Leona’s Song
Written and Directed by Morgan Hooper
Balance Arts Center at 151 West 30th Street 3rd Floor, NYC
November 6-17, 2024
Pedro Sá Moraes (PhotoCredit: Sana Manzoor)
“Even the tears laugh.”
I needed to be transported tonight. When life lifes, artists find themselves on an undefined platform where they choose how to tell their stories.
I needed the escape that theatre provides. I knew I was about to engage in something different as the elevator door opened into a warm, intimate, and inviting space with scents of patchouli and almond oil, feelings of good juju, and love. The reason I love the indie theatre world is the community that organically happens before you even enter the playing space. The joie de vivre and laughter that energizes the space because we want to support artists.
Pedro Sá Moraes welcomes us into his world by simply sitting on a wooden block, guitar in hand, strumming whatever encompasses the moment. He has set the mood for the evening. We are his students, his children, his audience. Then the shift into the stark.
What came next felt like a guided meditation or a narration akin to the stage manager in Our Town underscored by the beats of my roots and the poetry in my DNA. All this unfolded before me by an artist, his guitar, his voice, and beautiful physicality.
Award-winning Brazilian musician, Pedro Sá Moraes allows the audience to luxuriate within the waves of Leona’s Song, a tale, exquisitely written by Morgan Hooper, where creativity and artistry dance in harmony, washed in the glow of poetic grace and limitless imagination.
Leona’s Song is about a father and his daughter on an adventure on the sea where they meet various characters and encounter many situations. Part fairy tale, part epic poetry, part spiritual awakening – an invitation to release yourself to this existential experience. Allow yourself this gift.
Creative Team
Playwright and Director: Morgan Hooper
Composer and Performer: Pedro Sá Moraes
Producer: Benjamin Moore
Manager: Sana Manzoor
Stage Manager: Nicole Amaral
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Malini Singh McDonald.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on November 8th, 2024. All rights reserved.