About
Join us January 11th, 12th and 13th for FREE presentations of A Collectible Sensation.
This workshop will be a dynamic fusion of creativity and collaboration. DHP has joined a distinguished team of Off-Broadway and Broadway veterans who will work alongside Duluth’s most talented actors, singers, dancers, and technicians. Together, they will engage in a three-phase creative process:
-
Phase One: Collaborative exploration of the book, music, and characters, setting the foundation for the new musical.
-
Phase Two: Intensive rehearsals where the team will refine and adapt the work, potentially making changes to characters, songs, and plot.
-
Phase Three: Four FREE public performances providing a unique chance to experience the evolving musical and see how it transforms throughout the two-week period.
The workshop will take place within the Depot's vibrant arts and cultural hub, utilizing its rehearsal spaces and Minnesota Ballet’s Studio 4 for presentations.
Synopsis:
At the unveiling of the million-dollar renovation of their renowned Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Modern Art, long dead sisters Etta and Claribel Cone suddenly materialize. "Family friend" Gertrude Stein and her paramour Alice Toklas (equally dead) also pop up, uninvited (much to Etta’s dismay). Their mission: to settle once and for all how the “friendship” between Etta and Gertrude fell apart. Their younger selves appear to help them sort it all out, and surrounding artwork miraculously comes to life, each woman represented by a painting with special significance. Etta struggles with her feelings for Gertrude and her modern proclivities, at direct odds with her Victorian mores. Through a series of evocative vignettes, we are transported back to Baltimore, Paris and Italy at the turn of the century to learn what derailed the relationship (and suspected affair) and how Gertrude and Alice came to be a couple.
The musical is non-linear, moving between present time in the Cone Wing and memories of the women’s younger selves and artwork that comes alive to move the story forward. Fantasy sequences are created when past and present merge. At its heart, A COLLECTIBLE SENSATION is about learning valuable, timeless lessons of love, and covert and overt feminism in a time when women were expected to be heterosexual homemakers.
The presentation you're attending is the culmination of a week-long developmental workshop of a new musical. It is a Work in Progress, not a full production. Duluth audiences will be witnessing the first public presentations of the full project. Thanks for your support of the creative process!
Eventbrite Seating reservations:
Saturday, January 11th at 7:30 PM: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1119316207909?aff=oddtdtcreator
Sunday, January 12th at 3:00 PM: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1129165036019?aff=oddtdtcreator
Monday, January 13th at 7:30 PM:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1129162829419?aff=oddtdtcreator