Set Designer

Joseph De Rocher has been sentenced to death for murder. Armed with her faith, Sister Helen Prejean is accompanying him on his journey to execution. Faced with the raw pain of the victims’ parents and the despair of the murderer’s mother, Sister Helen’s faith is tested in ways she never could have imagined.

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco Opera world premiere, Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking returns to the stage where it all began. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir of the same name, the opera is a searing portrayal of grief, anger, and compassion, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a masterpiece” in 2000. Since that auspicious premiere, Dead Man Walking has become the most widely performed new opera of the 21st century.

Heggie’s dramatic, lyrical score takes us deep into the humanity of an unthinkable reality. Leonard Foglia’s acclaimed production highlights the emotional nuance and moral complexity at the center of Sister Helen Prejean’s journey. Patrick Summers conducts.

EPSG:4326

Dead Man Walking

War Memorial Opera House

A Genre-Defying World Premiere 
It’s twilight in Ronald Reagan’s America and the specter of nuclear war hangs over the country—but rent is still due on the 1st. When a prominent Black conservative brings his mysteriously ill wife home for the holidays, the unplanned reunion sets long-simmering tensions within the family to boil—and throws each member into a bizarre maze of Reaganomics, Cold War espionage, capitalist cult predation, and… choir practice. Featuring original music and set in the mesmerizing ambiance of a retro roller-skating rink, Cold War Choir Practice celebrates the lengths we go to for those we love.

Cold War Choir Practice

Trinity Repertory Company

Filled with the working-class spirit of Sweat and the dark humor of Hangmen, this Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a perfect fit for our stage. Retired NYPD cop Walter “Pops” Washington is at a crossroads. Recently widowed and fighting a lawsuit against his former employer, he’s struggling to keep his rent-controlled digs on Riverside Drive. The police want him to sell out, his son is on parole, he’s been robbed by a close friend, and the church won’t stop knocking at his door!

Between Riverside and Crazy

The Gamm Theatre

Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning fable of brotherly love and rivalry tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, named by their father before he walked out the door for good. Dressed as his presidential namesake and painted in whiteface, Lincoln sits in an arcade all day being assassinated over and over. His brother, Booth, stays in their rundown boardinghouse room practicing the street con game Three-card Monte in hopes of escaping his money woes. Haunted by their troubled past, inherited poverty, and the forces of racism, the brothers find that surviving the American Dream is the ultimate hustle in this often humorous and startling play. Don’t miss this deeply theatrical experience by one of the most adventurous playwrights of her generation.

Topdog|underdog

Perhaps you recall the young women who led the “witch hunt” in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. But did you know that in reality, “temptress” Abigail Williams was just an 11-year-old girl? Her cousin Betty Parris was an imaginative 9-year-old; while Mercy Lewis was an anxiety-ridden child seeking refuge in alcohol, and Mary Warren an epileptic orphan. When Abigail begins working for 60-year-old farmer John Proctor, their lives unravel from playing with poppets and churning butter into something unexpected. The Good John Proctor reexamines the Salem Witch Trials through the eyes of the four young girls at its center.

The Good John Proctor

From her roots as a provincial princess of France, to her ascension to the throne of England and her eventual downfall, Queen Margaret is one of the most complicated, fascinating, and thrilling characters in Shakespeare’s works. She is a warrior, a wife, a politician, a mother… and this dynamic new drama, lifted and remixed from the text of Henry VI and Richard III, finally gives her story the telling it deserves.

By The Queen

The Inheritance weaves together the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America, decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—one older and one younger— their plans for marriage come to a screeching halt as they veer in opposite directions into uncharted waters. This fascinating and epic two-part drama is inspired by E.M. Forster’s classic Howards End, and received the 2020 Tony Award for Best Play and the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Play. 

Set Designer

Michael McGarty

Events

Past events

14 - 28 Sep, 2025

Dead Man Walking · San Francisco Opera

Sep 4 - Oct 5, 2025

Cold War Choir Practice · Trinity Repertory Company

About

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