Baldwin
This production will be presented in English with closed captioning
Artwork by Jerrald Spencer Jr.
In the Midst of Things: In Medias Res is a 15-minute opera that shares a look into the virtual classrooms of 2020/2021. Ms. T is trying her darndest to keep it together and teach something of value while high school students Nicole, Trevor, Kai, Sunny, Leo, and Max are just trying to get through yet another monotonous day of virtual learning. Attitudes, emotions, and humor collide in this all-too-real tale of the lessons and hardships we can all relate to of virtual connection.
This production premiered at 15 different High Schools, in 30 classrooms, to 1,002 students across the Twin Cities!
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Featuring
Creative Team
Ms. T: KrisAnne Weiss
Nicole: Mikalia Bradberry
Trevor: Justin Anthony Spenner
Kai: Darrius Strong
Sunny: Anna Hashizume
Leo: Adán Varela
Max: Phinehas Bynum
Composer/Orchestrator: Robert Elhai
Librettist: Christina Baldwin
Director: Sequoia Hauck
Music Director: Marco Real-d’Arbelles
Audio Director: Chris Foss
Film Editor: Katherine Henly
Choreographer: Darrius Strong
Producer: Kelly M Turpin
Artist Bios
KrisAnne Weiss
KrisAnne (she/her) is a Minneapolis-based mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. She enjoys an eclectic performing career of music-theater and concert work, and is an accomplished recitalist, chamber musician, and narrator. She most recently performed principal roles in Skylark Opera Theatre’s productions of The Most Happy Fella and Così fan tutte, in Opera on the Lake’s Die Fledermaus, in Zeitgeist’s Crocus Hill Ghost Story, and in AOT’s inaugural production, The Consul. As an advocate of contemporary music and art song, she has premiered and workshopped countless new compositions, has been a performer in Nautilus Music-Theater's Composer-Librettist Studio, and has frequently been a featured artist at Source Song Festival. She is on the voice faculty at Carleton College, teaches private lessons in the Twin Cities, and hosts and facilitates AOT’s Voice Lab.
Mikalia Bradberry
Mikalia (she/her) is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota with a Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance. Ms. Bradberry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Niagara Falls natives and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance from Abilene Christian University. Bradberry prepared the role of Madame de Croissey in Poulenc’s Les Dialogues des Carmelites for the University of Minnesota’s opera program for the '19-'20 season. She also prepared the role of Lucretia from Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with An Opera Theatre in the spring of 2020 and most recently performed with LOFTrecital on their Oktoberfrau program in October of 2020. Additionally, Ms. Bradberry is a DEI committee member for OOPS MN and is a teaching artist for An Opera Theatre in Minneapolis. She is a former student of Dr. Julie Pruett, Adriana Zabala and is a current student of Victoria Vargas.
Justin Anthony Spenner
Praised as a “Standout” with “boisterous comic energy” by the Star Tribune, Baritone Justin (he/him) is known throughout the Twin Cities for his artistic honesty and engaging versatility. At home with Schubert, as he is with Stockhausen, Justin’s appearances run the gamut from recital and oratorio staples with regional organizations to world premieres of experimental music. Recent stage credits include Schaunard (La Bohème) with Theater Latte Da, Father (The Golden Ass/World Premiere) with 113 Composers Collective, Joey (The Most Happy Fella) and Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte) with Skylark Opera Theatre. In addition to performing, Justin keeps an active private studio, develops Opera Immersion classes, and works as a grant editor/consultant for various Twin Cities arts non-profits and individual artists.
Darrius Strong
Darrius (he/him) is a Twin Cities-based dancer, choreographer, and instructor. His dance company, STRONGmovement uses the universal language of dance, blending styles such as Hip hop, Ballet, Modern, and West African to tell stories related to society and humanity. Strong is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (BFA 2015) and is currently faculty at University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Macalester College, St. Paul Conservatory Performing Arts High School and the TU Dance Center where he focuses on teaching dancers how to connect their identity to movement. Using his passion for youth and bringing communities together, Strong performs and speaks as a guest artist in schools across Minnesota including the Anoka Middle School for the Performing Arts and as a director of the hip-hop program at Eleve Performing Arts Center. His creative work has been chosen for the Walker Art Center’s Choreographers Evening, and Rhythmically Speaking. He was featured in the 2015 New Griots Festival as well as an American Standard Billboard advertisement in NYC Time Square in 2016. Strong has created works for Threads Dance Project, Flying Foot Forum, Alternative Motion Projects, and James Sewell Ballet. Darrius Strong is a grateful recipient of a 2017 Momentum New Works Award and 2019 Jerome Hill Fellowship.
