View Cast of Characters and Orchestration
We have a good start with our partnership in this initial development step with Indiana University shepherded by producer/ stage director, Michael Shell. Please consider joining us in discussing how you can be a part of giving birth to this exciting new opera whether as a private benefactor or producing partner!
Swimming in the Dark is an epic gay love story set behind the Iron Curtain of 1980’s Poland and chock full of political intrigue. It’s also replete with themes that speak to social justice issues. Namely LGBTQIA rights but also the muting of critical voices, disinformation, and the global slide towards autocracy. Our lead character is the unlikely rebel who secretly reads James Baldwin, escapes the police in a breathtaking act of defiance that amplifies a “Solidarity” protest in downtown Warsaw and eventually becomes entrapped in an undercover operation, that detains and registers him in a kind of “pink file” used to harass and intimidate gays during that era in Communist Poland.
How does he disentangle himself? We’re establishing a consortium of conservatories, opera companies and private benefactors to commission and premiere the entire two act opera so we can find out!
Hennessy & Kitsakos have been awarded the exclusive Underlying Musical Adaptation Rights for Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski through an agreement with the Blake Friedman Literary Agency, London, UK.