AARON ASHTON HUNT
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STAGE DIRECTOR/ADAPTOR/DESIGNER
AARON ASHTON HUNT

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Aaron Ashton Hunt is a director, musical director, adaptor, designer, choreographer, producer, and educator.

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His work has been met with both critical and audience acclaim in professional, academic, and community environments. Aaron is expert in adapting his productions to the situation and budget available. With a background grounded in Chicago's storefront opera ethic, Aaron can as happily design and stage a production with a million dollar budget as he can a production using found spaces and objects. For his availability, please contact him at aaronhunt.actor@gmail.com.

Repertoire

Opera & Operetta

Le Nozze di Figaro – The Millennial Version - New Adaptation (SJenks)
The Magic Flute - New Adaptation (AAHunt) - Child-Centric - In English
Lucia di Lammermoor - New Adaptation (AAHUNT) 
Cosi Fan Tutte - New Adaptation (AA Hunt) - In English
Le Comte Ory - New Adaptation (AAHunt) Sung in French with English dialogue
The Consul
Amahl and The Night Visitors
Down In The Valley
A Masque At Kenilworth - Sullivan - New Adaptation (AAHunt)
​Iolanthe - Gilbert & Sullivan
Trial By Jury - New Adaptation (AAHunt)
Cox and Box - New Adaptation (AAHunt)
Desert Song - New Adaptation (AAHunt)
The Seduction Of A Lady
The Boar
A Few Words about Chekhov
The Telephone
Hello Out There

Musical Theatre & Plays

Musicals
The Light In The Piazza

A Little Night Music
You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown
Of Thee I Sing
Bye Bye Birdie
She Loves Me
​A Gentleman's Guide To Love And Murder
The Fantasticks
The Apple Tree
I Do! I Do!
​Little Mary Sunshine
She Loves Me
​A Little Night Music


Plays

The Crucible
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Corpus Christi
The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told
Twelfth Night
A Midsummer Night's Dream - New Adaptation - (SCooper)

Representative Work

Two Remain (Act I) - Roosevelt University

Music by Jake Heggie
Libretto by Gene Scheer
Stage Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Dana Brown
​Pianist - Raphael Chou
Program PDF
One of the one-act, contemporary operas in English presented by CCPA/Roosevelt University for OperaFest 2022.

Additionally, on January 26, 2023 the piece was travelled to the Illinois Holocaust Museum's Goodman Auditorium as the central piece for their their International Holocaust Remembrance observance. 
​The cast was made up of graduate student vocal performance majors
program.

Krystyna Żywulska, A poet and lyricist who survived Auschwitz - Andreá Jones 
Krysia, the younger Krystyna - Kaleigh Watkins
Zosia, Krysia's co-worker and friend in the camp - Alexis Neal
Edka, Krysia's co-worker and friend in the camp - Danlei Zhao 
Mariola, a Jewish woman who grew up with Krysia - Tanya Landau
Cover Veronica Samiec (Krysia)

​The first act of Jake Heggie’s opera tells the story of Sonia Landau, a Jew who changes her name, age, and nationality in order to survive in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many years later, living in relative safety and comfort, she is asked once again to provide anecdotes about her life as a political prisoner. But the ghosts of her beloved friends challenge her to, “Tell the whole story this time.” The traumas of this ugly chapter of life and time are as challenging to share as they are to hear. But we learn with Sonia that art has the power to uplift the heart and cradle the soul, and that we are all capable of extraordinary acts when survival is one of only two options. - Aaron Hunt
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The Selfish Giant - Roosevelt University

​Music by Clarice Assad
Libretto by Lila Palmer
Based on the Short Story by Oscar Wilde
Commissioned by American Lyric Theater Lawrence Edelson, Artistic and General Director
​Stage Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Dana Brown 
Pianist - Michelle Tapp
Assistant Director - Magda Travis
Program PDF
One of the one-act, contemporary operas in English presented by CCPA/Roosevelt University for OperaFest 2022. The cast was made up of graduate student vocal performance majors.
program.

