Original Vision V: Menagerie

Join Overtone Industries for the fifth year of Original Vision, an incubator program dedicated to original stories of mythic proportion through the development and presentation of new and innovative opera-theater. Presented as part of Opera Fest LA, Original Vision V: Menagerie features works in-development by Murphy Severtson and George Landau-Pincus, Samara Rice and Brian Sonia-Wallace, and O-Lan Jones, with mentorship from Jones and Fahad Siadat.

To celebrate the fifth year of Original Vision, “uncategorizable legend” O-Lan Jones — known for her genre-defying compositions and her scene-stealing turns in film and television (and recently named one of Tim Burton’s “luminaries” in his documentary Life in the Line) — will workshop an excerpt from her own opera, MINE, alongside the works of emerging composers and librettists. 

The performance presents the heartbeats of three new operas, each with their own approach to experimental opera, exploring storytelling through music in different, innovative ways:

CARCINIZE! 

Music by Murphy Severtson 

Libretto by George Landau-Pincus

Directed by O-Lan Jones 

In CARCINIZE!, a famous female pilot (maybe the one you’re thinking of—maybe not) crash lands on a desert island. While she adjusts to a new life outside of the prying eyes of the public, she must also contend with the mysterious desires and histories of the island’s skittering hivemind of crabs, who refuse to give her solitude. CARCINIZE! is a fantasia on crustacean themes, exploring the illusion of choice on the scale of macrohistory. While a crash is often an ending, here it is the beginning, as the crabs and the pilot become one and many.

TIME IS THE ENEMY

Music by Samara Rice

Libretto by Brian Sonia-Wallace

Co-Directed by O-Lan Jones & Livia Reiner

Everyone’s been conscripted into a battle they didn’t choose. Time is the Enemy begins in a hospital, where Rob is battling a terminal illness. His estranged wife Clara, an astrophysicist studying time paradoxes, creates a Time Machine with the goal, not of traveling through time, but of ending it. A fool’s errand ensues, a psychedelic journey (literally) against the clock that moves between tragedy and screwball surrealism to ask: if the battle is unwinnable, is it therefore meaningless? Or are lost causes the ones most worthy of our devotion?

MINE 

Music and libretto by O-Lan Jones 

Directed by Livia Reiner

MINE, a new piece of opera-theater by O-Lan Jones, celebrates the epic day-to-day thoughts and feelings of Imogene, teased out into music, speech, and movement, where old friends, lovers, enemies, worries, and passions take hold. It features Imogene as she lives through various aspects of her life with the help of four performers connected under mounds of netting, ready to appear as lovers, relations, intruders from the horrors of the world, the haranguing Chorus, or as part of a “water ballet” swimming through the froth of debris.

*A ticketed reception will follow the performance on April 25 featuring cakes and snacks from Joanie & Leigh’s Cakes, whose treats were famously featured in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland among other film and TV credits. The reception will celebrate Original Vision: Menagerie and O-Lan Jones’ participation as one of the Luminaries in the documentary Tim Burton: Life In the Line. 

Creative Team

Composers: Murphy Severtson (Carcinize!), Samara Rice (Time is the enemy), O-Lan Jones (MINE)

Librettists: George Landau-Pincus (Carcinize!), Brian Sonia-Wallace (Time is the enemy), O-Lan Jones (MINE)

Stage Directors: O-Lan Jones and Livia Reiner

Music Director: Fahad Siadat

Set Designer: Jan Munroe

Costume Designer: Danica Martino

Lighting Designer: W. Alejandro Melendez

Producer: Elliot Menard

Performers 

Kevin Darnell Allen

Nelle June Anderson

Liz Eldridge

Kion Heidari

Elliot Menard

O-Lan Jones

Brightwork Newmusic

About Original Vision:

Original Vision provides development support to opera projects at the very beginnings of their creative journeys, through a workshop period that includes mentorship, feedback, and guidance from directors O-Lan Jones and Fahad Siadat. The program culminates in a fully staged production of an essential excerpt from each piece with costume, lighting, and scenic design. The program and performances provide composers and librettists with a strong foundation for the project and professional work samples to propel the future development of their operas. Original Vision was invented to create space and freedom for original stories of mythic proportion in the opera-development landscape, providing crucial support to early/mid-career composers and librettists. Original Vision alums have gone on to receive ongoing developmental and production support from OPERA America, American Opera Projects, Chicago Opera Theater, Atlanta Opera, West Edge Opera, Synchromy, and more. 

About Overtone Industries: 

Overtone Industries is a genre-bending opera-theater company, founded by composer, actress and theater visionary O-Lan Jones, that develops and presents original stories in a collaborative environment and cultivates opportunities for artists with an authentic voice to develop new works.

Overtone Industries brings to life original works of mythic depth that celebrate the grandeur of the human experience. Company Founder and Artistic Director, O-Lan Jones, is a passionate collaborator working with industry leaders and newcomers alike, to develop and perform authentic stories that have never been told before.

