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A new music-theatre work, AGING MAGICIAN is a composite of sonic and visual elements that paints an allegory on time, youth, and the peculiar magic of ordinary life, and, perhaps, the ordinary magic of a peculiar life. Accompanied by a string quartet and a choir of young people, AGING MAGICIAN moves us along from the surgical repair of a timepiece to the magic show of time itself—lives and deaths, appearances and disappearances. The man’s vibrant last adventure is brought to life by a team of multidisciplinary artists who combine music, theatre, puppetry, instrument making, and scenic design to create an enduring work for the stage. The story follows Harold, an amateur clockmaker who excitedly tries and yet struggles to complete the story of his alter-ego, a magician. As the youth guide Harold through his final adventure along the F train to Coney Island, they deal with our relation to the material world and our notions of time, nostalgia, illusion, faith, and identity. We are inside Harold’s small clock shop, where the world is exceedingly large, a magic trick in itself.

The Set
The entire stage is a living breathing instrument cocreated by Mark Stewart and Julian Crouch, with the Magician’s head-sculpture as the centerpiece. Flanked by Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ 26 singers judging, playing and consoling, Harold is surrounded by his own thoughts transposed into song and text. This journey brings the audience into Harold’s uncertain world as he grasps to find meaning in a mind-scape of imagination while living in a world of constraint. Stewart and Crouch/Rubin’s set is an immersive installation that can be played like an instrument blown, struck, whistled, plucked, and bowed. The scenery’s surfaces come alive through the kids interplay
who help it become the canvas for projection design, installation and puppetry. The set illuminates throughout the arc of the story to reveal Coney Island: a city in full glory that will carry the magician into the afterlife, all the while as elements of his fantastic dream remain in the real world.

The Process
Aging Magician is a hybrid work that crosses opera, theater, and the visual arts. It was written for children to understand the magic and cycles of life and was a ten year educational process with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus who have performed in each iteration. Aging Magician was in residence at MASS MoCA, the Watermill Center, and The Park Avenue Opera, and was commissioned by the Walker Art Center, and went on to The Krannert Center, Arizona State University’s Gammage, the New Victory Theater and San Diego Opera. It was produced by Beth Morrison Projects and VisionIntoArt.

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