Songs for a Lost Pod

Unfortunately, due to the impacts of COVID-19, the presentation of Songs for a Lost Pod has been cancelled. If you have purchased tickets, please contact our Patron Services Team to exchange or refund your tickets.

This nine-song cycle makes spectacular use of orca vocalizations, transforming them into rhythmic beats in a musical exploration of historical trauma, environmental crisis, and communication between species. Leah Abramson first composed Songs for a Lost Pod as an EP, combining scientific research, marine history, and recordings of killer whales—in particular, the A5 pod which dwells in the Pacific Northwest. The work has been transformed for the stage, and now features live narration, six vocalists, and a five-piece band, as well as shadow puppetry and projections by visual artists Mind of a Snail. 

Thematically expansive and deeply political, Abramson’s show radiates compassion for orcas, who have suffered from pollution, capture, and inhuman treatment. Branching out from that history, she incorporates the story of her own family’s plight during and after the Holocaust. Musically innovative, gently lyrical, and profoundly moving, this is musical theatre at its most creative.