Dear Friends of White Snake Projects:
We did it! We completed our three performance run of Cosmic Cowboy with no casualties to Covid-19 (thank you Sumerian gods, our Covid Health Liaison, Stephen Jackson, and our team who followed all the protocols). We only had to struggle, as always with our drive for innovation, but once again, overcame the tech behemoths we created to live to fight another day. To those of you who came out to support us in our first foray back into the theater – A BIG THANK YOU! I know you had your own battles to fight to get there – a burst water main which shut off access to the theater (Yikes!) and yes, the Cannabis Festival on the Boston Common.
In all seriousness, as I sit here writing to you, I am overcome by your enthusiastic embrace of what we’re trying to do – to make a new kind of American opera that defies its Eurocentric roots and captures our modern imaginations. A reviewer from the Boston Classical Review described us, after seeing Cosmic Cowboy, as “the impossible-to-pigeonhole White Snake Projects.” And that’s what we are! Impossible to pigeonhole because we do things no other opera company does. I felt your engagement when you applauded and whistled when a scene thrilled you, your empathy when a scene moved you and your joy when it uplifted you. Audience participation is one of our goals. We want to loosen everyone up to have a good time, in addition to being intellectually stimulated, and break the staid old conventions of a silent invisible audience. So thank you for showing our performers your appreciation.
May the Sumerian gods be with you!
Be safe, be well, be inspired!
Cerise and all of us at White Snake Projects, An Activist Opera Company
