Singing History: Politics of Idiom and Genre in Ted Hearne’s Music(al)-Theatre

Roesner, David (2025): Singing History: Politics of Idiom and Genre in Ted Hearne’s Music(al)-Theatre. In: Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, Bd. 31

Abstract

In his productions, The Source (2014) and over and over vorbei nicht vorbei (2024), composer Ted Hearne deals with explicitly historio-political subjects and the memories of violent past(s). The pieces explore questions of documentation and representation, the authentic and the ‘fake’, the virtual and the real. This article examines how Hearne and his collaborators deconstruct political content, how they (re-)arrange, compose, and stage it using an eclectic mix of styles, employing various vocal characteristics, and staging words, video, and music in unconventional arrangements. Their productions thus foster empathetic acts of witnessing (see Kopf 2009), which I suggest to be a key characteristic of Hearne’s works.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: Ted Hearne; music theatre; history; politics; witnessing
• Fakultät: Geschichts- und Kunstwissenschaften > Department Kunstwissenschaften > Theaterwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 700 Künste und Unterhaltung > 790 Sport, Spiele, Unterhaltung > 792 Bühnenkunst
• ISSN: 2409-7411
• Sprache: Englisch