Mean Girl (Child 2)/North Wind - Emily Wright
Bratty Boy (Child 3)/Snow - David Kronenberg
The Unwanted Child/Spring - Victoria Zamora
The Selfish Giant - Timothy Krueger
An Enchanted Tree - Alexis Neal
Covers Morgan Babb (Mean Girl/North Wind), Swabu Jefferson (An Enchanted Tree), Wesley Krist (Bratty Boy/Snow), Magda Travis (The Unwanted Child/Spring)

Although at first blush a charming children’s fairy tale, on closer reflection this piece may be considered an allegory on the theme of trauma and its flow from the children to the children’s children. The Giant cultivates a beautiful garden in which to hide from a world that has humiliated him, and refuses entry to any human, especially children, as he knows full well that they are groomed to criticize and censor others from birth. The spiral of disconnection is uncurled when a prophetic child, armed with the perspective drawn from their own damages, explains that the Giant cannot own the garden; As its caretaker, the garden, owns him. - Aaron Hunt
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Susanna's Secret - Roosevelt University

Music by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Original libretto by Enrico Golisciani
English version by Claude Aveling
Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Dana Brown
Pianist - Dana Brown
Assistant Director - Emily Wright
Program PDF
Susanna's Secret
One of the one-act, contemporary operas in English presented by CCPA/Roosevelt University for OperaFest 2021


​​The cast was made up of graduate student vocal performance majors.

Susanna - Corinne Costell
Gil - Max Wolf
Sante - David Kronenberg
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First given in 1909, Il segreto di Susanna is a one act intermezzo by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari with
a libretto by Enrico Golisciani. This form is a light entertainment that might have been used
between acts of an opera of a more serious nature, to lighten the mood. We have used commedia
dell’arte characterizations for the three players, namely Columbina for Susanna, Il Capitano for
Gil (her husband), and Harlequin for Sante (their servant), while updating the story for today’s
audience by taking the original “villain” of the piece – The Cigarette – and exchanging it for The
Doobie.
Gil thinks he has seen Susanna in the town, in her pink hat and grey cloak, and he has, for she
was on her way to procure a secret package which she can only keep secret if she insists that he
is mistaken. Gil notices their home smells of a certain substance and jumps to the conclusion that
his wife has taken a lover, someone who indulges in wacky tobacky. In the expected marital
skirmishes that follow, Gil accuses, Susanna demurs, Gil railes, Susanna sighs, and Sante is
onboard for it all, everyone’s sounding board and dealer - Aaron Hunt
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The Birth Project

Music by Libby Larsen
Texts by A. E. Stallings, Cheryl Strayed, Lauren Groff, Gina Zucker, Patricia
Kirkpatrick, Heidi Pitlor, and Libby Larsen

Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director  - Dana Brown
Pianist - Hyun A Kim
Assistant Director - Hannah Zizza
Program PDF
The Birth Project
One of the one-act, contemporary operas in English presented by CCPA/Roosevelt University for OperaFest 2021. 
The cast is made up of graduate student vocal performance majors.
program.


Sopranos - Ellen Chamblee, Janay Delisma
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​Libby Larson’s The Birth Project contains the first art song exploring pregnancy and
childbirth in first person narrative. Larsen and other female colleagues began a
conversation around the dearth of this literature at a conference in 2013. The
resultant song cycle (eight of which are heard in this version) uses the poetry of
Phoebe Damrosch, Lauren Groff, Patricia Kirkpatrick, Heidi Pitlor, A.E. Stallings,
Cheryl Strayed, Akiko Yosano, and Gina Zucker to illuminate the birth experience
from annunciation to conclusion.

​This staged storytelling uses the following songs: “The Song Rehearsal,”
“Pregnant,” “Ultrasound,” “Due Date,” “Mia,” “Blood Moon,” “From the Start,”
and “I did it!” with two friends sharing beloved war tales oft told along with new
revelations, first with each other over cocktails, and then with all of us as they draw
back the curtains on this communal yet singular experience. - Aaron Hunt
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Bertha

Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Laurann Gilley
Pianist - Piotr Nowak
Assistant Directors - Laura Strickland, Erica Moll
Program PDF
Bertha
Music by Ned Rorem
Libretto by Kenneth Koch
One of the one-act, contemporary operas in English presented by CCPA/Roosevelt University for OperaFest 2021, and was staged in the Murray-Green Library in front of windows overlooking Lake Michigan.
​

​The cast is made up of graduate student vocal performance majors.
program.


