PROTOTYPE Announces 2026 Festival, January 7 - 18, 2026

PROTOTYPE Announces 2026 Festival, January 7 - 18, 2026

The 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival, the first in which Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) will assume the role of sole curator, producer, and presenter, will feature the New York Premiere of Michael Gordon and Richard Foreman's What to wear and the rolling World Premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider's HILDEGARD.

The 20th anniversary season of BMP centers around BMP: SONGBOOK, featuring selections of music from their 65 commissioned and produced opera and music-theatre works, which will be performed in concert to open the festival, released as a double album, and made available as an anthology of sheet music and a commemorative visual history book.

The Festival also includes two world premieres: The All Sing: Whale-Road (Hwael-Rad), composed by Jens Ibsen with a libretto by Julian Talamantez Brolaski, featuring a metal band and 150-person chorus, and PRECIPICE, conceived and designed by Susan Zeeman Rogers, with music by Rima Fand and a libretto by Karen Fisher.

Additional programming includes co-presentations with Death of Classical and Art Bath.

Tickets are on sale today, November 3, for members, and will go on sale for the general public on Monday, November 17th at prototypefestival.org.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - (New York, NY) - November 3, 2025 - Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) announces additional details of the 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival, set to resume January 7-18, 2026. BMP will assume the role of sole curator, producer, and presenter for the first time in the festival's 13-year history.

The festival season will include the New York Premiere of What to wear, a comedic post-rock opera by composer Michael Gordon and the late downtown theater renegade icon Richard Foreman with creative direction by Big Dance Theater co-founders Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, co-presented by BAM, Beth Morrison Projects, PROTOTYPE, and Bang on a Can; the world premieres of PRECIPICE, conceived by Susan Zeeman Rogers, with music by Rima Fand and libretto by Karen Fisher; and The All Sing: Whale-Road (Hwael-Rad), composed by BMP: NEXTGEN semifinalist Jens Ibsen with a libretto by Julian Talamantez Brolaski. The Festival will also include the BMP: SONGBOOK Concert, the underground cabaret Tiergarten by Death of Classical, which features Master of Ceremonies Kim David Smith leading audiences back in time through moments of societal madness, with performances ranging from opera to ballet to burlesque, the NY Premiere of HILDEGARD by Sarah Kirkland Snider, and an immersive art salon by Art Bath, featuring experimental vocalist and composer Eliza Bagg, operatic tenor and drag diva Jasmine Rice LaBeija, violinist Isabelle Ai Durrenberger, and composer and cellist Matthew Jamal Scott.

 A Word From The Artistic Director

I couldn't be more excited to share PROTOTYPE 2026, which will feature our cornerstone 20th Anniversary project, the BMP: Songbook, as well as two world premieres, the NYC premieres of two expansive BMP productions, and some phenomenal collaborations both new and old.  The future of opera looks bright!

- Beth Morrison 

 

Performance Listings

BMP: SONGBOOK Concert

Photo Credit: Maru Teppei

January 7 & 8, 2026
National Sawdust
Brooklyn, NY

Curated and Directed by Beth Morrison?

To celebrate its 20th anniversary season, Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) presents BMP: SONGBOOK, a live performance and multi-faceted celebration marking two decades of trailblazing innovation in American opera. The program features highlights from the 65 works BMP has commissioned and produced, performed by the acclaimed artists who brought them to life.

Following the opening night performance on January 7th, audiences are invited to an exclusive Anniversary UN-Gala & Launch Celebration, unveiling the BMP: SONGBOOK Anthology, a two-volume collection featuring more than 60 arias from BMP’s 60 commissioned works, as well as the BMP: SONGBOOK double album with a special Signature Collection Vinyl Edition, and a commemorative visual history book capturing interviews and stories from BMP’s visionary collaborators.

The BMP: SONGBOOK live concert will feature highlights from:
Anatomy Theater (David Lang, Mark Dion)
Black Lodge (David T. Little, Anne Waldman)
Song from the Uproar (Missy Mazzoli, Royce Vavrek)
Trade (Emma O'Halloran, Mark O'Halloran)
Thumbprint (Kamala Sankaram, Susan Yankowitz)
Prism (Ellen Reid, Roxie Perkins)
The Old Man and the Sea (Paola Prestini, Royce Vavrek)
Dog Days (David T. Little, Royce Vavrek)
In Our Daughter's Eyes (Du Yun, Michael Joseph McQuilken)
Marimuka (Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa)
Book of Mountains and Seas (Huang Ruo)
Ellen West (Ricky Ian Gordon, Frank Bidart)

HILDEGARD (Rolling World Premiere)

Photo Credit: Jono Freeman, photography | Deborah Johnson, artwork

Presented by PROTOTYPE, in partnership with BRIC

January 9-11, 14, 16-17, 2026
BRIC Arts Media
Brooklyn, NY?

