Caliban Dreams

Performances Friday Aug. 5 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 7 at 2 p.m.

Clark Suprynowicz's score and Amanda Moody's libretto are inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest on that play's 400th anniversary.

Conducted by Jonathan Khuner, directed by Melissa Weaver, with John Duykers as Caliban.

Caliban Dreams focuses on the magus Prospero’s fairy sprite, Ariel, and the earthy, enslaved Caliban.  It presents a bawdy, humorous and poignant supposition on This Mystery:  as Shakespeare’s Act IV ends, Ariel narrowly foils the loutish Caliban’s drunken plot to murder Prospero. Whipping up a brace of spirit dogs, she hounds him into the darkness.  In Act V, Caliban returns magically transformed, humbled, and promising to "be wise hereafter and seek for grace." What happens offstage between Ariel and Caliban to bring him around?  

Caliban Dreams is scored for chamber orchestra and an array of exotic percussion, featuring soprano Laura Bohn and Ancora with choral master Robert Geary of the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir. 

The  production is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the East Bay Community Foundation Fund for Artists and the Bernard Osher Foundation.