Bertha - Katherine Naffie
Noble - Laura Strickland
Counselor - Timothy Krueger
Officer - David Kronenberg
Old Man - Max Wolf
1st Barbarian - Camden McLean
2nd Barbarian - Victoria Zamora
Teacher - Anastasia Antropova
Messenger - Emily Thompson
1st Scotchman - Emily Wright
2nd Scotchman  - Danlei Zhao
3rd Scotchman - Max Wolf
Common Norwegian Soldier - Alexis Neal
Girl - Kaleigh Watkins
Man (lover) - Michael Kramer
Norwegian Citizen - Tayna Landau
Second Norwegian Citizen - (Sol) Adam Lehman
Barbarian Chieftain - Coleman Dziedzic

American composer Ned Rorem set librettist Kenneth Koch’s Bertha to music in
answer to a request from the Metropolitan Opera for a children’s opera, but Koch’s
book wasn’t what they had in mind, and the piece was refused. Bertha has yet to
receive a mounting that pleased the critics. For the piece to succeed, the director
must decide what it means and choose a point-of-view. Roosevelt’s graduate
students will spin you a story about war, (with its inherently diminishing returns),
the lunacy of despotism, and the gullibility of the Greek chorus.
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Queen Bertha’s Norway is beset by Barbarians, and although it seems impossible,
she leads her people to victory. When The Teacher points out the barbaric means
necessary to win a war, Bertha kills the teacher and outlaws higher education. With
the country at peace, Bertha declares war on and annexes Scotland. The Counselor
objects to war and is killed by Bertha, who suspends the counsel altogether. Two
lovers meet in secret, against Bertha’s law. Bertha kills them. Bertha contemplates
her future, and the loss of power and influence that accompanies age; she decides
to give Norway to the Barbarians so that she can conquer them again. - Aaron Hunt

Le Nozze di Figaro: The Millennial Version

Music by W.A. Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
​Sung in Italian
Presented in a streamed production by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, April 2021

Director - Aaron Hunt
Adaptation - Sarah Jenks
Musical Director - Sarah Jenks
​Audio and Video Design - Brent Morden
​Narrator - Sarah Jenks
Figaro - Jonathan Wilson
Susanna - Anne Slovin
Countess Rosina Almaviva - Mary Govertsen
Count Almaviva - Noah Gartner
Cherubino – Brittany Jeffery
Marcellina – Katherine B. Dalin
Basilio - Erich Buchholz

Bartolo - Bryan Dahl 
Curzio - Timothy McGowan

Le Nozze di Figaro
It isn’t only the music, all those glorious arias, bustling duets, teasing trios, and the Finales that begin intimately until they become symphonies of voice that just keep rolling, full of character and inspiration that we hope will never stop. It isn’t only the plot, the upstairs-downstairs story of social and financial privilege that gets turned on its head when wisdom and wit outmaneuver treachery.
  
Le Nozze di Figaro will also live on because we allow history to keep repeating itself. With the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements shining new light on ancient inequities, it is no longer time for Le Nozze to give us the opportunity to laugh at ourselves; Rather, it is time for this opera to remind us that the sins aren’t new, and the recompense, when it begins, will be as many generations in the restitution as it was in creation. 
 
With The Count’s sexual pursuit of The Countess’ maid in full swing, and the maid’s fiancé unable to stay focused enough to be of real assistance, the two women join forces to save their honors. If this doesn’t sound like a familiar story to you, you haven’t been paying attention. 
 
Resident Music Director Sarah Jenks’ Mozart For Millennials version turns much of Mozart’s recitative into comedic narration, keeping the storyline clear while making supertitles unnecessary and allowing today’s audience to focus on the music. Favorite baritones Jonathan Wilson and Noah Gartner return as Figaro and The Count respectively, Mary Govertsen sings The Countess (you may have heard her fine performance in the second act of this opera in last Spring’s Letters of Love and Subterfuge concert), and soprano Anne Slovin returns to us as Susanna. Anne last appeared with TT-O as Irena in Richard Wargo’s The Seduction of A Lady.


