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1 As with many site-specific works, Hopscotch gained from happenstance meetings of the staged action with the life of the city around it. At the FOREWORD - A YEAR LATER Bradbury, tourists who had been admitted to the building’s ground floor gazed up at the cryptic doings on the landings above, filming the ensemble BY ALEX ROSS on their mobile phones. Customers at Burgerlords, in Chinatown, attempted to digest what they are seeing as they nibbled on their fries. In a scene in Hollenbeck Park, a young woman just married, in a flamboyant purple The Industry’s Hopscotch was one of the more complex operatic enterprises dress, wandered into the background, seeming, at first glance, to be an extra. to have been attempted since Wagner staged The Ring of the Nibelung Sometimes, though, a bystander turned out to be a player in the drama: in over four days in 1876. Audiences rode around Los Angeles in a fleet of the same scene, a man at an ice-cream truck became a percussionist. limousines, witnessing scenes that unfold both inside the vehicles and at designated sites, from the Bradbury Building to Elysian Park, from Chinatown You always ended up back in the car, gazing through tinted glass. There, to the concrete embankments of the L. A. River. Three simultaneous routes Hopscotch took on a more melancholy, alienated tone, as the music issuing crisscrossed the east side of the city. Six composers, six librettists, and a from a singer became the soundtrack to whatever you glimpsed through production team of nearly a hundred worked to realize the project. It was the window: gasping joggers, barking businesspeople, homeless people a combination of road trip, architecture tour, mini-festival of contemporary pushing grocery carts, pediatricians and mortuaries, gleaming boutiques and music, and waking dream, adding up to a joyously new sensation. abandoned lots, a toilet inexplicably shattered on the side of the road. By design, you felt a sense of distance and unease as you moved around the The title was borrowed from Julio Cortázar’s magic-realist novel of 1963, city in vehicles associated with fame and wealth. Getting in and out, you which invites the reader to navigate the text in nonlinear fashion. Likewise, became the object of other people’s gawking, until they realized you were the opera’s itineraries jump around in time, and, because of an intricate not famous. system of staggered departure points each group of limo passengers experienced it in a different way. The story is simple enough, though, “This piece is basically in love with L.A., but we didn’t want it be all that it’s not hard to piece together what’s happening at any given point. rainbows and Disneyland,” says Yuval Sharon, the director and mastermind Hopscotch is a modern fable, one with overtones of the myth of Orpheus and of Hopscotch. “We don’t want to hide the darkness of the city, the way Eurydice, though with genders reversed. Lucha, a member of an L.A. puppet people can, yes, disappear. And we want to include a sense of the isolation troupe, meets and marries a motorcycle-riding scientist named Jameson, of driving—the emotional distance it can create. The plot aside, the piece who loses himself in esoteric researches and disappears. Lucha hallucinates is really a story about life in cars. What we’ve done is remove the sense of an encounter with him in the underworld, and attempts, without success, a destination—the tunnel vision that takes hold when you’re trying to get to bring him back. Unlike Orpheus, she overcomes her grief and finds somewhere. That completely transforms your experience of the street. All happiness with a fellow performer, named Orlando. these new perceptions flood your system.” 2 HOPSCOTCH TRACKLIST Music by Veronika Krausas, Marc 10. “Is All Time Simultaneous?” Lowenstein, Andrew McIntosh, (Excerpt), Chapter 15 (Krausas) Andrew Norman, Ellen Reid, and David Rosenboom. 11. Chapters 16-20 Additional music improvised by 12. “Despair”, Chapter 22 (Reid) gnarwhallaby. 13. Chapter 23 1. “To Find the Center” (Excerpt - Recorded live 14. “Strange the Way”, Chapter 24 at the Central Hub), (Mcintosh) Chapter 36 (Norman) 15. “Looking Backward”, 2. Chapters 1-3 (Recorded live at the Bradbury Building) 3. “Lucha’s Quinceañera Song”, Chapter 25 (Krausas) Chapter 4 (Rosenboom) 16. “Hades”, Chapter 26 4. Chapters 5-7 (Rosenboom) 5. “Jameson and Lucha in 17. Chapters 27-30 the Park”, Chapter 8 (Lowenstein) 18. “Lucha and Orfeo”, (Recorded live at the Million 6. “Never the End”, Chapter 9 Dollar Theater) (McIntosh) Chapter 31 (Lowenstein) 7. Chapter 10 19. Chapters 32-35 8. “Floats the Roving Nebula”, 20. To Find the Center” Chapter 11 (Reid) (Excerpt - Recorded live at the Central Hub), 9. Chapters 12-14 Chapter 36 (Norman) Photo Credit: Casey Kringlen 3 LISTENING TO HOPSCOTCH The live performances of Hopscotch in 2015 This recording - which alternates between For audience members who experienced took place inside 24 cars and at various sites live and studio recordings, and between brief