PASSION PLAYS
MARCH-APRIL, 2026
A FESTIVAL OF WORLD PREMIERES
Dupont Underground | Baltimore Theater Project
This festival brings three new music-theater works to life, each exploring different aspects of human passion, suffering, redemption, each with a unique musical landscape, and all featuring world class artists using music, drama, and meaning to spark transformation.
ONLY THE AIR
Music by J.S. Bach after the St. Matthew Passion
New Text by Joshua Borths and Shana Oshiro
Directed by Timothy Nelson
Musical Direction by Joy Schreier
Old music is given new meaning in an original theater piece that includes that searing and unforgettable arias from J.S. Bach’s masterpiece, and a new spoken re-languaging of the Gospel text that reshapes the work into an exploration of profound human loss and grief, and the promise of hope. This miniature approach to one of the repertoire’s largest works seeks to discover its essential emotional power in a ritual staging aimed at the soul of its audience.
Featuring
Colleen Daly, Elizabeth Mondragon, Joseph Haughton, Carl Dupont, William Matson
PASSIO
Lucie de Saint Vincent and Maribeth Diggle
In collaboration with Rajna Swaminathan, Alejandra Borzyk, Tina Chancey, Laïla Amezian, & Joyce Scott
Drawing inspiration from the traditional Passion narratives, Passio reimagines ancient human themes - betrayal, death, hope, resurrection - through the lens of female experience across cultures and generations. The score, composed collaboratively by Lucie de Saint Vincent and the ensemble, blends fortepiano, jazz, blues, South Asian percussion, Baroque strings, and extended classical vocal techniques to build a sound world that echoes the ancient and promotes the urgent. This is not just a performance - it’s a collective act of remembering and reimagining, where personal stories of sacrifice are placed boldly in the center of ritual.
FOR WOMEN SERVING TIME
Music by Adrienne Torf
Text by Fatemeh Keshavarz
Directed by Timothy Nelson
Musical Direction by Adrienne Torf
Persian-American poet and scholar Fatemeh Keshavarz joins jazz pianist and composer Adrienne Torf come together to make a new piece of opera-theater that fuses Faure’s Requiem, jazz elements, and Brechtian theatrical traditions in a powerful contemplation of the human experiences contained in “ female incarceration in America”. This extended poem-opera sheds light on the lives and resilience of women in the U.S. prison system, their hopes, dreams, fears, and day to day experiences, offering a voice to a population often overlooked. Six acclaimed local performers join the composer herself, leading an instrumental ensemble from the piano, to animate the important original work.
PERFORMANCE DATES
Dupont Underground, DC
ONLY THE AIR
March 6 at 7:30pm
March 7 at 7:30pm
March 8 at 2:30pm
PASSIO
March 13 at 7:30pm
March 14 at 7:30pm
March 15 at 2:30pm
FOR WOMEN SERVING TIME
March 20 at 7:30pm
March 21 at 7:30pm
March 22 at 2:30pm
Baltimore Theater Project
FOR WOMEN SERVING TIME
April 10 at 7:30pm
April 11 at 7:30pm
April 12 at 2:30pm