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The Light In The Piazza

Music and Lyrics by Adam Guettel
Book by Craig Lucas 
Presented in a streamed production by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, February 2021

Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Sarah Jenks

Margaret Johnson - Brittany Jeffery
Clara Johnson - Teaira Burge
Fabrizio Naccarelli - Mick Jutila

Signor Naccarelli - David Govertsen
Signora Naccarelli - Mary Govertsen
Franca Naccarelli - Katherine Petersen

Giuseppe Naccarelli - Jonathan Wilson
The Priest/Fabrizio Cover - Timothy McGowan
Roy Johnson - Wm Bullion
Clara Cover - Grace Reberg
Fabrizio Cover - Timothy McGowan
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The Light In The Piazza
​Transgressive Theatre-Opera presents its first full musical theatre offering in this heart-wrenching tale of the power of love, family, and women’s self-empowerment. This score is rooted in classical music and the operatic style of storytelling. In its most passionate moments, the score is too grandiose to be considered anything other than the grandest form of theatre: opera. When the spoken word is not enough, these characters sing. When the lyrics are no longer sufficient, “Ah!” is the only response.
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Beauty's Truth
Music by G. F. Handel
Presented by Transgressive Theatre-Opera as a streamed production, November 2020.
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Director - Aaron Hunt
Musical Director - Sarah Jenks
Audio Design - Brent Morden
Video Design - James Conrad Smith
Beauty - Teaira Burge
Time - David Govertsen
Pleasure - Ryan Townsend Strand
Deceit - Mary Govertsen
Counsel - Jonathan Wilson
Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Sarah Jenks
 
Director's Notes
At twenty-two, Handel composed his first oratorio, in Italian, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. More than fifty years and several iterations later, it was also Handel’s last oratorio, now written in English and retitled, The Time of Triumph and Truth. As originally written for four soloists, this morality story is very much of its time, when myth and allegory provided rich, subtle meaning to spoken and written storytelling utilizing established archetypes such as Beauty, Time, and Pleasure. Herein, Beauty is the everyman character on a journey from worldly amusements to the more secure rewards born of moral and psychological understanding and self-perception. (Ruth Smith 2008)
​Just before his death, Handel completed his final version, replete with the choruses for which he was then known, new arias, and a new character. Winton Dean has calculated that Handel borrowed from twenty of his other works to complete the revised The Time of Triumph and Truth to his satisfaction. (Watkins Shaw 1983) Moreover, by 1757 the libretto was now primarily a Christian morality tale with many of the psychological insights downplayed.

In my version, we have returned to the original 1707 text as the inspiration for the production, and refurbished the story to show Beauty on a journey that brings her into a social consciousness, and on her own terms, rather than a Christian allegory. The characters that assist her here, (Time and Truth), and the characters that stand in her way, (Pleasure and Deceit), do not rob her of her agency. She makes her decisions, not born of fear of Time’s ravages or Pleasure’s renunciation, but because, through steady council and concentrated effort, she has learned to know herself, and therefore sees a different place for herself in humanity’s social fabric. At the same time, I have tried to incorporate some of the best music of the first version along with that of the final version, giving the listener the opportunity to enjoy both the fledgling composer whose works were heavily influenced by the Italian school of that time, and the mature composer whose works helped to define his time. -Aaron Hunt

The Genealogy of Beauty’s Truth
1706 – Handel arrives in Rome
1707 – Composed Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, his first oratorio
1712 – Handel moves to London
1725 – Cardinal Benetto Pamphili (the original librettist for Il trionfo) revised it and called this work Il Trionfo del Tempo nella Belleze Ravvenduta
1737 - Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità, still partially based on Pamphili’s text, but with several additional numbers wholly or partially set as choruses ­­­­­­­­­
1757 -  The Time of Triumph and Truth ‘Altered from the Italian with several new Additions’, (translations and versifications by Thomas Morell), contained most of the music of the 1737 version, two revised arias from the original 1707 work, and eight other movements (seven of them increasing the role of the chorus), and a different overture.
1758 – The Time of Triumph and Truth ‘With Several New Additions’, the final version with five added arias
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The Clinic

A play by Will Brumley
Presented as a public reading as a benefit for Women's Healthcare by Transgressive Theatre-Opera in partnership with Acting Out, in February 2020.

Director - Aaron Hunt
Assistant Director - Caroline Shaul
Noreen Howe - Mary Ann Bowman
Bree Northrup - Cassie Middlemist
Monette Clark - Baker Simmons
Starla Flefferton - Joyce Porter
Carol Luftig - Julie Paradies
Lorrie Daniels - KC Karen Hill
Officer JD Ellis - Wm. Bullion
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​The Clinic is an all-too-relevant story of a Women's Healthcare Clinic that suffers the most catastrophic censure.