About the Composers and Librettists:

George Landau-Pincus is a multidisciplinary artist and archivist based in Brooklyn. His art practice includes poetry, collage, comics, crafting, puppet design, music, and visual art. He is interested in the interplay of analog and digital mediums, treating “lowbrow” art as both inspiration and interlocutor, and work that engages seriously with archival primary sources. His most recent archival work explores ideas of archival and curatorial alienation, specifically in performing arts archives, diving into the Brechtian murkiness that separates a performance from its recorded memory.

Samara Rice is an award-winning contemporary classical composer, pianist, toy pianist, and educator known for her inventive, textural sound world. Her music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia by leading ensembles and GRAMMY® Award–winning artists, and at numerous new music festivals. She creates immersive works that blend unconventional instruments, technology, and audience participation, and is co-founder of the SonicMvmtScapes GPS-triggered sound walk series. Samara mentors young musicians through community organizations and her private lesson studio. In addition to her creative work, she has held production roles with the Ojai Music Festival and the Grand Teton Music Festival, and served on the board of directors of the American Composers Forum–Los Angeles. When not composing, she enjoys reading, thrifting, and practicing yoga.

www.SamaraRice.com 

Murphy Severtson is a performance artist, composer, and teaching artist whose work is inspired by queer and trans joy and despair, climate change, Florida, crustaceans, breath, and repetition. As part of the first cohort of the Trans History Project, Baltimore Center Stage and Breaking the Binary Theatre, Murphy is devising and creating music with Mirage Auto Depot on LES BI(T)CHES, a trans-historical experiment spiraling around gender-nonconforming lesbian artists Claude Cahun and Romaine Brooks. As an assistant, Murphy works for Kristin Marting’s Torches Project, a series of 36+ interviews that are part memoir, part oral history, and part cultural inquiry. Other recent projects include performing at The Brick Aux in Mack Lawrence’s DINNER, and production assistant for Paul Pinto’s Mano a Mano at La MaMa. An avid and passionate educator, they work as a teaching artist at the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program, Little Orchestra, and Opera on Tap.

Brian Sonia-Wallace is frequently late and always eulogizing the dead. He has spent the last decade writing poems for people who need them. This is his second libretto for opera, in memoriam of his friend Robbie Cunningham, who, before he died said, “I want to declare war on time. You’re a poet, you should be able to help.” This work follows a decade of collaboration with composer Saunder Choi of choral songs about ecology, resistance, and reinvention, which have premiered nationally at the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and other fancy places. Brian is so fancy, he was the Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. He is the author of The Poetry of Strangers and most recently Maze Mouth. People think he’s great. He is gay and tired. Rentpoet.com

About the Creative Team:

O-Lan Jones is an award-winning composer, sound designer, writer, actress and theater visionary who has been experimenting in the performing arts her entire life. The press has called her an, “uncategorizable legend.” She founded Overtone Industries in 1980 to develop and produce new and original opera-theater works. Her early achievements forged the path for modern, experimental opera companies to continue challenging the antiquated perceptions of the art form. As founder and Artistic Director of Overtone, she leads the vision for new works and is focused on fostering a collaborative environment where she and other artists work together to give voice to their authentic stories. She is dedicated to mentoring and supporting fellow creatives, who also refuse to be confined to boundaries, through Overtone’s Original Vision Project. She is also the Choir Director of Lauren Bon’s Metabolic Studio Community Choir. www.o-lanjones.com 

Livia Reiner is a director, dramaturge, and performer based in Los Angeles. She grew up working with O-Lan Jones and Overtone Industries on pieces including Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, The Woman in the Wall, and Cynosemma. Recently she assistant directed the world premiere of Overtone’s ICELAND at La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theater. She has also been an assistant to MacArthur Fellow Annie Dorsen for workshops of Prometheus Firebringer, and her voice was featured in its off-Broadway run at Theater for a New Audience. Composition credits include original music in The Measures Taken (Exponential Festival 2022); recent performance credits include [orpheus] (Highways 2025). She also writes original songs and plays with her sister Rose Reiner and her band M0NOGAMY. She’s a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Fahad Siadat is a “fanciful and downright utopian artist and thinker” (LA Times), Fahad Siadat explores sound as spiritual practice, creating interdisciplinary pieces as a vehicle for unveiling the mystery of our interconnected world. His music is described as “evoking wonder, desire, and terror” (Off Broadway) with narratives that “border on being a spiritual journey” (LA Dance Chronicle). and has been presented by the L.A. County Museum of Art, Broadstage, and Museum of Contemporary Art. Working as a performer, composer, conductor, and curator, Fahad is the director of the Resonance Collective and the award-winning vocal ensemble HEX. His music has been performed in Europe, China, and across the United States. www.fahadsiadat.com