Composer and Librettist: Sarah Kirkland Snider
Director: Elkhanah Pulitzer
Music Director: Gabriel Crouch
Commissioned, Developed, and Produced by Beth Morrison Projects

HILDEGARD is a new opera that explores key moments in the life of 12th-century German Benedictine visionary, composer, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen as she receives visions from God. At grave risk of excommunication, she sets out to document her visions, enlisting her fellow nun Richardis von Stade to illustrate the manuscript. As they develop a transformative partnership that awakens them in ways both profound and unexpected, the two women must confront the powers that would see them erased from history rather than making it. More broadly, HILDEGARD is about the desire for connection—to divinity, to humanity and to our deepest sense of self—and the conflicts that compete therein.

Sopranos Nola Richardson and Mikaela Bennett star as Hildegard and Richardis respectively. Rounding out the ensemble are David Adam Moore, Roy Hage, Blythe Gaissert, Raha Mirzadegan, Patrick Bessenbacher, Paul Chwe Minchul An, and Chloë Engel.

 What to wear (NY Premiere)

Photo Credit: Scott Groller

co-presented by BAM and PROTOTYPE

January 15-17, 2026
Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Brooklyn, NY

Composer: Michael Gordon
Librettist, Direction and Production: Richard Foreman
Creative Direction: Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar
Music Director: Alan Pierson
Produced by Beth Morrison Projects

What to wear is a post-rock opera created by experimental theater director and playwright Richard Foreman and composer Michael Gordon. The production features a series of operatic tableaux presented in Foreman's distinctive surrealist style. As the narrative progresses, themes of transformation and perception emerge, exploring shifting ideas of appearance and identity.

A large and dynamic company brings the opera’s surreal world to life, featuring Bang on a Can as the orchestra. This production marks the first presentation of What to wear since its 2006 premiere, bringing together members of the original cast alongside new performers, with a staging that faithfully recreates Foreman’s original design and direction. Full casting will be announced soon.

The All Sing: Whale-Road (Hwael-Rad) (World Premiere)

Photo Credit: Maria Baranova

January 11, 2026
Duffy Square in Times Square
New York, NY

Composer: Jens Ibsen
Libretto: Julian Talamantez Brolaski
Music Director: Edwin Outwater

The All Sing: Whale-Road (Hwael-Rad) is an ode to song and human-animal connection, uniting hundreds of voices in a vibrant tapestry of black metal blast beats and tender choral whalesong.

This world premiere choral piece and immersive experience will take place in Duffy Square in Times Square and will be performed by a metal band, backed by a mix of professional and volunteer singers making up a 150 person chorus. 

 

PRECIPICE (World Premiere)

Photo Credit: Matt Gray

co-presented by La MaMa and PROTOTYPE

January 8-11, 2026
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
New York, NY

?Concept and Production Design by Susan Zeeman Rogers
Music by Rima Fand
Libretto by Karen Fisher
Direction by Mallory Catlett
Music Direction by Mila Henry

PRECIPICE is a contemporary fairy tale about a young woman fighting to find her voice and power as a woman. Told as an object theatre/chamber opera, PRECIPICE sets an intimate story against epic natural landscapes, created with hand-made paper dioramas and live feed video.

At the center of the work is Alice Tolan-Mee as Ana, with Daisy Press, Kyle Pfortmiller, Julius Hollingsworth, Lacy Rose, and Michael Kuhn completing the ensemble. Twelve-year-old Skye Zlatkin makes her opera debut in the role of The Raven Child.

 

Tiergarten

Photo Credit: Kevin Condon

co-presented by Death of Classical

Directed by Andrew Ousley

January 16, 2026
The Alley Behind St. Paul's Carroll Street
New York, NY

Death of Classical's immersive, subversive, underground cabaret event takes its name from the Tiergarten—“The Garden of Beasts”—a sprawling central park in Berlin around which the murderous leaders of the Third Reich rose to power. Directed by Andrew Ousley, the program traces a path backwards in time, exploring historic moments of societal madness through music ranging from Handel and Verdi to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dean Martin to Max Richter, William Byrd to Brecht & Weill, with a panoply of performances that includes opera, classical, jazz, ballet, burlesque, and more.  Featuring Kim David Smith as Master of Ceremonies, Death of Classical's production takes audience members down an alleyway behind St. Paul's Carroll Street, transforming the church assembly hall into a 1920s Weimar Speakeasy, with food and drink included in the ticket price.

 

  Art Bath 

Photo Credit: Clockwise from top left: Lisel (Photo by Carla Rossi), Isabelle Ai Durrenberger (Photo by Titilayo Ayangade), Matthew Jamal Scott (Photo by Justin French), Jasmine Rice LaBeija (Photo by John Gram)

co-presented with Art Bath

January 16-17, 2026
artXnyc
New York, NY

Co-curated and produced by Mara Driscoll and Liz Yilmaz?

