Preview: EAT THE DOCUMENT Premiere Kicks Off PROTOTYPE Festival 2025 on January 9

New York’s annual PROTOTYPE Festival—which has been showcasing visionary, nontraditional opera-theatre and music-theatre pieces since 2013—kicks off its 2025 edition on January 9 at the HERE Mainstage Theatre in SoHo with the world premiere of EAT THE DOCUMENT by composer John Glover and librettist Kelley Rourke. They have been developing this alternative opera with director Kristin Marting and music director Mila Henry since 2020.

Based on the novel of the same name by Dana Spiotta, it’s a story of the heyday of the ‘70s underground, centering on Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker—passionate, idealistic, and in love.

It deals with their activism, sacrifice and the cost of living a secret, shifting between radical protests against the Vietnam War in the ‘70s and the consequences after one action goes wrong. Their lives are forever changed as they decide to erase their past, forge new identities and vow never to see each other again. In the ‘90s, they find that the past doesn’t necessarily stay in the past.

(NB: The title was taken from a DA Pennebaker documentary of Bob Dylan’s 1966 tour of parts of Europe with the Hawks, shot under Dylan’s direction.)

The opera shifts between the two eras, exploring their connection—their language, technology, music, and activism.

I interviewed librettist Rourke several months ago, when she won Opera America’s 2024 Campbell Opera Librettist Prize. Among the subjects we talked about was her work on EAT THE DOCUMENT. Here are some edited highlights from that discussion:

Kelley Rourke is someone who is happy to wear many hats because she believes all her varied skills overlap, whether she’s writing supertitles, adaptations or new libretti, or is involved in developing the next generation of opera creators through the Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative.  

When I asked her whether there’s one of these specialties that she thinks of as her Number One professional identity, she answered quite bluntly. “I tend to identify most closely with whichever has the closest deadline.” High on her list of priorities at the time was the libretto for EAT THE DOCUMENT, her opera with composer John Glover that was being prepared for its premiere this week at PROTOTYPE, produced by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE. 

Rourke told me that director Kristin Marting had insisted that a recent workshop included time to sketch in the staging. "That was a real eye-opener for me," says Rourke. "Usually in opera, workshops are music-only, but John and I learned so much about pacing and story from seeing scenes on their feet."

As typical in adapting a novel or play for a different art form, part of Rourke’s assignment was helping to choose which parts of the original would be used and making suggestions about the aspects that might demand an aria. ”It becomes a question of ‘What does it take to tell the story? What’s necessary--and what’s not.”

I asked her “which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” (That is, the music or the libretto.) “I like to think I write differently for every composer, depending on where their musical voice lies and the story we're serving,” she explained. This was the third opera she wrote with Glover, along with a couple of song cycles, including one for last year’s Weimar Festival from Carnegie Hall.)

Her preferred way of writing calls for lots of back and forth between composer and librettist. “For example, I’ll do a complete outline of what happens in each scene, with notes about where something might open up into a full-blown aria or musical set piece.

"I then discuss the outline with the composer, who might have their own ideas about the big moments for emotional expansion. Of course, when I actually start drafting the libretto, things might change,” Rourke adds. “Then sometimes, when I think I’m finished, I’ll turn it back to the composer who might say, ‘that couplet there, those two lines, I could see that blowing up into a whole aria.’ I know every team doesn’t work in this way. Some composers might say, ‘Ok librettist, you write the libretto and give it to me and I’ll do my thing.’

"But for me, there’s nothing like the interplay with collaborators. Opera is a most collaborative of art forms, which is both risky and thrilling. One person can really ‘foul it up’--just as one person can elevate it beyond your wildest dreams. I love that you have all these people coming together. It’s so unpredictable--a volatile stew--but sometimes magic happens. And that's what keeps me in this art form."

“One of the things that John and I found uniquely interesting about the novel of EAT THE DOCUMENT--as well as a particular challenge--is that there are a couple of characters who are obsessed with popular music, including some cult classics of the time. They talk in granular detail about specific songs; music forms a big part of who these young people are and how they see themselves,” she continues.

“That attracted us. At the same time, we didn’t want to do a pastiche of the songs mentioned in the book--and not simply because the cost of the song rights would have been prohibitive. But simply because it wasn’t interesting to us,” she admits.

“There are a handful of songs that are really important to the characters. So we decided that we’d have some diegetic music [which happens within the created world of the story, or told by a narrator commenting on the story or on his former self] that the characters are listening to,” she continues.

“So, for these diegetic pieces, we created not-quite-pop songs that, while not totally outside the musical language John has created for the work, also manage to somehow channel the energy of, say, The Beach Boys."

The production's collaborators are Peiyi Wong, scenery; Rashidah Nelson, costumes; Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa, lighting; and Ken Feldman, sound. The cast includes Paul An, Danielle Buonaiuto, Adrienne Danrich, Amy Justman, Michael Kuhn, Paul Pinto, Tim Russell, and Natalie Trumm. EAT THE DOCUMENT runs 90 minutes, and will be performed January 9-10, 13, 15-17 at 7pm and January 11 & 12* at 4pm, at the HERE Mainstage Theatre, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013 in SoHo.

Photo credit: Kristin Marting

For more information about the piece and the other works in this year’s PROTOTYPE, see the Festival’s website. For tickets to EAT THE DOCUMENT, click here.

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