Similar alternatives
Details
It is 1837 and piano mistress Mary Frances Heaton has been arrested for a breach of peace and committed to Wakefield Pauper Lunatic Asylum after confronting Doncaster’s authorities.
The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. is a poetic portrayal of a Victorian woman imprisoned by a society intent on control. This new contemporary music and performance piece chronicles Mary’s life-long struggle of telling her story to the outside world, and is based on Mary’s embroidered samplers, which were discovered in the asylum years later.
Stitched-up Theatre’s contemporary music theatre piece is a new composition by soprano Red Gray and Sarah Nicolls with her inside-out piano, touring Yorkshire following a successful run at the Arcola Theatre and Tete a Tete Festival in London.
‘This is Mary Frances Heaton’s story (..) a tribute to her spirit and an indictment to the society that crushed it. (..) absorbing and sympathetic, is very well worth telling, seeing, and hearing.’ (Seen and Heard International, 2021)
‘ thought-provoking and endearing’ (Opera Today, 2022)
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England. Age recommendation: 12+