This reading of Will Brumley's play about a womans health clinic that suffers harassment and is finally bombed was produced by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, in association with Acting Out. It was directed by TT-O's Producing Artistic Director, Aaron Hunt. AO's Executive Director and Board President Caroline Shaul was the assistant director. A substantial percentage of ticket sales and related donations were funneled to local and national organizations committed to the support of Women's Reproductive Healthcare.
For the first time in it's history, Transgressive Theatre-Opera told a story that, while operatic in scope, sings only from the heart. This is NOT an opera. This is a new play. A story for RIGHT now.

A tale of women you know,
Women to whom you are related.
A story of women you love.
Maybe even your own story.

​Acting Out
 is a new advocacy group which partners with performing arts organizations to choose and program socially and politically relevant performances that attract politically aware and active audiences, both growing the organizations audience base and providing guidance and assistance to ensure that theatre stories for today can be told without fear of a financial loss. The resultant productions give back via the donation of a substantial percentage of the proceeds to organizations that benefit those in need according to the subject matter of the offering.
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The Consul

By Gian Carlo Menotti
Presented in concert by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, September 2019

Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Marta Johnson
Magda Sorel - Jessie Oliver
The Secretary - Jennifer L. Barrett
John Sorel - Dorian McCall
The Mother - Angela Torres-Kutkuhn
The Magician - Ryan Frenk
The Secret Police - Peter Ruger
Mr. Kofner - Katherine B. Dallin
The Foreign Woman - Caroline Shaul
​Anna Gomez - Mary Lutz-Govertsen
Vera Boronel - Mallory Harding
Assan - Noah Gartner
The Voice on the Record - Bruno Rivera
Magda cover - Elizabeth Rudolph
Secretary cover - Brittany Jeffery
John cover - Artega Wright
Mother covers - Katherine B. Dalin, Denise Knowlton
Magician cover - Justin Cavazos
Foreign Woman cover - Morgan Ulat
Guest Musical Director & Pianist - Marta Johnson
Guest Pianist - Charis Buell
Guest Pianist - Timothy Kelley
Guest Pianist - Gregory Smith

Director's Notes
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Babies and children, ripped from their families, are caged at our country’s border in cells so over-crowded that they must sleep on concrete floors in shifts. Their fathers and mothers, fleeing crime, poverty, and oppression have brought their hearts and hopes to our country, claiming asylum, but instead of being cared for and guided through the steps to achieve their goals, they are housed in makeshift camps with insufficient water, food, and toilet facilities, for weeks at a time. Our country’s highest leadership have made plans for Immigration and Custom Enforcement to round up immigrant families, some of whose members are here legally while others have joined them without obtaining that status, tear them asunder, and immediately deport anyone without expected documentation.

As we watch these horrors on our television screens and read about them in the media, what are we to do? Representatives must be contacted, and money sent, but which representatives, how often, and how much money, sent to where? We must not become inured to this injurious oppression, meted out at the hands of officials who seek to turn our country from a place of safety for the oppressed to a wasteland where everyone looks like them and thinks exactly as they do.
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In times such as these, artists use their art to comment, to protest, and to share resonant stories with their audiences, introducing characters who can make the struggle of “the other” very real and present for them. Using their art as their finest arsenal, artists help their audiences maintain the focus to see each day for the war on humankind that it is and not simply another day in a time of great wrongdoing, and to send them to their phones, emails, wallets, and the organized protests that are still the right of the people of this county.

Transgressive Theatre-Opera and Friends answered art’s dictate by giving a single concert performance of Menotti’s masterpiece, “The Consul.” The timing was right to share Menotti’s story of persecuted immigrants trying to flee their oppressed lives only to be met with a cold bureaucracy demanding they obtain the correct papers in order to escape to asylum. If these papers cannot be obtained, their only choice is to attempt escape over the border, a journey that often ends in a speedy death or worse.
TT-O will offered this benefit concert at 7:30 PM on Saturday, September 7, 2019 at Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s auditorium. Everyone involved donated their talent so that all tickets sales and other donations could go directly to a local immigrant relief and a national immigrant relief organization. The organizations that benefitted include Ebenezer’s own Refugee Support and the National Immigrant Justice Center. Special permission for this concert benefitting these specific organizations was granted by the Menotti estate, and TT-O was proud to share this immigrant composer’s deeply-felt story.