the work live, we hope this record will fill throughout Los Angeles along three different excerpts and full scenes - offers a new way to in the missing pieces. For those who didn’t routes. The chapters were intentionally experience Hopscotch: with a sense of totality experience the work live, and in the spirit of presented out of order, without the conventional and a “beginning-middle-end” dramaturgy Julio Cortazar’s novel that inspired this work, narrative arc that accompanies many operas. that was never part of the original intention we suggest using the following playlists or Each moment in the characters’ lives was of the work. We hope this document offers shuffling all the tracks to get a sense of what shaped by a different composer and writer, listeners a sense of the range and scope of Hopscotch felt like. performed by a different ensemble, and the work as a whole, as well as the individual responding to a specific street or site. The contributions from six of Los Angeles’s most jump from one moment to the other, with the innovative composers. accompanying mystery and disorientation, was one of the central narrative strategies of the work. 4 By Composer By Librettist Just the Story PLAYLIST Veronika Krausas Tom Jacobson Track 2 Track 10 (Chapter 15) Track 10 (Chapter 25) Track 4 SUGGESTIONS Track 15 (Chapter 25) Track 15 (Chapter 25) Track 7 Track 18 (Chapter 31) Track 9 Marc Lowenstein Track 11 Red Route Track 5 (Chapter 8) Mandy Kahn Track 13 Track 3 (Chapter 4) Track 18 (Chapter 31) Track 8 (Chapter 11) Track 17 Track 5 (Chapter 8) Track 12 (Chapter 22) Track 19 Track 14 (Chapter 24) Andrew McIntosh Track 20 (Chapter 36) Track 6 (Chapter 9) Sarah LaBrie Track 14 (Chapter 24) Track 6 (Chapter 9) Just the Music Yellow Route Track 14 (Chapter 24) Track 12 (Chapter 22) Ellen Reid Track 1 Track 15 (Chapter 25) Track 8 (Chapter 11) Janine Salinas Schoenberg Track 3 Track 18 (Chapter 31) Track 12 (Chapter 22) Track 3 (Chapter 4) Track 5 Track 20 (Chapter 36) Track 6 David Rosenboom Jane Stephens Rosenthal Track 8 Green Route Track 3 (Chapter 4) Track 1 (Chapter 36) Track 10 Track 6 (Chapter 9) Track 16 (Chapter 26) Track 20 (Chapter 36) Track 12 Track 8 (Chapter 11) Track 14 Track 10 (Chapter 15) Andrew Norman Erin Young Track 15 Track 16 (Chapter 26) Track 1 (Chapter 36) Track 5 (Chapter 8) Track 16 Track 20 (Chapter 36) Track 20 (Chapter 36) Track 16 (Chapter 26) Track 18 Track 20 5 ABOUT THE PRODUCTION The Industry’s Hopscotch began with the question: What if the car became a tool to transform our view of the city? The resulting world-premiere opera was a series of interlocking chapters, experienced in cars zig-zagging throughout Los Angeles, with action unfolding both inside the car and on the streets. Audiences experienced the work in both the intimacy of a car, where artists and audiences shared a confined space and at iconic sites in downtown Los Angeles; or at the Central Hub, a temporary space where all the journeys were live-streamed to create a dizzying panorama of life in the city. Collaboratively created with six composers and six writers and featuring over 100 artists, Hopscotch told an original story exploring themes of time, memory, and perception. At the end of each performance day, all 24 cars converged at the Central Hub in a climactic finale, where the isolation of the individual cars dissolved into an ecstatic vision of community in Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Casey Kringlen 6 PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION CREDITS ARTISTIC TEAM Choreographer Assistant to Lead AV Tech Stage Managers Danielle Agami, Artistic Director, Danielle Kaufman Vivian Martinez, Amanda Novoa Produced by The Industry Ate9 dANCE cOMPANY Rita Santos Red Route AV Tech Concept and Direction by Dramaturg Joe Ventress Assistant Stage Managers Yuval Sharon Josh Raab Michael Atkins, Ericka Bailey Red Route Wardrobe Supervisor Julia Colbert, Lawrencia Colding Music by PRODUCTION TEAM Alyssa Gonzalez Alysia Cruz, Zachary Davidson, Veronika Krausas, Marc Lowenstein Ellen Den Herder, Paige Dovolis Andrew McIntosh, Andrew Norman Executive Producer Yellow Route AV Tech Judy Elle, Rebecca Engelhardt, Anna Ellen Reid, David Rosenboom Elizabeth Cline Keith Towstego Engelsman, Nidia Flores, Napoleon Gladney, Mary Haughie, Nicole Additional Music by Props Designer Green Route AV Tech Jones, Marissa Kristy, Meredith Kitz, Phillip King, Odeya Nini, Mark Kanieff Cheryl Smith Abigail Lyons, Madeleine Maloy, Lewis Pesacov, Michelle Shocked Laura Marcin, Natalie Marrero, Props Adviser Green Route Wardrobe Supervisor Katherine Paez, Anabel Romero, Libretto by Nina Caussa Shelby Saelens Marla Schulz Tom Jacobson, Mandy Kahn Sarah LaBrie, Jane Stephens Production Manager Technology Coordinator Central Hub Manager Rosenthal, Janine Salinas Ash Nichols Kristy Jo Winkler Kira Qwan Schoenberg, Erin Young Production Stage Manager Audio Advisor Central Hub House Manager Production Designer Vivian Martinez Brett Jarvis Simonne Gabrielle Jason H.

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