No Only—our musical about Dust (Sophie Zmorrod) despairing at watching these humans destroy this earth, and Wind (Fernando Gonzalez) intercepting her in her despair and inadvertantly entering her escapist journey through time—is welcoming a public audience for the first time since 2019.
The basis for this production is a combination of the cast recording (mostly recorded in 2021—see bulletin "NO Only evolution") and the design work explored over the last year and especially the winter '22/'23 workshop (see bulletin "Illustrate, Animate, Light, Costume, Sing"). Those components coalesce in this album release event, around and within a shipping container.
The container comes from caribBEING, a cultural organization based in Crown Heights/Flatbush/East Flatbush Brooklyn which promotes Caribbean artists, artisans, business, and culture in general. Lane installed the solar/storage system on the container, has worked with caribBEING for years on their storage container energy needs. And now, the container houses an off-grid musical.
Which is also an album release event. Remember how No Only has from its evolution been a tough project to define? Even in a solid, public form, it remains so. Governor's Island, NYC. We meet the audience at the ferry landing, after they cross the channel on the raft, and lead them through the dilapidated land. Into the container. Out of the container. Into this world.
The musical continues to evolve, with all of the lovely collaborators who touch and affect it. To memorialize this moment, the cast album will be released before the end of the month. But the moment is not just for memorialization—and, after we walk, we'll sit and witness anew again.