Origins of the Benefit Concert​

Artistic Director Aaron Hunt’s Facebook call for more productions of The Consul to reflect these battered days was answered quickly by Chicago singing artists Jessie Oliver and Caroline Shaul, championing the idea of this benefit concert, using a cast of Chicago actor-singers who will tell this story from their individual, multi-cultural and minority voices, in hope that many in the audience will see themselves on the stage, and make a connection that will both buoy them and excite them to imperative action. TT-O was proud to produce this monumental work and give Chicago’s audience another opportunity to protest and protect in collaboration.
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Count Ory

By Giachino Rossini
Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson
Adaptation by Aaron Hunt
Presented by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, March 2019
Music in French, with English dialogue

Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Music Director
Count Ory - Max Hosmer
Countess Adèle - Mary Lutz-Govertsen
Isolier - Brittany Jeffery
Tutor - Kota Terrace
Raimbaud - Noah Gartner
Jacqueline - Teaira Burge
Jack - Brian Pember
Ragonde - Angela Torres-Kutkuhn
Alice - Elizabeth Rudolph
Finette - Karen Hunt
Cover Count Ory - Alex Carey
Cover Countess​ - Rachel Long
Cover Isolier - Bruno Rivera
Cover Raimbaud - Stephen Hobe
Cover Ragonde - Pamela Torrey
Cover Alice  - Emily Cox
Ensemble - Christina Gallo
Ensemble - Cassandra Paultier
Ensemble - Benjamin Burney
Ensemble - Benjamin Issac
Ensemble - Aretga Wright
Ensemble - Nathan James Kistler
Ensemble - Ryan Frenk
Ensemble - Joelle Kross
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Director's Notes
​
While The Count Ory is considered a comic opera, Rossini’s writing stretches the boundaries of the opéra comique genre with its sung dialogue and musical forms considered inappropriately loquacious at its premiere. Aaron Hunt's new English translation, transported the story to a more contemporary time and a new location, turning the recitatives into sparkling dialogue, and adding a secondary love-couple, a format that would have excited Rossini’s first audience, and did the same for ours!
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Masque at Kenilworth

Music by Arthur Sullivan
Libretto by Henry Fothergill Chorley & Shakespeare
Presented fully-staged and choreographed (for the first time!) by Transgressive Theatre-Opera, this was a mid-West premiere, and as far as we know, a national premiere, in terms of presenting the entire work, in September 2018.

Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Musical Director
Emily Brantz - Choreographer
Paul Knappenberger - Lighting Design
Kate Setzer Kamphausen and Tim McAdams - costumers
Nathaniel C Fishburn - Assistant Director
Teaira Burge - Soprano Soloist, Jessica
Brittany Jeffery - Alto Soloist
Joshua Louis Smith - Tenor Soloist, Lorenzo
Jonathan Wilson - Bass Soloist
Katherine Petersen - Lady of The Lake
​Brian Pember - cover for both principal tenor roles
Ensemble: Emily cox, Bruno Rivera, Pamela Torrey, Alex Carey, W. Ryan Frenk, Brian Pember, Brad Jenks, and Alex Rattana

Director's Notes
​
This very early work by Sullivan premiered in 1864 at the Birmingham Festival. It is indicative of the type of entertainment provided to Queen Elizabeth such as that described in Sir Walter Scott's novel, Kenilworth. The piece has been very seldom revived, and there is no record that it has ever been presented in a staged version, or that its many dances have been choreographed before. One of the great values of this piece is the opportunity to hear a young Sullivan's choral writing, already bursting with largess, and to observe the gift of melody that was always his very own. 
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Trial By Jury

Music by Arthur Sullivan
Libretto by W.S. Gilbert

Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Music Director
Joshua Louis Smith - The Defendant
Bruno Rivera - The Plaintiff
Susan Gosdick - The Judge
Katherine Petersen - Counsel for The Plantiff
Katherine B. Dalin - The Usher
Emily Cox - First Bridesmaid
Pamela Torrey - Second Bridesmaid
Brad Jenks - The Foreman of The Jury
Teaira Burge - Ensemble
Brittany Jeffery - Ensemble
Brian Pember - Ensemble/cover for Defendant
Ryan Frenk - Ensemble
Alex Carey - Ensemble
Alex Rattana - Ensemble


Trial By Jury
The Defendant and the Plaintiff, a newly-married leather couple, are in a hot case of Breech of Promise of Marriage. If we have gay marriage, then gay divorce must follow. In this switched-gender version, the Judge may not be precisely what she seems. 

