Charlie Parker’s Yardbird

Music by Daniel Schnyder; Libretto by Bridgette A. Wimberly • May 8, 11, 14, 16, 2021

While the body of the legendary tormented saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker lies unidentified in a New York City morgue, his ghost travels back to Birdland, the famed New York City jazz club named after him. As he struggles to complete his final masterpiece, the great bebop innovator revisits the demons, inspirations, and women who have both fueled and hindered his creative genius.

With the aid of his strong mother Addie, three of his four wives, and his partner in the bebop jazz revolution, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie will struggle to calm his demons and write his new masterpiece before his body is identified in the morgue and this gig is up forever. Can he do it, or will the demons of his past rear their ugly heads?

Join us on a freeform expedition into the mind, heart, and personal purgatory of the man they called Yardbird.

Antony Walker conducts. Ron Daniels directs.