HELIANTHUS
A new musical.
Kaitlyn Davis, music
Emma Grimsley, book & lyrics
The COVID-19 crisis has placed limitations on our relationships with time, with space, and with each other.
Helianthus is a new musical by Kaitlyn Davis and Emma Grimsley that follows Alice’s journeys with technology and art as she reconnects with her grandmother Lois and with her own talent during the Coronavirus lockdown.
Conceived specifically with performance adaptability in mind, the project is at a flexible point in its development, and collaboration will be a pivotal part of its growth going forward.
Alice is alone in her apartment.
Far away in a nursing home in Alice’s hometown, Alice’s grandmother Lois reaches out and encourages Alice, once a promising artist, to get out her sketchbook and draw.
“I could draw all of this.
All the fear and the confusion.”
-Alice
Alice’s artwork comes to life to tell stories of its own.
In order to process the far reaches of the pandemic, Alice paints as many people’s stories as she can. Nurses on endless shifts. Teachers adjusting to distanced learning. Children. Those who live alone. Those who have contracted the virus and their loved ones.
A teacher.
A nurse.
Someone living alone.
“It makes me smile to get to see you even when you’re far away.”
-Grandma & Alice
FORTY MINUTES
Forty Minutes was an eight-song cycle that debuted in a digital reading on May 1st, 2020. It was a tapestry piece that featured the voices of different people affected by the COVID-19 crisis, and the whole thing was about 40 minutes long—the length of a Zoom call.
These songs have been absorbed into Helianthus, mostly as the voices of Alice’s drawings.
“What we came together with was a tapestry piece that was somehow representative of different experiences during this crisis of people who are limited in their ability to communicate, reaching out to each other.”
-“How 2 Former Phantom of the Opera Christines Became the Writers of New Song Cycle ‘Forty Minutes’” PLAYBILL.COM