Cosi Fan Tutte

Music by W.A. Mozart
Adapted by AAHunt after the libretto of Lorenzo da Ponte and the translation/adaptation of Alfred Lunt

Friday, February 9, 2018 at 7:30 and Saturday, February 10, 2018 at 7:30

Mary Lutz-Govertsen - Fiordiligi
Brittany Jeffery - Dorabella
Teaira Burge/Celeste Peake - Despina (TB 9/2 - CP 10/9)
Ryan Townsend Strand - Ferrando
Noah Gartner - Guglielmo
William Swain - Don Alfonso

Saturday, February 10 at 1:30 and Sunday, February 11 at 7:00
​
​Jessie Lyons - Fiordiligi
Jori Jennings - Dorabella
Celeste Peake - Despina
Matthew Peckham - Ferrando
Jonathan Wilson - Guglielmo
Steven Arvanites - Don Alfonso

Mozart’s foolhardy characters from the early 19th century to modern day, from coloratura bravado to quietly spoken veracity with Cosi Fan Tutte, or All Women Are Like That. The men learn as many lessons about love and loss as do the women in this madcap tale, elevated by Mozart’s incomparable score. 

In defense of the sudden bursting into song in the lyric theatre cannon, it has been said that the music begins when speech is not enough, when the level of the character's emotions can no longer be conveyed by mere speech. What if it was the other way around? If the soundtrack must be silenced for whispered moments of resounding truth? 
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Iolanthe

Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan
Libretto by W.S. Gilbert
 
Presented in University of Chicago's historic Mande Hall on March 10, 11, & 12, 2017

Shane Valenzi - Director
Aaron Hunt - Associate Director
Matthew Sheppard - Conductor
Matthan Black - Lord Chancellor
Teaira Burge - Phyllis
Claire DiVizio - Fairy Queen
Matthew Peckham - Strephon
Dennis Kalup - Lord Tolloler
Aaron Wardell - Mount Mountararat
Marissa Simmons - Iolanthe
David Govertsen - Private Willis
Sarah Wasserman - Celia
Tiffany Orr - Lelia
Heather Keith - Fleta

In this traditional mounting, the director lived in another state, traveling to rehearsal periodically. Aaron Hunt used his notes to stage the sections of the show that were not managed personally by the director, and filled in several numbers and scenes which were in need of attention in the prompt book. 
In particular, Aaron choreographed the entrance and initial musical numbers of the Fairies, Strephon, and Phyllis through their initial exits, "When I Went To The Bar", and "In Vain To Us You Plead".
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Cox and Box

Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan
Libretto by F.C. Burnand

Co-Production with The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, Inc.
Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Music Director
Teaira Burge - Cox
Celeste Peake - Box
Susan Gosdick - Bouncer

Written for three men, two of whom occupy the same apartment at different times of the day according to the machinations of the third, finds the two rakes discovering that they have made love to, and then connived to flee from the same woman. TT-O and The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company have cast three women in the roles, who will appear in male drag. This is a new and stimulating concept for the production of this piece, rewarding the ladies an opportunity to step into the shoes of the scheming men, pointing up the lessons to be learned in even the frothiest operetta.
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A Chekhov Trio

​Transgressive Theatre-Opera presents a glimpse into the funny and passionate life and art of one of the world's greatest playwrights with A CHECKHOV TRIO, made up of Dominick Argento's The Boor and A Few Words About Chekhov, and the Midwest premiere of Richard Wargo's The Seduction Of A Lady. The Boor is based on Chekov's play of the same name. A Few Words About Chekhov intertwines Checkhov's love letters to his wife Olga with sections of the journal she wrote after his death, and The Seduction Of A Lady takes its text from Neil Simon's play The Good Doctor, which is based on Chekhov's short story, The Seduction. 
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The Boor
Music by Dominick Argento
Libretto by John Olon-Scrymgeour based on the play by Anton Chekhov
​
Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Musical Director

Michael Reyes — The Boor
Charissa Armon - The Widow
Paul W. Thompson — The Servant
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A Few Words about Chekhov
Music by Dominick Argento
Libretto based on letters and a memoir 

Direction by Aaron Hunt
Musical Direction by Sarah Jenks
David Govertsen— Anton Chekhov
Mary Govertsen — Olga Knipper
The Seduction Of A Lady
Music by Richard Wargo
Libretto based on Neil Simon's The Good Doctor, which draws on Anton Chekhov's The Seduction
​
  
