Encompass New Opera Theatre, celebrating over 40 years of creating and producing adventurous new music theatre-opera, will produce the World Premiere of ANNA CHRISTIE, a music drama, based on Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, with music by Edward Thomas (Desire Under the Elms at City Center) and libretto by Joseph Masteroff (Cabaret and She Loves Me, bookwriter). Nancy Rhodes will stage-direct and Julian Wachner will conduct a cast of well-known national and international performers: Frank Basile, Jonathan Estabrooks, Melanie Long, and Mike Pirozzi.

ANNA CHRISTIE made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921 and a few years later, Greta Garbo starred in the role of Anna Christie in the 1930 Hollywood film, which became a mega-hit and was Garbo’s first talking picture.

The sea is a powerful symbol in ANNA CHRISTIE and O’Neill having lived by the docks in New York City’s waterfront, was acquainted with the sailors, booze, saloons, and night life that he wrote about with such passion and authenticity.

Abandoned by her father when she was only five years old, Anna suffered a life of hardship and carries a dark secret from her past. An emotionally charged reunion with her father, a captain of a coal barge, intensifies when a merchant sailor is pulled from the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic on a foggy night. When the fog clears, Anna, the sailor and her father are caught in a riveting struggle between love and the sea, changing their lives forever.

*There are 12 Performances that will run Thursday to Sunday for a total of 3 Weeks.

**Sundays Performance will be a matinee performance at 3pm!

***On Sunday, October 7th, following our matinee performance, please join the cast and celebrity guests for a celebration and opening reception honoring the 94th Birthday of composer Edward Thomas.