Anna Hashizume
Anna (she/her) is a Japanese-American singer-actor based in the Twin Cities. Previous credits include: Artistry Theater: Mary Poppins; Theatre Elision: Of Art and Artists; Lyric Arts: Sense and Sensibility; An Opera Theater: The Sky Where You Are; Collective Unconscious Performance: Into the Darkness; Mixed Precipitation: The Clemency of Tito’s Tennis Club, Dr. Falstaff and the Working Wives of Lake County, Philemon and Baucis: Planet in Peril; Minnesota Opera: La Traviata, Thaïs; Fargo-Moorhead Opera: Speed Dating, Tonight!; Lyric Opera of the North: Rigoletto. In 2017 she was a Schubert Club Competition Winner. TRAINING: M.M., University of Minnesota; B.S.O.F, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Anna also teaches voice in the Twin Cities and hosts a podcast called Thank You Places which can be found on most streaming platforms.
www.annahashizume.com | @annahashizume
Adán Varela
Adán (he/they) has worked as an actor and singer with Lyric Arts of Anoka, Mixed Precipitation, Frank Theatre, Ordway Center for the Arts, Second City, Park Square Theatre, Freshwater Theatre, Minneapolis Musical Theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, Minnesota Orchestra, Border CrosSing, Skylark Opera, Minnesota Opera, The Kenny Kiser Show, Artistry, and Hey Rube. He has directed pieces for stage with Mixed Precipitation and Gadfly Theatre. In addition, Adán produces work for his company, Adelante Productions and works as the drag performer, Bird of Paradise. He also works in graphic design and video production/editing.
Phinehas Bynum
Phinehas (he/him) is a tenor and creative technologist based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. You may have seen him in Candide with VocalEssence, hanging out with the Minnesota Opera Chorus, or la-dee-da-ing with Theater Latté Da's tour of All is Calm. He's pretty excited to collaborate with AOT for the first time and honored to share a spot of music with you during the quarantimes! When not singing, playing frisbee, or taking apart gadgets, Phin is an IT Systems Administrator at Jamf Software. He's ever-grateful to his family and his partner Katie for supporting his music habit and keeping him whole and sane during this long season of waiting. Sending good feelings your way!
Directors
Marcoantonio Real-d’Arbelles
Conductor Marcoantonio Real-d’Arbelles (he/him) was raised in Miami, Florida where he began playing violin at age 11. After graduate studies, he went on to become Assistant Conductor of The Miami Symphony Orchestra. Later, in Spain, Marco was awarded the Conducting Prize by the Chamber Philharmonic of Catalonia. In 2018, Marco was appointed Associate Artistic Director of the Bach Society of Minnesota where he works as conductor, violinist, and speaker to bring diverse communities together through music. Equally comfortable in modern and baroque performance, Marco is the Music Director of Opera on the Lake and Bold North Baroque Opera, both based in the Twin Cities. Previous conducting postings and appearances include Winter Opera St. Louis, Chicago Summer Opera, Miami Music Festival, CCM’s Opera Bootcamp, and Oberlin in Italy Opera Festival.
Marco lives in Minneapolis with Yunyue (wife and recital partner) and their baby boy.
Sequoia Hauck
Sequoia Hauck (Anishinaabe/Hupa) (she/they) is a Twin Cities based artist creating theater, film, poetry, and performance art that decolonizes the process of art-making. Sequoia graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a B.A. in American Indian Studies. They have worked on and offstage with organizations such as Aniccha Arts, Art Shanty Projects, Exposed Brick Theatre, Māoriland, An Opera Theatre (AOT), Pangea World Theater, Patrick's Cabaret, Poetry and Pie, The Southern Theater, and Turtle Theater Collective. Sequoia worked with AOT last year on their nationwide opera “The Sky Where You Are” a project fronted by Decameron Opera Coalition called, “Tales from a Safe Distance” featuring nine world premiere one-act operas. Sequoia also is a part of the podcast Collective Perspective: Reclaiming and Reshaping Theatre found on most streaming platforms.
Composer & Librettist
Robert Elhai
Robert (he/him) composed the music to The Jungle Theater’s Little Women, The History Theatre’s Dirty Business, Fortune’s Fool Theatre’s production of The Lady With A Lapdog, Nautilus Music-Theater’s production of Twisted Apples: Stories from Winesburg, Ohio, and Theater Latte Da’s production of C. (based on Cyrano de Bergerac). Among his arranging work in the Twin Cities: Home for the Holidays and The New Standards with the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as Chan Poling and Jeff Hatcher’s Ivey-Award-winning Glensheen and the premiere of Sweet Land the Musical. Dr. Elhai is the recipient of Tony and Drama Desk nominations for best orchestrations for the Broadway production of The Lion King (for which he also supplied dance and incidental music arrangements). He has orchestrated over 150 film scores by A-list composers such as Elliot Goldenthal (the Oscar-winning score to Frida) and Brian Tyler (The Fast and Furious movies).
Christina Baldwin
Christina (she/her) is a creator and champion of new plays, musical theater and opera—developing works with the Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Playwrights’ Center, Nautilus Music-Theater and The Moving Company. A collaborator with the Tony award-winning Theatre de la Jeune Lune for nearly 10 years, Christina co-adapted and performed the title role in their critically-acclaimed touring production of Carmen. She adapts and directs operas (recently collaborating with Lyric Opera of the North and the nationally-acclaimed Decameron Opera Coalition), has been a recording artist and vocalist with the Minnesota Orchestra, a writer/actor on NPR’s “Wits” and "A Prairie Home Companion,” and has lent her voice to animated short films by the Dutch filmmaker Rosto A.D. (Cannes Film Festival award-winner). She currently serves as interim Artistic Director of the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, MN.
This production is made possible thanks to generous support from the Twin Cities Opera Guild and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.