Aaron Hunt - Direction
Sarah Jenks - Music Direction 
Jonathan Wilson— Peter Semyonych
Anne Slovin — The Wife (Irena)
Steve Arvanities — The Husband (Nicky)
Sarah Jenks - piano
Shaleah Feinstein - violin
Benjamin Rogers - cellist

TT-0 Double Bill

A Double-Bill of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone and Jack Beeson's Hello Out There
With words and music by Menotti, The Telephone tells the tale of a 1950s city couple who can't reach each other because of the leading lady's obsessions with her rotary phone. Ben is desperate to propose marriage to Lucy, but her need for constant contact with her friends continues to thwart his efforts. With a libretto adapted from William Saroyan's play of the same name, Hello Out There takes us to 1950s Matador, Texas, where a young man has been jailed on a rape charge. The transient gambler tries to sweet-talk the jail's cook, Emily, into helping him escape. Is the rape charge trumped up? Will Emily succumb to his charms and run away with him? 
What happens when face-to-face, human interaction is stymied by social tools and societal differences? Are the dialogues about the potential negative effects of social media, and the rapidly disappearing middle class, really new discussions? 
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The Telephone
Words and Music by Gian Carlo Menotti

Director - Aaron Hunt
Music Director - Sarah Jenks
Lucy - Mary Lutz Govertsen
Ben - David Govertsen
Lucy cover - Anne Slovin
Hello Out There
Music by Jack Beeson
Libretto after William Saroyan's play

Aaron Hunt - Director
Sarah Jenks - Music Director
The Man - David Govertsen
The Girl (Emily) - Mary Lutz Govertsen
The Husband - Paul W. Thompson
The Wife - Maggie Clennon Reberg

Lucia di Lammermoor

Music by Gaetano Donizetti
Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano
 
Aaron Hunt - Director
Jason Carlson - Music Director
Gregory Tufts - Conductor
​Mary Lutz-Govertsen/Heather Youngquist – Lucia
Jorie Jennings/Angela Torres-Kutkuhn – Alice
Matthew Dingels/Jameon Moss – Edgardo
Matthan Black/Michael Orlinsky – Enrico
Dave Govertsen/Peter Morgan – Raimondo
Jesus Jimenez-Jimenez – Arturo
Camilo Rasquin - Normanno

Based loosely on Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Bride of Lammermoor, this fireside romance of a girl
driven to madness by societally-supported disenfranchisement begins as a “revenge tragedy,” then
careens into something else altogether. With the death of their parents, the authority of a family passes
to the brother, robbing the sister of all agency by reason of her sex. As a monetary asset, to be disposed
of at her male sibling’s will, Lucia must marry the man deemed most suitable for shoring up of the
family’s fortunes. And as is always the case when one soul is denied equal worth with another, heartbreak can be the only outcome.
With a nod to its original time and setting of castles shrouded in moor-mist, we grant the story an era-
less delivery, using the aesthetic of junk theater, simple symbols proving a wider, complex grounding.
For as world histories pile up, the next so similar to the last, it is impossible to deny that there are still
places and times and people which will negate, and war with, those they consider “other.” Individuals
are still traded as chattel the world over, women in particular swimming in a sea of misogyny.
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The Magic Flute

Music by W.A. Mozart
Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder

Aaron Hunt - Director & Adaptor
Sara Salas - Queen Of The Night
Sarah McIntyre - Pamina
Mary Lutz Govertsen - First Lady
Rebecca Prescott - Papagena
Maggie Clennon Reberg - Second Lady
Amanda Runge - Third Lady
Mark Donlin - Tamino
Aaron Wardell - Papageno
David Govertsen - Sarastro

A child-centric Magic Flute, with the rape-y, racist, patricidal, Masonic, and anything else that shouldn't be visited upon small children without pre-, during, and post-counseling at the ready, is excised. A young, hip Mozart is added as narrator, chatting the children up between musical numbers, tying the story together for them with references from social media, pop culture, and the stars of film, television, and sports, and their multi-colored adventures.
And all the characters were sports figures!
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Thank you!

Thanks for having a look! I'm excited to talk with you about your upcoming productions! 

​-Aaron Ashton Hunt
​aaronhunt.actor@gmail.com

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