Primer For a Failed Superpower

Primer for a Failed Superpower is an all-ages multi-media community concert featuring an intergenerational ensemble of teens, the TEAM, and Baby Boomers performing new arrangements of iconic protest songs – songs that have celebrated and questioned what it means to be an American throughout our country’s past and present, and which reflect issues, raise awareness and activate the listeners.

Collaborating composers include Heather Christian (Mission Drift), Justin Ellington (Fetch Clay Make Man), Orion Stephanie Johnstone (I’ll Never Love Again), Amy León (Something Melancholy), Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby (Bone Hill), Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Passing Strange), and Yva Las Vegass (I Was Born In A Place Of Sunshine And The Smell Of Ripe Mangoes).

Directed by Tony-nominated Rachel Chavkin with musical supervisor Orion Stephanie Johnstone, Associate Director Zhailon Levingston and musical direction by Nehemiah Luckett, Primer interweaves song and staging with video interviews of some of today’s activists across ages, ethnicities and the issues they are standing for, including Jasilyn Charger (Standing Rock Water Protector) & Carmen Perez (National Co-Chair, Women’s March On Washington).

Joan is proud to have been featured singing the arrangements of Cherokee/Choctaw sister-friend Martha Redbone.

Developed with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund, Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, the JMJ Family Fund, Off Broadway Angels, the Puffin Foundation, National Theatre Studio, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, BRIC, and SMU Ignite/Arts.