THE MYSTIC ROSE oratorio is composed by award-winning New England Conservatory faculty member Felicia Sandler. The text for this new and original work is written by playwright David Mulei, devised from the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux, Julian of Norwich, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Teresa of Avila.
Poster Illustration by James Gardiner
Summer, 1918. Sixty-year-old Theodore Roosevelt is ten years out of office and shattered by the news that his youngest son, Quentin, has been killed in action in World War I. With his three remaining sons still at the front, Theodore shoulders the blame for inspiring his reckless boys to self-destruction.
The Fall of Theodore Roosevelt reveals the tragic psychological and spiritual conclusion of a life defined by tireless crusade. It is this six-month chapter, often glossed-over in biographical accounts, which strikingly reveals Theodore to be a man divided. Publicly, he struggles to mount an improbable political comeback. Privately, he stumbles through the darkness with his wife, Edith, and two daughters at their Sagamore Hill home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. As his once-powerful body and mind come apart, he is haunted by visions of three generations of Roosevelts. It will prove to be Theodore's greatest battle, a resolute confrontation with the often violent traumas he has spent a lifetime trying to outrun.
Set in the foreign service, this intimate full-length play tells the story of mid-level consular officer Paul Rego and his wife, Laura, as they struggle to endure another hardship post. Rising from a blue-collar background, Paul has clawed his way up the lower rungs of the State Department’s grueling up-or-out career ladder. It’s taken ten years of pack-outs, countless bureaucratic run-arounds, and often harrowing living conditions overseas but, finally, a prestigious position in D.C. and the suburban safety Laura craves is within sight. Through the course of two dreadful, darkly comic days of personal and professional failure, Paul and Laura are forced to confront the calculating people they’ve become, and wrestle with the ultimate value of their aspirations.
Historical documents, real-life expert witness reports, and trial transcripts are woven into the action of this full-length drama, which begins six weeks prior to the start of the 2000 Irving v. Lipstadt libel trial.
Gail is a research assistant struggling to prove that notorious Holocaust denier David Irving’s revisionist claims are not only wrong, but are hateful lies. But as she examines a seemingly endless pile of horrific documentary evidence from her cramped basement office, Gail is met with new and unwelcome challenges: her fellow research assistant is leaving the project; her closest friend doubts the value of her work; and now, most disturbingly, she finds herself face to face with a menacing vision of Irving himself. As Gail races to meet her deadline, she is pressed to the limits of her fierce self-reliance, and must confront the possibility that no one can determine when an innocent mistake becomes a deliberate distortion of the truth.
