THE PIECE
Whenever sleepless loner Harker needs reassurance, she plays old recordings of her childhood career as a treble soloist. One night in 1974, Harker hears a new voice on the recordings, whispering a mysterious message: “Free me from the Mouth.”
The Mouth is a multimedia performance text exploring the history of gender in liturgical music through a gothic premise. Inspired by the investigatory historical fiction of "Blackouts" by Justin Torres and the sonic experimentations of Wendy Carlos, The Mouth blends interview recordings, historical fiction, and gothic melodrama to ask “is it possible to free a voice from its recording?” and “is it possible to reunite a body with the voice it has lost?”
THE ARTIST
é boylan (they/she) is a NYC based director, creator, and composer developing new work towards trans liberation. Selected Honors: New Writer in Residence at Lincoln Center Theater; Featured Playwright at Atlantic Theater Company; MacDowell Fellow; Venturous Play List; Resident Artist at the cell theatre, Fresh Ground Pepper, Musical Theatre Factory, The Dive, and The O’Neill; frequent Lead Artist at Mercury Store and The Makers’ Ensemble; Trans Lab Fellow; Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellow; Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriter; Prospect Musicals MT Lab; Roundabout Theatre Company Directors Group. Graduate of The University of Chicago and NTI. www.eboylan.com