Art Bath draws from the tradition of the art salon to create a multi-sensory artistic journey. Known for fusing disciplines such as opera, music, theater, puppetry, and visual art, Art Bath presents an eclectic range of world-class performers, unexpected collaborations, and the thrill of new work unfolding in real time—all in a space transformed to invite curiosity, connection, and creative surprise. This edition of Art Bath will feature:

Lisel | Experimental Vocalist and Composer
Isabelle Ai Durrenberger | Violinist
Matthew Jamal Scott | Composer and Cellist
Jasmine Rice Labeija | Drag diva, operatic tenor
With more performers and visual artists to be announced soon.

 

 ABOUT BETH MORRISON PROJECTS 

Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is the foremost creator and producer of new opera and music theatre, with a fierce commitment to telling the stories of our time, cultivating a new generation of talent, and collaborating with them to lead the field into a more inclusive, innovative, and relevant future.

Founded in 2006 by “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) Beth Morrison, who was honored as one of Musical America’s Artists of the Year/Agents of Change, BMP now operates across the US and internationally, with offices in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and is “a driving force behind America’s thriving opera scene” (Financial Times), with Opera News declaring that the company, “more than any other… has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century.”

BMP has commissioned, developed, produced, and toured over 65 works in 15 countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas Angel’s Bone (Du Yun/Royce Vavrek) and p r i s m (Ellen Reid/Roxie Perkins) and GRAMMY^TM-nominated Black Lodge (David T. Little/Anne Waldman), with performances at prestigious venues and festivals such as Brooklyn Academy of Music, Edinburgh International Festival,  Walt Disney Hall, The Barbican, Lincoln Center, The Walker Art Center, The Beijing Music Festival, New Visions Arts Festival, The Holland Festival, O Festival Rotterdam, and more. Recent and upcoming projects include works by composers Juhi Bansal, Justin Hicks, Michael Gordon, Molly Joyce, Jodie Landau, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Paola Prestini, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Huang Ruo, Kamala Sankaram, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, working with multi-disciplinary collaborators including Rachel Dickstein, Jerron Herman, Zoe Aja Moore, Jennifer Harrison Newman, Elkhanah Pulitzer, Jay Scheib, Karmina Šilec, Timur, Basil Twist, and Michael VQ.

BMP is committed to fostering the next generation of creatives through its inclusive and industry-shaping programs Producer Academy and NEXTGEN. BMP: Producer Academy is an 8-week course that supports early-career producers by providing mentorship, networking, and personal growth opportunities. It has served over 1100 students from 19 countries, welcoming applicants from diverse backgrounds and abilities to receive high-quality training without financial barriers. BMP: NEXTGEN is a program which invites emerging composers, singers, and artists to submit vocal works to a panel of music industry professionals, for a chance to have their work commissioned for a world premiere produced by BMP.

In 2013, BMP co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival with HERE Arts Center, which has been called “utterly essential” (The New York Times), “indispensable” (The New Yorker), and “one of the world’s top festivals of contemporary opera and theater” (Associated Press). With the 2026 Festival, BMP will assume the role of sole curator and producer for the first time. Through PROTOTYPE and its broader work and programs, BMP is creating a vibrant, sustainable, and deeply relevant future for opera and music-theatre.

 

ABOUT LA MAMA

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 64th Season, LA MAMA NOW, focuses on creating solidarity and building community, exploring ways to build connections for cross-sector coalition and invite artists, activists, organizers and community members into the creative process.

La MaMa has been honored with 30 Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.

 

 ABOUT BAM 

A world-class home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) is North America’s oldest performing arts center, showcasing the work of emerging artists and modern icons.

For more than 160 years, BAM has been a thriving, urban multi-arts complex renowned for presenting an unparalleled roster of visionary and cutting-edge dance, theater, music, opera, visual arts, literature, and film. Attracting more than 750,000 people annually to its home in Brooklyn, BAM provides a welcoming cultural stage and meeting place for global and local communities of all backgrounds. BAM’s distinctive multi-theater campus is alive year-round with inspired new engagements and signature programs including the renowned Next Wave (one of the world’s most influential festivals of contemporary performing arts, founded in 1983), the iconic DanceAfrica, an acclaimed repertory film program, and literary, archival, educational and humanities programs. For more information visit BAM.org.

 

 ABOUT BRIC 

Founded in 1979, BRIC is a leading arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans media, contemporary visual and performing arts, and civic action. For more than forty years, BRIC has shaped Brooklyn's cultural and media landscape by presenting and incubating artists, creators, students, and media makers. On September 30, 2025, in recognition of its vital contributions to New York City's cultural landscape, BRIC was named to the New York City’s Cultural Institutions Group, making it the first media and arts organization to join the CIG in the 150 year history of this prestigious coalition. Join us at bricartsmedia.org.

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