The Broken Planetarium Is Staging an Original Musical About Climate Crisis

“Live! Prophets! Live!” opens Aug. 4 at the Clinton Street Theater.

Live! Prophets! Live! (The Broken Planetarium )

The Broken Planetarium, Laura Christina Dunn’s revered nonprofit theater company, has announced the upcoming premiere of Live! Prophets! Live!, an original cabaret musical about climate crisis that will debut at the Clinton Street Theater on Thursday, Aug. 4.

Written by Dunn, Live! Prophets! Live! is based on the myth of the ancient Greek prophet Cassandra and the life story of Eunice Newton Foote, the 19th century scientist who was the first to discover that putting carbon in the atmosphere causes climate change.

A press release describes the play, which will be directed by Corrine Gaucher, as being set “at an underworld roadhouse and is narrated by a series of increasingly pissed off femme prophets throughout the millennia, from Hildegard Von Bingen to Chicken Little.”

The Broken Planetarium has a history of creating inventive musical productions that powerfully express progressive ideas. Dunn’s previous works include Rosa Red (which was based on the letters of revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg), Sirens of Coos Bay (a Pacific Northwest-themed riff on The Little Mermaid), and Frankenstein: A Cabaret (which explored Mary Shelley’s novel through a feminist lens).

Tickets are available on the Clinton Street Theater’s website ($25, $15-$25 sliding scale at the door). Live! Prophets! Live! runs through Sunday, Aug. 14.

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