Spotlight: Waking the Witch
Opening Friday, September 25th, Chicago Fringe Opera’s Waking the Witch is equal parts impressive and profoundly uncomfortable (and that’s a good thing). Ashi Day’s evocative, sometimes rattling, sometimes intimate work is a compelling dive into religion, persecution, power, and justice. The three singers convincingly and relentlessly take you through the leaps of logic, contradictions, and realities of how those with power can (and do) bend the world into what they want to see. Backed by a six-piece chamber orchestra, this piece invites you to immerse yourself in your role - if you’re brave enough to face your accusers.
A quick note: The Den’s website recommends emailing in advance should you need wheelchair accommodations. This piece is presented on their second-floor main stage - reach out to the box office to make arrangements.
You'll like this if:
- You can stomach art meant to make you feel uncomfortable
- You enjoy opportunities to get up close and personal with storytellers
- You can dig non-traditional story structures
- You appreciate tight, creative orchestrations
Waking the Witch
Chicago Fringe Opera
September 25, 26 – 7:00-8:15 p.m.
September 27 - 3:00-4:15 p.m.
The Den Theatre
1331 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
YOU HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT.
The verdict may already be decided. In Ashi Day’s “Waking the Witch,” you, the audience, are the accused witch, surrounded by interrogators, animal familiars, and a world where conspiracy, fear, religion, and authority collide.
“Waking the Witch” is a one-act (70-minute), immersive chamber opera arranged for three singers and Pierrot ensemble that explores human vulnerability to absurd beliefs as well as the danger of mixing authority and religion with black-and-white thinking, fear of those with less power, and conspiracy theories.
The audience assumes the role of an accused witch, physically surrounded by interrogators and animal familiars of questionable reality. The libretto is derived from the words of both historical witchfinders and modern-day leaders and movements with eerily similar messaging. Listeners must consider how we might navigate the seemingly impossible logic of power lost in moral panic, while remembering the dangerous reality that these things did, and in many ways still do, happen.
“The conceit is that it doesn’t matter what the answers to their questions are because they’ve already made up their mind about what’s gonna happen and what’s true,” said Ashi Day, composer and librettist.
Darkly theatrical and unsettlingly timely, “Waking the Witch” examines how conspiracy, religious authority, and collective fear turn suspicion into fact, asking what happens when a society decides who is guilty before anyone has a chance to speak.
The accusation has been made.
Will you confess?
