Street Scene

24 hours in the life of a New York City tenement block during an oppressively hot 1946 Summer. Street Scene is an emotionally-charged portrait of family and communal life among the multi-ethnic working class inhabitants of the Big Apple. Centred on a ‘domino effect’ of life-changing events for the characters, it gets to the heart of the tensions, despair, hopes, and dreams of this melting-pot community with events building to a tragedy of epic proportions.

With this production of Street Scene in particular, the set design ensures that there are no secrets and that there is nowhere for the characters to hide. So the audience can truly engage with the action on stage.

Weill’s ‘Broadway opera’ blends arias, show tunes, dance numbers, jazz, blues and dramatic dialogue and has been compared to Puccini shaking hands with George Gershwin. Weill said his mission was to ‘find the inherent poetry in these people and to blend my music with the stark realism of Langston Hughes’ play.’

This production will be sung in English.
This performance is funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York NY.