Instrumentation: Guitar Trio (classical, Steel String, Electric), Dancers
Duration: 60:00
Performers: Mobius Trio, Here Now Dance
Commissioned by Mobius Trio with support from the Clarence E. Heller Foundation and Russ Irwin
Premiered at ODC Theater, San Francisco, on April 13, 2017
Score & Parts

Program Notes

Prescription Drug Nation is an evening-length music and dance production in six parts, exploring how society’s ever-increasing reliance on prescription drugs affects our daily lives. Each segment portrays the effects of a particular drug: Adderall, Ambien, Xanax, Prozac, Vicodin, and Viagra.

I have been developing Prescription Drug Nation in tandem with San Francisco’s Mobius Trio and Here Now Dance since 2014. Each of the six segments will be premiered separately with music only, then they will all be put together for a production with Here Now Dance. The video shown here is of the Adderall music-only premiere in 2015.

About the Concept

Daily pharmaceutical use is so prevalent that we hardly notice it. Yet virtually everyone has experience with one of the substances I am portraying, or has seen them affect the lives of loved ones, whether positively or negatively. With this piece, I want to push this chemical relationship back into the foreground, using an immersive, multidisciplinary production to create gripping experiences that reflect the personal “baggage” each audience member brings into the theater. Art thus serves to shed new light and new perspectives on something we take for granted.