Birds in the Moon is a traveling chamber opera built into a state-of-the-art shipping container – bringing theatre to the people, specifically setting down the container and performing in locations where theatrical experiences are often sparse or unavailable.
Birds in the Moon is loosely based on the eccentric theory penned by 17th Century scientist Charles Morton, who hypothesized that birds migrate to the moon. According to Morton, birds migrated every year to the moon where they fed and reproduced. He believed that the majority of birds came back to earth with their offspring, yet the rest of them were simply lost in space. Birds in the Moon probes the fragility and vulnerability of the people who live on the economic, physical and psychological fringes in our society. In this fashion, Birds in the Moon tells the story of a bird-mother, who is half bird and half woman, and her bird-child in a desert. We probe their wastelands, dried by global warming, which forces migration to a more hospitable place where they can find basic resources such as water and food to survive. Our protagonists show us how the obstacles of survival are dictated not only by the artificial abstractions of borders drawn by nations, but by the boundaries and limitations of the human consciousness. In our mobile shipping container, a magic theatrical box of sorts, our story unfolds capturing the urgency of lives lived seeking a better world, the quest for a utopia, an escape to a far-off moon where it is believed abundance and harmony might be found.
