Embers
Concert Reading
Grand Performances
June 19, 2011

Photos by Bonnie Perkinson

What if the fate of your soul hinged on a single prayer?

The clock is ticking on Marie Girard's prospects of redemption.

After a life of prostitution and mental hospitals, Marie dies an old woman and finds herself stuck in Purgatory with precious little time before Hell opens beneath her. What she needs is a prayer, and the only person who can give it is her granddaughter, Blazin' Bryn, an aging professional boxer with only one prayer in mind: that she win a make-it-or-break-it fight against a much younger opponent. With the help of Calcutta, an angel in lamé, who takes the younger woman on a guided tour through her grandmother's past, Marie and Bryn come together in a tale of forgiveness and redemption. Based on Terry Wolverton's 2003 novel in poems of the same name, EMBERS is a new, original, experimental opera that draws from influences as diverse as classical Greek drama, contemporary performance art and spoken word, the story follows three women intertwined by destiny and their link to the blasted, feisty city of Detroit.